Hello again. This isn't a chapter, sorry about that.

Over the past hour, since seeing your review edaygin, I've been considering if I should post my story on here or not. I wasn't planning on doing so at all. I wasn't sure if I felt comfortable with it. However, for the past hour, I have seen a lot of my friends who are also ill posting their stories and have decided to tell you a little bit of mine. What harm could it do? And after all, it is International M.E. awareness day!

I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs, but I'll tell you a bit about how it's affected me and just a bit about my story.

If you are not interested, then don't read. And I'd appreciate my story not being shared around. Thank you!

Okay, so I didn't want to tell you my age. I don't know why... maybe you'd think differently about reading my story if you knew? Who knows, but here goes...

Before I got ill, I was quite an active child. I was a dancer, sang in all my school shows in the choir. I didn't like P.E. much but I wasn't bad at it. I was in top set in every one of my lessons. I was being told I was on track to leave school with A's and even A*'s. I've never been one to have a big group of friends, but I had a good number of them.

My illness began 6 months after I turned 14. At first I didn't know what it was. My first symptom was pain. Muscle pains in random places over my body. A couple weeks later came the fatigue. Luckily it fell in a school half term so I spent most of that week and a bit off, sleeping. I slept the days away, only waking to eat and do other necessities. The pain gradually got worse. And so did the fatigue. I wasn't sleeping at night. I was so tired but just couldn't sleep.

There was this one time that has stuck in my mind. It was only about a month after my symptoms started, so we didn't know what was wrong with me; I hadn't slept at all the night before. And I mean at all! My alarm went off at 7am for school and I was led on my back in disbelief. I'd been tossing and turning all night, trying to get comfy. But nothing worked. I remember getting out of bed, walking down the stairs like a zombie. My parents and siblings were sat around, eating breakfast, talking and laughing. I walked in, walked over to the empty space on the couch and just fell face first onto it. I didn't mean to, but I was so exhausted that I couldn't stand any longer. I could hear people talking around me but I could not move. My parents moved me so I was led across the couch and I fell asleep. And that's where I stayed for the rest of the day. I don't know why it has stuck with me, it just has.

A few months after it all began (still 14 yrs old) I was walking down the stairs and as I took my foot off of one step, all my muscles tensed. They locked and I lost control of my body. Because my foot was in mid air, I fell. My extended leg bent under me as I slid to the bottom. I ended up spraining a ligament in my knee - which wasn't what I needed with everything else, to be honest. It's okay now though.

Over time my pain got gradually worse. I was still going to school, but missing a lot of it too. I turned 15 and then began year 11 (here in England that's the last year of high school, and the most crucial year.) It was at the beginning of yr 11 that I was diagnosed. I'd never heard of M.E. and neither had anyone who knew me. We started research and the more we read, the more concerned we got. Imagine being told you have an illness that has no cure, that some doctors don't even believe is real?

Around christmas that year was when my walking started being affected. Due to the fatigue and pain I was struggling to walk around school. I'd have to stop and sit regularly.

After new year I went down hill. Between January and April, I had been to school a total of 3 weeks. Two of them days being in March, and one in April. My attendance was all but forgotten. My grades were suffering along with me. I revised as much as I could at home. I stopped going to school in April. I had teachers send me work that I missed, but not all of them bothered.

I went to school for my exams. They covered a five week period and it wad hard. I had 2 true friends left at this point. They met up with me at the front of the school for every exam. They helped me out of my car, helped me walk to the room and helped me sit. We received a lot of weird looks. I didn't have a wheelchair so this is what we had to do. By the last week I was using the schools wheelchair. I left school with 10 GCSE's, which shocked me more then I can say.

For two weeks after my final exam, which was an English one, I couldn't move my arm. And since then, I get episodes every now and then where my arm will just stop working.

I am now 16, and will be 17 this year. I don't go to college. I'm too ill for that. I was enrolled on the list for a course but I had to drop out before it started. I have one friend left from my 'old life', as I like to call it. I speak to her regularly and she comes to see me as often as she can, but it's hard; she goes to college, works, has hobbies and other healthy friends. The other girl that helped me to my exams no longer speaks to me. That has happened with the rest of them. They stopped speaking to me, ignored my messages, etc. I was never bullied badly because of my illness (like Bella in my story), but I think that's because I just disappeared from lessons and life.

My life is now spent at home. Everyday. Somedays it feels like my prison, but I have my family to keep me sane. I spend each day on the same place on the couch, with my legs up. I listen to music. When I can, I read, watch TV and movies. I colour, and of course, I now write.

The most I can walk is a few steps, and that's with help. I try to do that as much as I can, so my muscles have some usage. But it's very rare. I'm carried up and down stairs. I am housebound, and the rare times I do go out, wheelchair bound. The last time I left the house was a month ago to go to a doctors appointment.

My life isn't all bad. I like to focus on the little things that are good. I have my family who support me, where as others aren't as lucky. I have made online friends who all understand. I'm not the worst out there, not by far. There are others that are so much more severe then me.

I hope and pray everyday for a cure or at least to go into remission. I want to start living, not just surviving. I want to go to college, learn to drive, get a job. I have hope that one day I will.

So there you go... that's my story. I'm nervous about posting this. I could go into much more detail but I'm not sure I feel confident enough to do that. If you have any questions, then please PM me and I'll try to answer as best I can.

I hope this is okay. It's basically just a quick summary to be honest.

Another thing that I forgot to put on my last chapter, if any of you happen to see one of the Millions Missing protests today, I'd love to know. So could you either PM me or leave a review about it. I'd be very grateful!

Thank you for reading. I hope my age doesn't put anyone off of reading my story, and anymore that I may write in the future.

Hope you are all well. See ya next time! :)

KS.reader.