How Nearly Losing My Life, Led to My World Falling Apart.

There was a time not so long ago, when I thought I would never be able to write again. Never be able to share in the way I previously have in this space and over on social media.

Things had gotten so dark and so harrowingly difficult in my life, that I felt like only a shell of my former self remained. How was I ever going to get back to a place where I could write again or contribute in any way?

Yet here I am.

Writing.

Sharing.

It feels huge pressing publish on this post, but also, such a relief to be back after so long.

Trigger Warning – I share about mental health struggles in this post, as well as descriptions of medical trauma.

If you are still here after my 2 year break from sharing, then firstly I want to start by saying a massive thank you. I’m so glad you stayed. And also, a huge thank you to everyone who reached out and sent me a message to check in whilst I was away. Every single one was so appreciated. I felt touched that I was remembered and thought of!

So you may be wondering what happened? Why did I disappear?

It’s hard to know where to begin. I’m not quite ready to share everything yet, but I’m hoping in the coming months I can share more. I will share what I can today. It has been truly horrendous.

A couple of years ago, I felt like I was at the end of what had been a really difficult time (if only I knew what was about to come!) I did share some of this in my last couple of posts if you feel like scrolling back to catch up. I had been quite severely affected by my first bout of Covid back in 2022, which took some time to recover from.

I also had some things go on in my personal life that had caused a huge amount of emotional distress and turmoil throughout that year. Approaching Christmas 2022 I was feeling physically and emotionally fragile, anxious, and so very ready for a period of time where things were more settled so I could find some kind of equilibrium and build some strength back up.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m unsure of how to write this next part, because it’s so hard to tell you guys what happened without sharing everything.

I also don’t know how to begin to put it into words. I think this is partly why I haven’t shared online for so long, I haven’t known where to begin. 

So, in February 2023, something awful happened. A major trauma that resulted in me almost losing my life. I lost consciousness and ended up needing emergency surgery to save me. When in surgery I then had an adverse reaction to the general anaesthetic used and instead of waking up afterwards, I was paralysed, unable to move and trapped in my own body. I stayed in this state with terrifying hallucinations for around 5 hours. I needed a blood transfusion not long after my surgery due to losing around 2.5 litres of blood (for context, the total amount of blood in our bodies is around 5 litres)

That’s what happened to me, in a tiny nutshell, without specific details of the major trauma that happened before the hospital admission.

After almost a week spent in hospital I came home to my Mums house to recover. I was so weak as you can imagine. Unable to walk, get out of bed or even sit up. When I wanted to wash or shower, I sat hunched over on the shower floor and Mum hosed me down. I was so physically depleted on every level.

I felt shell shocked. Having experienced almost losing my life, but surviving, was disorientating.

Weird. Inexplicable.

I was understandably, traumatised. I felt frozen. I remember being massively triggered by moving imagery (such as a TV) or faces (such as on the front of a book or magazine). My brain was on such high alert. I had to take the smallest of baby steps to begin functioning again – I remember the first day I was able to send my partner a text message being such a huge milestone!

Alongside the flashbacks, and the vulnerability that comes with being unable to use your body for the most basic of things, I did strangely feel a sense of peace within me during this chapter of my life. It was surreal and very difficult to explain.

My faith and connection to God had amplified as a direct result of my time in hospital.

I quite literally clung to God as my body was in the midst of crisis and just felt acutely aware of His presence. I felt protected (despite such awful things happening to me) and honestly can say, my faith is what has gotten me through this time.

So as I recovered, each time I felt fearful, I prayed. I trusted that God had everything in hand. I kept turning to Him, over and over again, finding pockets of peace amidst the most frightening time of my life.

I rebuilt my strength gradually, and we were all surprised at how relatively quickly I began to recover. The first few weeks were intense, but after that, each day I got stronger. I think because I had peace (albeit alongside unsettling flashbacks of what had happened – a strange juxtaposition)  this helped my body physically heal. On the surface, I was doing well. My blood levels were replenishing, my anaemia healing, I could walk from room to room again, watch TV, potter around at home. Slowly but surely, it appeared I was recovering.

By the time May arrived, I was well enough to go on a little holiday to Rhodes with my partner. We both were looking forward to a healing week in the sunshine, but, this was actually the time when things started to unravel. 

I remember being there, in this beautiful place, but everything felt strange. Dark. Separate from me. I am familiar with depersonalisation and derealisation from my years living with ME/CFS and previous bouts of anxiety, but this so much more prevalent than what I usually experienced. Intense, suffocating and relentless.

I felt as if there was a veil between me and the external world. A thick veil. I couldn’t feel my personality, I couldn’t feel joy. All I felt was immense, overwhelming sadness and a strong dark force pulling me down. I tried to have conversations with my partner, trying so hard to be ‘normal Emma’, but so often tears would fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks. I couldn’t control it. I felt guilty for ruining his holiday (my narrative not his, he was incredibly supportive during this time). So many days were spend crying uncontrollably.

Once I got back home, things slowly went from bad to worse. 

I began suffering from insomnia. Despite deep fatigue, every time I began to drift off to sleep, I would jolt awake with adrenaline surging through my body. It felt like a full body electric shock. 

It would happen even if I got into a deeply relaxed state. I’d almost drift to sleep, jolt, electric shock, adrenaline. Then I’d have to calm my body down, relax. Try again to drift off… then jolt. Over and over. Often until 4am, or on particularly bad nights, 6am. I felt like I was being tortured. My heart was pounding and it felt like I’d been flooded with an overstimulating substance. I likened it to drinking 10 coffees. I’d lay there in the dark, wondering how on earth I was going to get out of this cycle.

I’d pray.

I’d listen to sound healing meditations.

I’d get up for a bit.

