“My life is a mixture of loss and sorrow; of happiness and fulfilment. Of overwhelming restriction, and of important gains within those parameters. I feel gratitude and I feel anger. I have hope and I am afraid. I am in multiple places all at once.”
From New Year Reflections
My name is Naomi Whittingham and I live in the UK. I have been severely ill with ME since childhood, a period that now spans decades. My story is told in more detail in a number of articles on this site, including The Power of Listening, Thoughts on Reaching 40 and The Day I Touched the Sea Again After 30 Years.
A Life Hidden brings together my reflections on life within the constraints of severe illness. Read more here.
Since childhood, writing has been fundamental to who I am. In more recent years it has become a way of making sense of what has happened to me, and of reaching out to the wider world. My work has been published in the mainstream media on several occasions. My first article, in The Daily Telegraph in 2013, appeared at a time when severe ME was rarely represented in the national press. I wrote again for the Telegraph the following year, and in 2016 for OpenDemocracy. I have also appeared in an award-winning documentary, spoken on several occasions on BBC local radio, and contributed to training for junior doctors.
Nowadays my focus is on writing here on A Life Hidden, as well as working on a book that I hope to publish one day.
In a life shaped by suffering and restriction, I have learned to cherish simple pleasures. I have found that, even when illness takes so much, there can still be purpose and meaning.
“I find it helpful to think in terms of seasons. To see myself as part of the continuous cycle of nature as it moves between darkness and light; dormancy and growth. The blackest night does not preclude the onset of dawn; the most bitter winter contains the seed of spring. All are part of the same whole.”
From Is There Hope in a New Year?
I hope that you will find comfort here at A Life Hidden.
Naomi
A Life Hidden 