Invisible illnesses have a way of making us turn invisible too.

When we can’t engage with the world in the way we could, we start to drift out of peoples lives. The connections that create and sustain friendships don’t happen and so we become dispossessed of our relationships.

On the occasions when we do manage to get out - often for major events like weddings or funerals - we’re reminded painfully that life has been going on without us.

Eventually we become like a little boat adrift on the ocean. We can see the islands and archipelagos of connection, but illness robs us of our sails so we can’t get to land and the tides of grief and isolation carry us further away.

We can feel like we’re a ghost, materialising temporarily then vanishing from peoples lives. This is true despair, when we no longer feel like we exist.

In many folklore tales, spirits often linger because their story hasn’t been told or heard. Isolation causes them to fade away and they become stuck in limbo.

This shows us the antidote to feeling like a ghost. We aren’t able to engage in the same way as before, but we can still be present in others’ lives and in our own, seeing each other and being seen.

Finding others who have experienced ME helps - they see the part of you that others can’t. Seeing ourselves is also important and it’s essential to remember that you are not your illness. The other parts of you - whether compassion, kindness, love of sci-fi and fantasy or nature - are still there. And your presence makes a real difference to many other people, even though it’s easy to forget that sometimes. You don’t have to achieve or do more to be worthy of love, you just have to be as you are.

You are not a ghost. You belong right here, in the land of the living.