Sometimes I’d manage to totally surrender to it all and access a level of peace.

Other times, I’d end up in floods of tears not knowing how I could go on like this.

I was doing all the things I knew of to help myself, such as limiting time on devices, wearing blue light blocking glasses, having a sleep routine, chamomile tea, an epsom salt bath before bed, no caffeine. I was doing everything. Nothing worked.

As the weeks went on, I became so sleep deprived I had no choice other than to reach for pharmaceuticals to help me get some sleep.  I began taking Lorazepam.

(Lorazepam is a highly addictive Benzodiazepine. Dr’s are reluctant to prescribe it due to its potency and high risk for dependancy. However, my GP and I were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Initially it was prescribed to take as and when. Over time, I ended up taking it every night. I’m going to write a separate post about my experience with this.)

In terms of a timeline, it was now Autumn 2023.

The next year, is a blur.

I was now housebound. The cascade of traumas and stressors had finally caught up with my body. The covid, the trauma I am yet to share, the medical trauma, the haemorrhage, the terrifying anaesthetic reaction, the PTSD, the severe insomnia, the grief, the intense stress response that was firing off every minute of every day.

I was back in the living nightmare that is, Severe M.E.

The fatigue crushed every cell of my body, my brain felt like it was a thick sludge, my vision blurred and the slightest movement sent my heart rate shooting up with the sheer effort it took to move. I was quite literally, just surviving at this point. There aren’t really words to describe what severe ME feels like. Other than, it’s crushing. Suffocating. You can’t engage with any aspect of life, because the symptoms are so incredibly intense. You (quite literally) feel like your body is shutting down. Even breathing feels too much.

I’d aim to get to the sofa for part of the day, for a change of scene. I could watch small amounts of TV on good days or listen to gentle podcasts, but large chunks of the day were spent with my eyes closed. The strength of the fatigue was unbearable. Sadly, it wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I had experienced severe ME back in 2010, and also in my early years of ME back in 2001.

I couldn’t believe I was back here again. I was totally dependant on my Mum at this point. For emotional support, and for physical care. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without her, she is the most beautiful human. A shining light amidst the darkness.

Grief consumed me. The two decades lost to chronic illness. The things I had missed out on. The major life milestones I wasn’t able to reach because my body had limited me. It all came flooding to the surface. Alongside the PTSD from what had happened to me back in February.

I felt like I had absolutely nothing left inside me. I couldn’t see a way out.

My usual sunny disposition, had been overtaken by such sadness, pain and crushing illness. I was diagnosed with serious clinical depression. On top of everything else.

I felt like I was existing in a living hell. Each moment was engulfed by intense suffering. Physical and Mental. I was trapped inside my own body due to the severity of the M.E. With the inability to do so many of the things advised for depression and anxiety.

This was my life, for a long, long time.

Obviously there aren’t many photos during this time of my life, but this is one that I have. Not sure why I took it, or why it exists. But here I was in the midst of it all.

My anchor, throughout it all, was God.

If it wasn’t for my Faith, I honestly don’t know how I would have come through this period of my life. I will write more about this in time, I don’t want this post to go off on too much of  a tangent, but it is important to say. My Faith is how I got through this. I prayed, I reflected on short bible verses, I listened to gentle worship music. I got incredible comfort knowing that despite it all, I wasn’t alone, I was being looked after and I trusted that God has a plan for my life.

That this wasn’t it.

This wasn’t the end.

My Faith helped me to reach a level of surrender. And I think surrender is what began to eventually turn things around for me. 

I had no choice, but to go through what I was going through. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but no amount of resistance, or trying to fix things or ‘brain retraining exercises’ was going to solve this. I was physically, emotionally and mentally very unwell. I needed to start simply by working on (somehow) softening and opening to exactly where I was. In this moment. No matter how painful. If I needed to lay with my eyes closed, then I needed to lay with my eyes closed. If I was full of pain and needed to cry, then I needed to cry. I allowed it all. It was so messy. SO messy. But I believe that this was the start of things slowly beginning to heal.

I feel like I have lived out the biggest lesson in letting go.

Present Day ~ May 2025

I’m writing this post to you, with the afternoon Sun shining gently onto me through the open patio doors. I feel calm. I sleep at night. I am almost completely off the Lorazepam (this is a story for another day, the tapering journey hasn’t been easy!)

I no longer feel engulfed with sadness.  I have days where I have a little cry, get upset or a wave of grief hits, but I no longer spend full afternoons with tears streaming down my face. My physical health has improved. I still have ME/CFS, EDS, and the various labels I seem to have collected over the years, but my life now has joy in it once more. I have been able to start my little daily walks again. For all of 2023 & 2024 this wasn’t possible. It feels beautiful.

My world is slowly opening up. I’m going at a pace that is gentle, for my mind and my body. No pushing. Listening. Honouring my needs and respecting that my body has been through a huge amount. No longer seeing it as the enemy, but a part of me that is always trying to do what’s best for me.

I enjoy the little things again. My essential oils. The sound of the birds. Using my camera and taking a photographs of flowers.

It’s like I’m coming back to me. But a healthier, truer, more grounded version.

It all feels new. It’s only been three months since I began to turn a corner, and of course there’s that protective part of me thinking ‘no, don’t speak to soon!’. But I trust. And I feel the inner shifts enough, to share that things are slowly getting better.

As always, it’s a journey. There will be ups and downs. But I’m hoping that I am finally coming back to a more stable level of ME/CFS, and that beyond, even further healing is on the horizon.

I’m also hoping, I can now continue to share more, here and over on Instagram. Ive missed being here. Thank you for staying, and for waiting for me!

Let me know in the comments if you would like a follow up post to this one, where I share more specifics about the things that have helped me most during the last couple of years.

Love,  

Emma x