I could be writing off my frustrations regarding the total governmental neglect of chronically ill people, but ...

... I refuse. Wholeheartedly. I already addressed my concerns on various occasions, i.e. comments on newspaper articles and additions to questionnaires on global health and well-being in corona times, as well as social media (Instagram, Twitter). The only similar experience came today in the form of a single dad, caring for his 3 children in a co-parenting situation while also managing two jobs. To me, there is no reason to believe our government even realises there is such a group of people who fight every day against their own bodies as their illnesses chronically and invisibly eat away more and more of their health and well-being, meanwhile feeding their depression, anxieties and general feeling of worthlessness.

But I promised not to berate these experiences of mine. Today I want to be light and funny. I barely slept last night, thanks to the migraine that decided to announce itself ten minutes before I went to bed at 9.50pm. I hoped I'd be able to just sleep it off, but Fibromyalgia chose to join forces resulting in me being wide awake, in dreadful pain, at 1.30am. Took my migraine meds at 2, got nauseous about 15 minutes later, and decided then to just call it a day ... night, and opened Merge Zoo to do some mindful candy feeding of my cute little animals. When staring at the same videos ("watch videos to get your reward") for too long and feeling all the more nauseous, I closed the app, put on Sophie Hutchings on Spotify and grabbed my current Terry Pratchett. I read till 4am. Ish. The final time I looked at the clock, was 4.45am.

Painsomnia is a terrible thing. It deprives the body of the so necessary sleep and causes even more pain, making the next day a trial of pure adrenaline, only to backfire as the day progresses. And regardless of knowing this, it will still hit me like a sledgehammer. It could not have come at a worse time either, for in three days my son will return and I'll need a lot more spoons than the shortage I start my days off with lately.

In a couple of minutes, my friend will join me for a walk in the nearby fields and meadows, to get some fresh air and also just to be with each other, respecting social distancing ruling, naturally. Although we both suffer from Fibromyalgia, she has it in a much milder degree than I do - for instance, she can still work and do a bunch of activities I had to let go of. Today, she texted me her pelvis and lower back are hurting - yesterday she had this wild plan to go somewhere on our bikes and hike there, but there you go: with a chronic debilitating illness like Fibromyalgia, we have to take it day by day, and need to be extra careful in planning activities and outings beforehand. Most people do not get that - it is why friendships with healthy people can get quite tricky, as the lack of empathy and acceptance starts weighing on the spoonie, just when they need unconditional support the most

But, light and funny it is to be, right?
Let me get back to you after my walk in the fields 😁

The emphatic power of cats

I noticed it before, and I read about it plenty of times: the way cats seem to sense a negative (emotional) state of mind, and then come to you to take all that bad energy away. It's unbelievable, it's very special. Suddenly, there is this other kind of engagement. And then you got the feeling that you are no longer alone with your worries and your sorrow.

I can imagine that a lot of people dismiss the idea of a 'caring' cat; cats are not often seen as social, let alone emphatic. Quite the opposite! In its independence, a cat is believed to be arrogant and headstrong, and certainly not attached to or caring for the human it's adopted.

While I am browsing the Internet in search of information that relates to this emphatic quality of cats, Google advices me links that emphasize behaviour problems, aggressiveness in cats, what to do when your cat destroys your furniture… It took me some time to finally find one positive word: on the website of a Belgian lady who calls herself the Catnanny, and who firmly believes, out of years of experience, that cats have this special mission to protect us and take away our negative energy.

Now that sounds more like it. 

The protection has to do with the fact that cats come to lay on the bed with you at night - while you are sleeping they watch over you. When some intruder is to enter the house, they tend to get even closer to you, just to try and keep you safe.
When I am home alone with my littly guy who is sleeping in the room next to me, four out of our six cats jump on the bed, or in the near vicinity of the bed. And always there are a couple that venture into our son's room, just to take a peek, and sometimes to jump on his bed and sleep there.

With me, they snuggle up real tight. So tight I cannot move. And their purring vibrates through my whole being - a soothing sound.

One of our cats, the Norwegian Forester Troeleke

Do I suffer that much from negative energy? Perhaps.
For almost 15 years Fibromylagia has been part of my life, which comes down to pain every single day. Sometimes bearable, more often not at all. Are the cats trying to take away the negativity that comes with a chronic pain syndrome? It's a beautiful thought, right? How the sadness, the sorrow, the anger, the depression-like state of mind and the low self-esteem - emotions that can pop up suddenly, like thieves in the night, and rob you from common sense about yourself and the way you handle things, emotions that in fact are there all the time, subpressed, waiting, because you want to be strong so bad - are purred away and cuddled away by your cats who are supposed to be these arrogant, antisocial creatures with no emphatic quality whatsoever.

Last night, I had an emotional breakdown, and within ten minutes' time, there came four cats - snuggling up next to me. Three of those cats were downstairs before the breakdown happened. To me, that is proof enough. 

And yes, it comforted me. Tiger's sonore purring slowly eased the sadness. And eventually, we all fell asleep, a slee

p through wich these wonderful cats could cleanse themselves from all that negative energy they took away from me.