I Am Your Book

T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D T H E B O O K When I was five years old my Grannie took me to see some giant cows at a neighbouring farm. Looking back, I don’t suppose they were any bigger than normal cows, I’d just never been that close before. It was such an amazing day that I could hardly contain my excitement and I had words repeating rhythmically in my head. When we arrived back at my Grandparent’s cottage I knew I had to get these words out of my head. I ran into my room, grabbed a pen and let the words spill out onto the page… I went to see some cows today. Some white, some brown, some black. That was it. So simple. I felt so much better once the words were out on paper! I ran into the kitchen to show my Gran. “Look Grannie, look what I’ve written!”. My Gran took the paper from me and read the words out loud. I remember her exact response; “Ooo that’s lovely dear, why don’t we write another line and make it into a poem!?”. Excited at the thought, I sat down next to my Grannie and we hashed out another line turning it into my first ever poem: I went to see some cows today Some white, some brown, some black They stared at me with great big eyes I stood and stared them back! I have taken pen to paper with poetry often since that day but always just presumed I was a sporadic poet dipping in and out when I fancied it. The last few years however have highlighted a method in my madness. It turns out that poetry is my coping mechanism for dealing with extremes in life. A way of setting emotions free. When I am experiencing extreme highs or lows, my mind repeats a line of poetry over and over, again and again, until I grab a pen and let it loose. The rest of the poem then spills out onto the page releasing whatever extreme emotion I am experiencing. Looking back at my life this now explains my random relationship with poetry and how this book came into being. I had CFS* for three years and CFS is a world of extremes; highs and lows, hopes and disappointments, pain and joy, courage and despair. At the end of my journey I had written hundreds of poems, each one a little window into my soul. The poems I have selected for this book will take you along with me through the wilderness of my journey. They are raw, personal and explicit, as they were only ever intended to be a private release for myself. They have not been edited or amended since their original conception, as to soften them for poetry’s sake would somehow compromise the spirit in which they were written. I was at first reluctant to publish these poems as they are essentially a diary of the toughest times of my life. Looking back now, thankfully free from the daily struggles of CFS, I can see a bigger picture. One where these poems can help others. Not just those suffering from CFS, but also their loved ones, their Doctors, and researchers. I also hope that this book can serve to raise awareness of CFS in general. Despite the fact that millions of people suffer from CFS around the globe, it is an illness which is rarely spoken about and is gravely misunderstood. Due to the nature of the illness it is often met with disbelief and many think you should just be able to “get out of bed”. I don’t blame these people; maybe I would have thought the same if I were them. What this means though is that many people with CFS can spend a lot of their very precious energy trying to prove to people in their life that they are really ill, whilst simultaneously trying to prove that they are doing everything in their power to get better. This can result in a hopeless struggle that only serves to make the symptoms of CFS more severe. I am hoping that by raising awareness of CFS and its symptoms, people will be more accepting of the illness and begin to understand not only what people with CFS go through on a daily basis, but also what they can do to help them. This will mean that CFS sufferers will be able to conserve their limited energy for healing and relax into the healing state their body needs to recover. Due to the lack of understanding around CFS, it can be a very lonely journey. So I hope that if you do have CFS these poems will make you feel understood, and maybe even make you smile. I'm not trying to scare you with images of my struggle. I'm not even trying to motivate you to a recovery (although I hope my happy ending gives you hope and spurs you on towards yours!). What I am hoping to do with this book is share the rhythm of my journey to let you know that you are not alone. For those of you who know people or are treating people with CFS, I hope that this book gives you a good insight into how they may be feeling day-to-day. I often found it hard to find the words to explain to my husband exactly what I was going through. Luckily on my darkest days when I needed him most my poems would flow freely, giving me a way of sharing my journey with him. It was my husband who first encouraged me to share my poems with the world in the hope that others could benefit from them in the same way that we did. Whatever your reason for reading this book, I hope that you enjoy these.... *For ease of reading I will refer to CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia as CFS