Nothing to write home about

Over on my other blog, where I talk about my recovery from chronic fatigue, Dumbfunk asked if having something else to concentrate on helps.

It depends what you mean by ‘helps’.

If helps means aids my recovery, then it would have a positive effect on my health. Maybe what Dumbfunk is asking is does doing that makes me happy help me get over my chronic fatigue?

And I’m uncomfortable about this question because it’s too close to the view that CF is a disease of the mind, not a physical illness. A whole raft of suspect-sounding talking “cures” for CF are springing up, and that, frankly pisses me off. Just because the medical profession haven’t worked out what’s behind chronic fatigue and haven’t even found a useful treatment, let alone a cure for it, doesn’t mean it’s all in the mind.

At the personal level, I know that my illness recurred at a difficult time in my life - a close colleague who relied heavily on me was dying of cancer. It was a strain. But there were many other positive things in my life and on balance I was happy and fulfilled. I had photography and writing then. So shouldn’t it follow that if they help my recovery, they’d have helped prevent my relapse from happening in the first place?

On a bad day, it required too much energy to hold a pen, sit at a computer, or hold a camera. On a really bad day, I just lay on the sofa and watch the television because I didn’t even have the energy to hold a book. Thankfully those days are rare and getting rarer, but I can’t honestly say that photography and writing were what helped me get from those really bad days to the really good ones I’m experiencing now.

Rest, structured exercise, eating well, magnesium supplements, and of course chocolate all have a positive effect on my energy levels. I’m not sure what’s been the biggest factor in all that. Honestly, I don’t care. Something is working and I’ll just keep up with all of it.

So where does writing (and photography) help? It would be naive to say that they don’t have any impact at all.

It’s great to have something to look forward to. It’s true that now I can almost always find something creative to do with my spare time. When my brain isn’t feeling agile enough to write, I can edit my photos, or just browse flickr to see what other people are up to.

Now I’m feeling better, I’m having so many new ideas for my writing that come in an explosive burst of energy and makes my day fly along. I think that once I reached a certain level of energy that doing something creative helped raise those levels. But I can’t point to any evidence, or even logical deduction to support that.

I think it does help to have goals - I’ve set myself some creative ones. And I’ve promised myself I’ll go to the mountains this summer, though I may not be fit enough to tackle glaciers and climb mountains, or even walk every day. But I’ll be there.

And I do think writing or other creative pursuits might help some people recover from some illnesses. Like the consultant at the hospital told my mother, a positive attitude helps. And being able to do something that makes you feel happy can help with that.

But I still can’t quite believe in the idea of writing as therapy. If it that was all it was, I’d have given it up years ago.