Hi, I'm Holly Campbell
Founder of Chronic Fatigue Companion
I am a…
- Qualified life coach
- Qualified meditation teacher
- Trauma-informed practitioner
Read my lived experience below!
This is my story
I was an energetic teenager and trained to be a ski instructor in my gap year. I went to university to read economics and at the end of my second year, I returned home for vacation and a second internship at a bank in Canary Wharf. I was a triathlete at home, competing happily at club level. During swim training one evening, I realised that I “didn’t have anything left”. I struggled to describe why I couldn’t continue, other than feeling incredibly heavy and empty. I left training early. I was unable to get to my internship. Within two weeks, I was unable to get up the stairs without help, and within two months, I was unable to sit up in bed.
The shock was total. I had panic attacks, except that I didn’t know they were panic attacks at the time. My parents were confused and equally frightened, and several times we ended up in A&E. When it took me 4 hours to have the energy to scratch my nose, the doctor leaned in and said, “if you stop faking, I won’t tell your parents”.
I had to drop out of university and was confined to bed for the next two to three years. I despaired; spending most of my time hysterically sad and angry, and it only got worse. I comfort ate to extremes and isolated many of my friends and family. The statistics say that most people with serious CFS/M.E. also develop clinical depression. That turned out to be my fate too.
This is my story
I was an energetic teenager and trained to be a ski instructor in my gap year. I went to university to read economics and at the end of my second year, I returned home for vacation and a second internship at a bank in Canary Wharf. I was a triathlete at home, competing happily at club level. During swim training one evening, I realised that I “didn’t have anything left”. I struggled to describe why I couldn’t continue, other than feeling incredibly heavy and empty. I left training early. I was unable to get to my internship. Within two weeks, I was unable to get up the stairs without help, and within two months, I was unable to sit up in bed.
The shock was total. I had panic attacks, except that I didn’t know they were panic attacks at the time. My parents were confused and equally frightened, and several times we ended up in A&E. When it took me 4 hours to have the energy to scratch my nose, the doctor leaned in and said, “if you stop faking, I won’t tell your parents”.
I had to drop out of university and was confined to bed for the next two to three years. I despaired; spending most of my time hysterically sad and angry, and it only got worse. I comfort ate to extremes and isolated many of my friends and family. The statistics say that most people with serious CFS/M.E. also develop clinical depression. That turned out to be my fate too.
Even when I saw any improvements in my health, my struggle was by no means over; I endured countless relapses. Five, seven, maybe nine? Each time I thought I was beginning to get better, I went all the way back down to being unable to get out of bed, unable to feed myself, unable to answer a simple question without complete brain fog. Those were dark days.
After five years, my aunt took me to a self-help day event in London. I needed transferring from bed to wheelchair to car, from car to wheelchair to venue, all with my head supported, but it was the catalyst that began a journey in a new direction. It started me on a journey of self-development, learning to embrace unimaginable suffering, and try something new. I made progress in developing a relaxed, confident and self-loving mindset with an unlikely sense of equanimity. It didn’t cure my illness, but it made my life infinitely better and helped me to take pacing to another level entirely. It taught me a lifesaving lesson… that there can be happiness and fulfilment in life alongside chronic illness.
Over the years, the gaps between relapses began to lengthen, and I returned to work part time. I moved up to Manchester to start a new life with friends, free of many of the difficult memories anchored to my home in Kent and the hospital. Gradually, relative normalcy crept in around my illness management. During a relapse, I met my now-husband Scott, who wasn’t the least bit bothered by my having to stay put on the sofa throughout our dates. Over time, I had built a fulfilled and happy life around my illness.
After many long years, I am now 35 and consider myself in remission / recovered. In recent years I have completed a triathlon and run up mountains.
I think how this long period of my life would have been different if someone with decent knowledge and experience had been available to help. Someone who understood how horrible this is. Someone who could help me separate the magic solutions being touted from the more realistic. Someone who could just give me something concrete that I could use to manage this insidious illness better. I didn’t by then have any hope of a ‘cure’ – to be able to ‘manage’ would be more than sufficient. That’s why I’m doing this. My friends have asked me, “do you really want to go back and revisit your worst life experiences?”, and without thinking, I found myself saying “absolutely”. There isn’t enough guidance and support available, and even less written with the compassion and understanding that comes from living it for years.
"It is possible to create a satisfying, meaningful life alongside your chronic illness"
– Holly Campbell