As I came into consciousness this morning and rolled over, before I’d opened my eyes, I felt the room tip sideways and then slosh back again. I tried to look at my phone to see the time and my eyes wouldn’t track properly. Like marbles rolling uncontrolled, I couldn’t make my vision focus on one point. And, in an instant, the fear collapses in on me, crushing my lungs, sucking all the air and hope out of the room. I wonder if the vertigo is caused by the way I slept – something physical tweaked in my neck – or my new thyroid medication that I started yesterday, or did I do too much decorating the tree? Was it the drop of milk in my tea? I wonder how long it will last and does it signal another relapse. Having the borders of my world change from the downstairs sitting room to the four walls of my bedroom seems immeasurably cruel. Facebook is a lifeline normally, but torturous today. Christmas cheer, family fun, laughing faces, out and about doing things, going places, making new memories. One friend is going to a play in NYC, others are going ice skating in Glasgow, and a photo of a pumpkin spice latte sends me over the edge.

Every day, every hour, that my headache isn’t too bad or my brain isn’t too muddied and labouring, I focus on a future where I may be able to leave the house, interact with friends, have time elapse without a constant focus on my malfunctioning body and precarious health. But, as soon as there is a shift – my sleep disappears, my muscles are poisoned, this vertigo tilts the horizon away from me with the slightest movement and the room spins sickeningly even while still – despair eclipses everything. I feel like I’m buried alive, dragging my fingernails along the wooden coffin, screaming at the top of my lungs, while people deafly live and laugh six feet above.

This is where I was this morning when Jen Brea posted this song by Belle & Sebastian. I didn’t know the singer, Stuart Murdoch, had severe M.E. I needed this today.

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As I was about to publish this post, my two dogs just got past the gate to the upstairs and both bounded onto my carefully kept-clean bed with muddy boots from tearing around the garden, barking at the passers-by. It is the first time that they’ve been on my bed in three months and it felt like how it must be to have excited children, brimming with life-force, jump into your bed on Christmas morning, holding fistfuls of treats that crumble all over the sheets and wearing smiles of oblivious delight. Yes, their visit caused my world to teeter-totter even more violently, but it also lifted the heartache a little. This too shall pass.