Sam, I imagine that someday when this living hell has evolved into something better and brighter, you will be so strong for having endured this nightmare; and you'll be uniquely in a position to help others. I have no doubt.
I have been thinking about you during this Season of Light and was about to send you a message when your post arrived. Thank you so much for sharing you suffering and yourself with us. I am so impressed that you feel so terrible and yet are able to write, to create in such a profound, transformative and prolific way. I discovered your other essays on City Journal and Quilette - wow! You created all that good stuff while feeling crummy. No small feat. Because of you I learned a little bit about ME/CFS and it does sound like a living death sentence. I am sorry this is happening to you. If there is someway I can support you, please let me know.
On your advice, I am reading Viktor Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. It is a magical book. So thank you for that.
I am sending lots of love to you, the warmest holiday greetings, a prayer for your well-being.
Elizabeth, it's nice to hear from you as always and thanks for keeping me in your mind and heart. I'm so happy you're reading Man's Search, as well. The first time I read it it didn't hit me as hard, until I returned to it years later. Sending love and prayers your way and have a joyous holiday season.
Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt personal essay. I can relate, to an extent, due to my own health struggles (I've suffered from severe underweight my whole life, it has taken a lifetime of struggle just to get to a normal weight: I understand what it feels like to struggle against your own body, like my mind and body are at war with one another: I want one thing and my body wants another!) However, your CFS takes this struggle to a whole other level of difficulty: I commend you on your courage to keep fighting and surviving.
Recently, I've begun exploring the German New Medicine paradigm for understanding health and disease, which is very unorthodox and wildly different from the mainstream. Many of GNM's tenets ring true to me, they seem to describe my own health struggles, their etiology and development, with eerie accuracy. You might want to look into this, especially since other avenues seem to have failed you. Many patients have had excellent results with this type of treatment.
The key idea lying behind GNM is that diseases are not random acts of God, but have particular triggering events that launch the bodily disease -- the causal event is referred to as a conflict shock or shock conflict. The emphasis here is on the "shock." So, for example, it's not that something bad happened to you that triggers the disease, it's that something bad happened that was ALSO UNANTICIPATED, UNEXPECTED - a SHOCK to the system. If a mother, for example, had a terminally ill child who eventually died, but she had years to emotionally prepare for the eventual death, she likely would not get sick in the aftermath, no matter how much grief she felt. But if her perfectly healthy child was suddenly killed in care accident, on the other hand, that sudden "shock conflict" could very well trigger serious illness -- and for precise reasons, which GNM websites and books can explain, but which is too complex to be summed up in a brief post.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome absolutely is one of the conditions that GNM can cure -- if you can, with the help of a trained practitioner, trace it to the initial triggering event or several events that set off the disease process.
Here are some web links if you want to explore further:
Sam, I imagine that someday when this living hell has evolved into something better and brighter, you will be so strong for having endured this nightmare; and you'll be uniquely in a position to help others. I have no doubt.
That's very kind, Mary. Thank you for believing in me.
Hi Samuel,
I have been thinking about you during this Season of Light and was about to send you a message when your post arrived. Thank you so much for sharing you suffering and yourself with us. I am so impressed that you feel so terrible and yet are able to write, to create in such a profound, transformative and prolific way. I discovered your other essays on City Journal and Quilette - wow! You created all that good stuff while feeling crummy. No small feat. Because of you I learned a little bit about ME/CFS and it does sound like a living death sentence. I am sorry this is happening to you. If there is someway I can support you, please let me know.
On your advice, I am reading Viktor Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. It is a magical book. So thank you for that.
I am sending lots of love to you, the warmest holiday greetings, a prayer for your well-being.
Xoxo
Elizabeth, it's nice to hear from you as always and thanks for keeping me in your mind and heart. I'm so happy you're reading Man's Search, as well. The first time I read it it didn't hit me as hard, until I returned to it years later. Sending love and prayers your way and have a joyous holiday season.
Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt personal essay. I can relate, to an extent, due to my own health struggles (I've suffered from severe underweight my whole life, it has taken a lifetime of struggle just to get to a normal weight: I understand what it feels like to struggle against your own body, like my mind and body are at war with one another: I want one thing and my body wants another!) However, your CFS takes this struggle to a whole other level of difficulty: I commend you on your courage to keep fighting and surviving.
Recently, I've begun exploring the German New Medicine paradigm for understanding health and disease, which is very unorthodox and wildly different from the mainstream. Many of GNM's tenets ring true to me, they seem to describe my own health struggles, their etiology and development, with eerie accuracy. You might want to look into this, especially since other avenues seem to have failed you. Many patients have had excellent results with this type of treatment.
The key idea lying behind GNM is that diseases are not random acts of God, but have particular triggering events that launch the bodily disease -- the causal event is referred to as a conflict shock or shock conflict. The emphasis here is on the "shock." So, for example, it's not that something bad happened to you that triggers the disease, it's that something bad happened that was ALSO UNANTICIPATED, UNEXPECTED - a SHOCK to the system. If a mother, for example, had a terminally ill child who eventually died, but she had years to emotionally prepare for the eventual death, she likely would not get sick in the aftermath, no matter how much grief she felt. But if her perfectly healthy child was suddenly killed in care accident, on the other hand, that sudden "shock conflict" could very well trigger serious illness -- and for precise reasons, which GNM websites and books can explain, but which is too complex to be summed up in a brief post.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome absolutely is one of the conditions that GNM can cure -- if you can, with the help of a trained practitioner, trace it to the initial triggering event or several events that set off the disease process.
Here are some web links if you want to explore further:
https://www.newmedicineonline.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/germannewmedicinediscussion/
https://www.gnmonlineseminars.com/
https://learninggnm.com/home.html
https://www.andilockemears.com/
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your kind appreciative words. I'll definitely look into it.