No matter how long I have had my illness, ME/CFS, there is something that I cannot overcome.
It is the fear that my illness may worsen.
Although it is believed that ME/CFS is not a progressive disease, it can get worse over time, or even in a short period of time.
No matter how well experienced you are as an ME/CFS patient, you can get upset or even panicked when you find out that your health has been deteriorating. 
In this post, I am going to write about how I have been dealing with these fears, hoping that writing this article will help me organize my thoughts.
1. Keeping records
When you are feeling unwell, you are prone to get the image of your symptoms getting worse and/or that they will last forever, and that affects your recovery. For that reason, you will need to look at your current status objectively.
Records are genuinely helpful for that purpose.
I keep a record of how well or bad I feel each day in my diary. I have recently been making use of voice typing on my phone to do so because writing in a paper diary can be tiring.
A diary helps you notice what causes your symptoms. One day, I wasn’t sure why I was feeling exhausted, then l checked my diary and was reminded that I had gone out two weeks previously, and that caused the exhaustion.
When I felt terribly dizzy last month, I looked into my diary to find out that I had overcome the previous dizziness within a week in March, so I decided to get a complete rest in that period of time.
Writing this blog also functions as a recording of my symptoms. It helps me realize that my symptoms may not truly be as bad as I thought they were at the time. Also, messages with my friends and the number of days when I meet up with my friends can tell me how well my physical state is.
I have not tried this yet, but I am going to make a list of things that I did each day. My To-Do list makes me notice the fact that I cannot do things as much as I wish especially on the days when I feel unwell. However, I am hoping that the “achievement list” will help me see that my days aren’t for nothing.
2. Taking a deep breath
I do deep breathing all the time because it is effective for relaxing. It is in fact the only thing that I can do when my ME/CFS flares up.
However, during the breathing exercise, it is often the case when I start to drift away in my thoughts of things that I have to do, cannot do and fears for the future, though I try hard to stay focused on breathing.
Then I set a specific goal such as “inhale for 3 seconds and exhale for 10 seconds” and concentrate on counting down the seconds. Some other times, my focus is counting down the number of times I breathe.
It is impossible for me to keep my mind blank when I have pain somewhere in my body. I try not to waste my energy and time by focusing on what I am doing right at the moment.
3. Loosening up your body
If your muscles in the body get tense, tight and contracted, your breathing will get shallow and short, and you will end up with pain in joints and tendons. So I always try to give myself a massage and some stretches. There are times when my headache alleviates after improving the blood circulation around my neck and shoulders. 
If I cannot loosen up my body no matter how hard I try, I don’t push it through. Otherwise, I will hurt my tendon or muscle, so it is important to try not to overdo it.
It could only worsen my symptoms if I did even a little stretch when I feel dizzy or have a headache. For this reason, I only massage the tips of my fingers and toes and/or stroke my shoulder joints, which tend to have poor circulation, when I feel really unwell.
It is okay to feel depressed
When I feel extremely unwell it depresses me to a great extent and it makes me feel that I have contracted another disease, which makes my anxiety even worse. However, Dr. Madarame, my doctor, said that it is totally normal to feel depressed or lose hope when you are in pain and feel discomfort. It made perfect sense to me. If there was someone who always feels happy and keeps a carefree attitude all year round, even though they are ill, that would be supernatural.
So I try to convince myself that even if I feel depressed and are unable to stay positive, it doesn’t mean that I am not trying hard enough, and that it is okay to feel whatever I feel if I tried everything that I could possibly do to get better.
When your ME/CFS gets really bad, your brain will get overstimulated as if your brain has gotten an electric shock. Once you get to this point, just taking some rest can be a daunting task. Symptoms will only get worse and worse, even if you try to stay in bed, take a deep breath and relax.
Once I get this bad, it takes at least a week to recover from the electric shock before my body starts to get ready to heal itself. At that moment, I feel almost panicked and try to do everything that comes to my mind, but I know that resting is the only thing I can do.
After the electric shock subsides, I finally start to feel how exhausted I am. I will have to wait for a little more while before I can read books and watch movies while recovering.
I don’t watch news
Bad news can be stuck in my head and affect my sleep quality especially when my physical condition is terrible, so I don’t watch news programs.
Although I am well aware that it is good for me if I keep myself updated with the latest news by watching news programs for the Eiken interview test, it is more important to keep myself from exhaustion.
My current state【It’s been terrible since the end of last year】
I have been feeling dizzy incessantly since the 23rd of last month, and I did not get to go to the second part of the Eiken (an English proficiency test) on the 7th of this month. The exam is extremely important for me, so it was truly horrible. Additionally, I am currently on a sick leave.
Having had ME/CFS for 24 years, it is rare to have dizziness that has lasted this long, so I am feeling disheartened.
I have been feeling severely ill for an unknown reason since the end of last year. I felt terribly ill for over a month in January, I had to cancel plans with a friend due to dizziness and I wasn’t able to go out even once in May. On top of that, I had to have a three-month sick leave from work for the first time since I started working as an online English tutor six years ago.
I may only have been at the lowest point in terms of my physical condition, it could improve eventually, but I can hardly believe that things will get better at this moment.
Even subtle changes in weather and air pressure, not to mention stress and life events, can greatly affect my physical state, so I will keep trying to find a way to get better by doing everything that I can.
Conclusion
I just wrote what I have been doing to tackle great anxiety that I have when ME/CFS gets really nasty. I will add more to this article when I find out more effective ways to deal with fears.
ME/CFS can be extremely hard both physically and mentally at times because there are many times when it only gets worse no matter how hard you try to take care of yourself. However, I will just try to find a way to get through such difficult times.
I would be happy if any one of you finds this article helpful.
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The original Japanese version of this article>>ME/CFS悪化の不安と戦う３つの方法
