FatigueFree - My way out of Chronic Fatigue

Is there a way out of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Hi! My name is Stina and I'm in my forties. I live in Sweden with my husband and our three kids. I have been ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME) for three years, but am now on my way to getting well. I want to tell you my story: how I became ill, how the illness affected me, what finally made it turn around, and my way out of the illness.

Everything I write about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is also valid for ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), Fibromyalgia, Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome, Adrenal Fatigue, Adrenal Burnout and Glandular Fever. They are all similar conditions that by many experts arise from similar causes, and they all respond well to the same kind of approach.

Reading on the general health care websites, it seems that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is practically incurable. You could get some help in coping with the problems and the symptoms, but according to medical science there is no cure. Not even the recent Swedish study (only in Swedish, sorry) that was made by the CFS/ME unit in Danderyds sjukhus in Stockholm, Sweden managed to get any significant permanent improvements for their patients.

I became ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 2010. Since then I have been searching and trying different methods to get better, but nothing gave me any permanent relief. It wasn't until I found Russell Stubbs at FatigueGuide.com, and took his Optimum Energy Course online that it finally turned around. Since I took his course in July 2013 I have got better and better, slowly but surely. I still have a bit to go before I'm completely well, but the future is now looking very bright and full of hope, where it felt very dark and hopeless before.

If you are suffering from CFS/ME, I want to tell you that there is hope. Don't give up! There are ways of getting better, and maybe even get completely well again. I know exactly how it feels, you have tried so many different methods, gone to so many doctors, got your hopes up so many times, just to fall back into that deep dark well of despair.

After a while you get scared of even getting your hopes up, it hurts so bad when you fall down again that you can't bear to get that disappointed once more. To protect yourself from that huge disappointment, you tend to shield yourself from everyone and everything who dares to suggest that there might be a solution. You stoically try to accept the unacceptable, while you might still have a microscopical hope deep down inside that someone someday might find a cure.

If you feel that way too, just try to set that resistance aside, at least for a while. Start with claiming the free symptom reduction tools from FatigueGuide.com, and use them regularly for a couple of weeks. You have absolutely nothing to lose. Then, when you notice that they help (note that I write WHEN, not IF), seriously consider taking the Optimum Energy Course to get even more tools and techniques that you can use on your way towards health and well-being.

A word of warning: After I created this webpage in the autumn of 2013, I have been in contact with several people who have gone through treatment programs based on GET, graded exercise therapy, who have had substantial permanent deteriorations in their condition because of that treatment. GET is about forced increase of activity, to force yourself to do exercises and activities according to a fixed shedule, whether the body is ready for it or not. More and more research is now finding that this could be downright harmful to people with CFS/ME.

The same seems to apply to treatments with ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The people speaking for it mean that ACT is about accepting the situation/illness, but many who have gone through the treatment feel that they are rather forced to run over themselves. The Commitment part of the therapy makes you bound to keep to the pre-set shedule, whether you have the strength for it or not. So you should accept that you are ill, but not accept the limitations that are caused by the illness.

I took an ACT treatment myself in the end of 2011, which I had to quit after a short period of time. I just didn't have the strength and energy to keep to the shedule, it was making me very stressed and I was just feeling worse, and the therapist had no understanding of my situation. The therapist meant that I was "catastrophizing", and that my problems were just in my head. I was reluctant to quit the treatment, I'm a very conscientious person, but eventually I felt that I had to drop out to save what could be saved of my health. Thankfully I had no permanent deteriorations from the treatment.

I want to make it clear that Russell Stubbs’s approach is not based on GET or ACT. There is no shedule, no timeplan, no pressure. It is absolutely not about any forced increase of activity. On his Optimum Energy Course you learn tools and processes that both instantly and over time increases the body’s ability bit by bit, which enables an increased activity level. So it is the using of the tools that gives an increased ability, which in turn provides a natural increase of activities.

I can’t really explain exactly what Russell Stubbs's course is about, I don’t have deep enough knowledge, but I can state what it isn’t:

It is not GET, Graded Exercise Therapy
It is not CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
It is not ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
It is not LP, The Lightning Process
It is not Pacing
There are no pills or potions involved

Russell Stubbs has studied a number of different approaches and processes, picked out the best and most effective pieces, developed and improved some of them, and from that he has created a unique toolbox to approach the problem from several angles at once, to get an as comprehensive and all-encompassing effect as possible.

P.S. I want to be clear from the start that I am not a doctor, I have no education whatsoever in healthcare or any therapy, even though I have read shelf-metres of self-help books and similar through the years. I am not a representative of FatigueGuide or Russell Stubbs. Anything you learn or use from my website is completely up to you, and your responsibility. I am just telling you about my own experiences, and my opinions and thoughts about them. I hope it will be helpful to you.

I created most of this website in October/November of 2013, a couple of months after I took Russell Stubbs' course. On the page Updates, you can read about how my condition has changed since then.