https://www.facebook.com/101806285758866/

Elaine's Crystal Tree, Limerick (2025)

26/06/2025

TEENS using v**e devices to smoke a legal ma*****na derivative are being hospitalised with psychosis, it's been warned.

21/06/2025

The ancient Celtic festival acts as a timely reminder and celebration of who, where and what we really are.

03/06/2025

Overcoming feelings of guilt and shame in recovery is a significant part of the healing process. Here are some strategies to help navigate these emotions:

1. Acknowledge Your Feelings

Identify: Recognize and name your feelings of guilt and shame. Understand that these emotions are common among those in recovery.
Accept: Accept that it’s normal to feel guilt or shame but recognize that these feelings don’t define your worth or your path in recovery.

2. Reflect on the Source

Journaling: Write down your feelings to explore their roots. What specific actions or events trigger your guilt and shame? Understanding the context can help you process these emotions.
Challenge Negative Thoughts: Examine the thoughts that contribute to your guilt and shame. Ask yourself if they are based on facts or are distortions of reality.

3. Practice Self-Compassion

Be Kind to Yourself: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer a friend in a similar situation. Acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes and that recovery is a journey.
Forgiveness: Work towards forgiving yourself for past behaviors. Recognize that everyone is capable of change and growth.

4. Seek Professional Help

Therapy: Engage with a therapist or counselor experienced in addiction recovery. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be particularly effective in challenging and reshaping negative thoughts.
Support Groups: Participate in groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Sharing your experiences with others who understand can help alleviate feelings of isolation and shame.

5. Reframe Your Narrative

Focus on Growth: Instead of viewing your past through a lens of shame, reframe it as a learning experience that has contributed to your personal growth.
Celebrate Progress: Acknowledge and celebrate your achievements in recovery, no matter how small. Track your progress to remind yourself of how far you’ve come.

6. Connect with Others

Build Supportive Relationships: Surround yourself with supportive friends, family, or peers who encourage you and understand your journey. Connection can dramatically reduce feelings of shame and isolation.
Share Your Story: Speaking openly about your experiences can help dispel shame. You may discover that many others have faced similar challenges.

7. Engage in Healthy Activities

Physical Activity: Exercise can help boost your mood and reduce feelings of guilt and shame. It releases endorphins, which can help manage emotional distress.
Mindfulness and Meditation: Practices like mindfulness or meditation can help you stay present and cultivate a non-judgmental awareness of your feelings.

8. Establish Boundaries with Negative Influences

Avoid Toxic Environments: Stay away from people, situations, or environments that trigger feelings of guilt or shame. This might involve distancing yourself from past acquaintances or circumstances associated with your addiction.

9. Educate Yourself

Understand Addiction: Learning about the nature of addiction can help you frame your experiences in a more compassionate light. Recognizing that addiction is a disease can alleviate personal guilt and shame.

Overcoming guilt and shame is a process that takes time and effort. It’s important to be patient with yourself as you work through these feelings. If you ever feel overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to reach out for support from professionals

15/05/2025

🔷💠 Extreme sound sensitivity due to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) 💠🔷

Having supersonic hearing might sound cool, right? Absolutely not. Humans aren’t built to feel sound—but that’s exactly what happens for many of us with ME. Vibrations from noise shake our already fragile nervous systems, triggering intense neurological distress.

A hair dryer, a blender mixing a breakfast smoothie, someone cleaning carpets with a vacuum cleaner, the crinkling of a chip packet, a baby crying, a generator running during a power outage, neighbors mowing their lawn or a helicopter overhead—these sounds can leave us paralyzed, seizing, in excruciating pain, overheating from a viscous mast cell attack and/or utterly disoriented.

We also struggle to filter out background noise. Holding a conversation in a room with multiple people talking at once can be overwhelming, if not completely impossible. It's simply too much for our brains to process.

Some of us can't tolerate headphones or earplugs, as they press against cranial nerves and also cause pain or seizures. There is no escape from noise for us.

So please, if your friend with ME mentions noise sensitivity or overstimulation, know this: sound doesn’t just pass by us—it shakes us to the core. Noise isn’t a mild inconvenience. It’s a serious threat to our physical and neurological health.

27/04/2025

Big shout out to my newest top fans! 💎 Rita Therese Robinson, Tina O'Rourke

Drop a comment to welcome them to our community, fans

18/04/2025

Launching our ME Awareness Campaign for May 2025

- 'bring ME out of the shadows'

May is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Awareness Month which is just 3 weeks away.

What is ME Awareness Month?

ME Awareness Month brings the global ME community and their supporters together to raise awareness, share stories about life with ME and educate others about the challenges for individuals living with ME.

Please help us to raise awareness and educate others during ME Awareness Month 2025 by

1. liking, sharing and commenting on our daily awareness posts.

2. taking part in our awareness activities if you are able to.

What is this year's campaign?

