Christchurch woman shares story to mark ME Awareness Month

A CHRISTCHURCH woman has revealed her struggle with a devastating condition that can ruin lives to raise awareness of the fact that May is ME Awareness Month.

Charlotte Clark suffers from myalgia encephalomyelitis, a neurological disorder that affects the brain and nerves throughout the body. It is believed to be caused by inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.

ME dramatically limits the activities of millions of people across the world. Around 75% of those affected are women, and one quarter are house, or even bed-bound, according to the charity Action for ME. There is no cure for the condition and the number of those suffering from it has risen dramatically since the pandemic.

Charlotte revealed how ME has affected her life, saying: “As a child, I struggled with ill health, never seeming to have the energy other kids did. They would be running around the playground like they had Duracell batteries in them.

“I just could not keep up and would end up exhausted. PE was torture for me since I knew that I would not have any opportunity to conserve energy for the rest of the day.

“It was the same all through my life at school. I missed a lot of schooling — about two-thirds because I was just so tired all the time. “

After leaving school Charlotte eventually found a full-time office job, rising to become a project manager; but found weekends would be mostly spent on the sofa or in bed as she would be so “worn out” by life.

By the time she was 38, Charlotte said she started to “struggle” to even get to work.

“I made the excuse that it was ‘just a virus’, but in my heart, I knew that no virus I ever had lasted as long as this or rendered me so incapable of waking up properly.

“Eventually, both mentally and physically I collapsed. I became severely depressed and wracked by pain.”

In 2012, she was formally diagnosed with ME and fibromyalgia - a condition that causes pain all over the body.

Charlotte, who now works from home as a genealogist and writer, admitted: “It took a long time to come to terms with life.”

She says she now accepts that her body is a “bit duff”, but says she will “fight for my brain”, adding: “Learning is something I strive to do every day and I feel that brain exercise in whatever form helps me from getting too depressed.”

Charlotte says she hopes by telling her story, she will help raise awareness of ME, which will be marked by World ME Day on May 12th.

For more information, visit: https://www.actionforme.org.uk/