ME Advocates Ireland's May awareness campaign this year is about bringing ME out of the shadows -

1. about informing you about ME and particular supports if you are newly diagnosed with ME, or if you have had ME for some time;

2. about educating others about ME including advocates, carers, family members, healthcare providers and community support staff;

3. and about including 'OTHERS LIVING WITH ME', i.e., carers, advocates, family members, friends and any other supporters.

We will be using the hashtag on our posts and in our conversations.

How can I join this year's campaign?

ME Awareness Month activities will take place throughout May to involve you or others living with ME - your carer/advocate/family member/friend/supporter.

If you or others living with ME would like to participate in our awareness activities during May, please see all five options below.

NB: We are aware that some people with ME may not be able to participate in any of our suggested activities. We hope that others living with ME will help you with an activity or participate on your behalf, and for themselves too. We recognise the importance of others living with ME and their enormous support to ME pat
Awareness Activity Options

The first three activity options, 1-3, are more inclusive for people with quite limited function; option 4 and 5 require more input and are aimed ONLY at those who are able to manage them.

We encourage you AND especially others living with ME to be involved in as many options as possible, if you can.

1. Support awareness posts

You can support the 'bring ME out of the shadows' campaign by interacting daily with the awareness posts on our social media pages, with the goal of raising awareness about ME and supporting our collective mission to enable and empower those affected by ME.
All you need to do is like, share or comment on our daily posts if you can.

2. Hashtags

You can contribute to this year's awareness campaign by using the following hastags in your own awareness posts or when you share or comment on our posts:

(hashtag bring ME out of the shadows)
(hashtag ME awareness)
(hashtag ME awareness month)

3. Twibbons

"Twibbons" are designed to visually express your support and to raise awareness of a particular issue or campaign.

Our campaign theme this year is 'bring ME out of the shadows'.

The slogans on our Twibbon choices include all severity ranges; they are:

'Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadow of My Former Self' or
'Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadows of Our Former Selves'

'Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadow of My Former Self' or
'Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadows of Our Former Selves'

'Very Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadow of My Former Self' or
'Very Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadows of Our Former Selves'

'Profound Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadow of My Former Self' or
'Profound Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Shadows of Our Former Selves'

Please use a 'Twibbon' image of your choice as your profile picture on your social media pages throughout ME Awareness Month. There will be a good choice of images to choose from.

(We will share the twibbon choices on May 1st in a separate post)

4. Short Story Campaign: 'Life with ME - bring ME out of the shadows'
The theme for the Short Story campaign is 'Life with ME - bring ME out of the shadows'.
We are calling on members of our ME community in Ireland to take part in an online short story campaign to mark ME Awareness Day, May 12th, 2025.
How you can be involved in the short story campaign
Whether you are a patient or other person living with ME you may wish to highlight what you want others to know about your life with ME to 'bring ME out of the shadows', a piece which could include your current concerns or concerns for the future.
5 lines about your ‘Life with ME’
You can write a short piece OR 5 lines about your Life with ME.

What individuals with ME could write about

- Many individuals with ME lack knowledge about their illness when first diagnosed and experience lack of knowledge among healthcare providers and in some cases suffer from stigma and gaslighting.

- As well as losing good health and finding that there are no clear healthcare pathways, people with ME suffer many losses - they lose careers, financial security, hobbies, friends and family; they lose the ability to go on family holidays and to attend family events.

- Despite the multiple challenges they are living with, people with ME constantly feel isolated in the shadows because of disabling ill health, the enormous losses endured, and because of the lack of appropriate healthcare pathways.
What others living with ME could write about

- Others living with ME. e.g., carers, advocates and family members could write about the issues they face as they try to support the person with ME, to highlight difficulties in 'life with ME'.

- Or they could write about the person they are supporting.

Please write a very short piece or send 5 sentences if you are able.

Where to send your short story / 5 lines
Please send us your short story / 5 lines via email to: info@meadvocatesireland.com

or send it to us via private message on any of our social media pages like this one.

We will do the rest and publish your piece anonymously on May 12th, ME Awareness Day.
Important Details
Short Story to be submitted by May 10th, 2025
Short Story Launch: May 12th 2025
Exceptions

We are aware that individuals do not have the functional ability to write a short story; if you are able, a few words or one line will do instead. Or maybe a carer or family member can support you.
Writers!
We are aware that we have writers in our ME community...so if anyone wishes to write a longer personal story, you are welcome to do that.
We will publish your longer story anonymously on May 12th.

5. Your Story Through Art Exhibition - 'bring ME out of the shadows'

ME Advocates Ireland (MEAI) are calling on artists living with ME in our community in Ireland or elsewhere around the World to take part in an online art exhibition to mark ME Awareness Day on May 12th, 2025. Artists living with ME include patients, their carers, advocates, family members and friends.

We invite you to share your experience of life with ME through art with this year's theme in mind - the theme of this year's art exhibition are 'Life with ME - bring ME out of the shadows'.

The artwork will depict your ME symptoms or experiences, or your hopes for better acknowledgement and understanding.

Understanding life with ME can be challenging for some people and it can be difficult for others to fully understand the impact of ME on those living with ME.

All types of artwork will be accepted - painting, drawing, photography, knitted/crocheted work, sculpture, pottery, other.
To submit your artwork
Please take a clear photo of your artwork or ask someone to do that for you and send it by email to info@meadvocatesireland.com
or via private message on any of our social media pages.
Important Details
Artwork to be submitted by May 8th 2025.
Online Exhibition Launch: May 12th, 2025.
Online Exhibition runs: May 12th - May 31st.

"When you're working with your hands, conversations will happen"

- Caroline Schofield

- Developments in our ME Space

We will update you about the developments in our ME space during the last year including details about the HSE's response to the ME Community’s incredible Open Letter campaign launched on May 12th 2024. You can still sign the Open Letter if you wish:
bit.ly/4doeHpS
We would be grateful if you could support us and the ME community during ME Awareness month from May 1st to May 31st 2025 to 'bring ME out of the shadows'.

14/04/2025

The Harms Caused by Unscientific Psychological Views

We repeatedly witness inevitable harms caused by psych views attempting to redefine horrendously disabling physiological illnesses like ME.

To the detriment of severely unwell ME patients it is often family who pick up on the intentional obfuscation and who unknowingly help promote the psych myths.

We often hear from patients whose family members have picked up on the wrong information from an article or book and just because the information has been published, often by so-called doctors, they believe it to be true, then they push, gaslight and stigmatise the patient with devastating consequences.

A particular psych brigade talk out of their pocket making spurious arguments, always from the financial angle whether it’s personal gain from a book or being paid salaries to promote anti ME views…being contrarians without any scientific credibility.
Unfortunately the same abuse and prejudice is happening in the Long Covid space.

Our intention with this post is not to promote any individual or their work but to highlight the injustices and potential harmful consequences put on people who are woefully unjustly treated because of the physiological illness they’ve been diagnosed with and suffer with for years and decades.

Elke Hausmann, a GP in Derby, UK who suffers from Long Covid, has just written an excellent critique on a characterisation of Long Covid as a psychosomatic condition; please see the link to that in comments.

“She argues that 'science must take precedence' and ignores the huge research literature that makes the case for Long Covid most definitely not being a psychosomatic condition cherry picking some research that seems to support her view.”

Image by Greg Crowhurst from “Stonebird’ his blog about the lived experience of Severe ME

06/04/2025

Healing a mother-daughter relationship after the daughter recovers from addiction is a delicate but deeply meaningful process. It involves rebuilding trust, understanding past pain, and creating space for a new kind of relationship to grow. Here are some steps that might help:

# # # 1. **Open, Honest Communication**
- Both sides need to feel safe expressing their feelings without judgment.
- The daughter might need to acknowledge how her addiction affected her mother, and the mother might need to share her pain while still recognizing her daughter's progress.

# # # 2. **Set Healthy Boundaries**
- Clear, respectful boundaries help rebuild trust and prevent old patterns from repeating.
- Boundaries might include things like communication preferences, emotional triggers, or personal space.

# # # 3. **Practice Patience**
- Healing takes time. The relationship didn’t break overnight, and it won’t fully mend overnight either.
- Celebrate small steps forward.

# # # 4. **Seek Therapy or Family Counseling**
- A neutral third party can help both mother and daughter navigate sensitive issues.
- Therapy provides tools for forgiveness, empathy, and healthier communication.

# # # 5. **Forgiveness**
- This includes forgiving each other—and also forgiving yourselves. Addiction is a disease, and recovery is a courageous path.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting—it means choosing to let go of bitterness to move forward.

# # # 6. **Rebuild Trust Through Actions**
- Trust is rebuilt over time with consistency, honesty, and follow-through.
- Small commitments kept can have a big impact.

# # # 7. **Create New Memories**
- Do things together that bring joy or healing—whether it’s cooking, walking, or just talking.
- Focus on building a new connection, not just repairing the old one.

# # # 8. **Spiritual or Support Group Involvement (if applicable)**
- Programs like Al-Anon (for families of addicts) or NA/AA can provide shared language and tools.
- Some families find strength in prayer, meditation, or shared spiritual practices.

05/04/2025

THE STORY OF TWO POTS AND ELDERLY WOMAN
An elderly woman had two large pots, each hung on
the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.
One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot
was perfect and always delivered a full portion of
water. At the end of the long walks from the stream
to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For full two years, this went on daily, with the
woman bringing home only one and a half pots of
water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its
accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was
ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that
it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter
failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my
side causes water to leak out all the way back to
your house.'
The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are
flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other
pot's side?' 'That's because I have always known
about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your
side of the path, and every day while we walk back,
you water them.
' For two years I have been able to
pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.
Without you being just the way you are, there would
not be this beauty to grace the house.'
Moral of the Story:
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the
cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives
together so very interesting and rewarding. You've
just got to take each person for what they are and
look for the good in them.

Author ✍️. … Unknown

👌🪢🐝🐝👌