Make Noise – FibroM.E.-Awesome

A Creative Pull

Published on December 10, 2025December 10, 2025 by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

Someone, I think it was Picasso, said that you cannot conjure up inspiration yourself, you can only hope that it finds you working. This says to me that in the arts, no matter what field you’re enjoying or pursuing, for money or no money, you have to be tuned in to a certain frequency so that when creative, organic ideas come buzzing around, they have a place to land. So many times I sit down to write one thing, and an entirely other subject reveals itself, at which point I start seeking out a whole different answer than the one I’d planned. Probably because the one I planned was trash, and this new idea found someone with a pen to paper, fingers to keys—then the magic happens.

I don’t call it “magic” in reference to the work produced—it actually feels like a magical process that a person can tune in to some vibrational frequency where pure, untethered creativity abounds and can attach and stick- if you stick with it. I often feel more confident about the new paths that reveal themselves while I’m onto something entirely different, because it’s almost something that can be viscerally felt, in the chest maybe: this idea, or shift.

Lately I’ve felt real “movememnt” inside of me; I have no idea what else to call it. It feels like this excess, internal energy, but it doesn’t have a way out. SO sometimes it’s angst, which is just absurd. It is however the reason I organized the spice cabinet recently, which was fine, but I know it wasn’t “it”. Duh. When I started this blog more than ten years ago, I was trying to make it easier, funnier, and with optimism to convey everyday life with ME/CFS. For whatever reason when I go to write now, sure I can do the same thing, but some other pull brings me out of it, maybe because I’ve beaten to death the quotidian life with illness topic. Maybe I let this blog be what it’s always been, and follow this magnetic pull, or push, to move onto some other creative endeavor.

It doesn’t mean I would stop writing—it’s my true life love and companion and I don’t mind sounding like a loser in saying so. But in so many ways it’s saved me from my very own stupid mind. I am best mentally when I’m creating, thinking and spitballing new ideas. And the thing is, there is still so much left to do, reveal, and chase in the mecfs realm, I don’t at all feel finished with the subject matter, trust me. But there is this internal draw to elevate this topic somehow. Maybe that means a new home to explore the ideas I’ve done here, a new means of getting it out to the masses, or even a few people, as long as it’s accessible by all. I only know I’ve really fallen off the wagon in this little corner that always felt like home, no matter who’s home I was living in! There’s been many, let me say.

The other confusing part is that there is SO much left unsaid, so many rocks to overturn and so much fight left to fight. I don’t at all want to turn my back on any of that. But why do I keep coming back here to write, only to turn to my notebooks where I write pen to paper and not a person can see? For one thing, I happen to like hand writing. There’s always the possibility of writing and taking a photo of it? But is that going backwards? I don’t know. Maybe I just fell off the horse for too long and it’s too late to get back on. I’m still writing to myself in my head all the time. But it ends up as scattered ideas in one of my three notebooks floating around the house and nothing is sequential or tied up with a bow and that, my friends, is one way to write, but I don’t think it’s any way to “be” a writer.

Why am I putting these self-conscious, disoriented thoughts out on the blog? Because my smaller self would have me write them in a notebook, where I’d likely reach no better resolution, and no one would know what’s happening on the other side of this thing. Is it me or do blogs feel outdated? I actually like hand-writing things because SO FEW THINGS are hand written anymore! I wrote a check the other day and felt straight out of the late 90’s. It was great! I’m a romantic, and nostalgic, what can I say. I’d love a real land line.

I’m not against technology although of course I fear how fast it moves and whether I can keep up in a viable, important way. I know I want to continue to reach sick people in an easy, honest way—I want to provide a departure from the horrors of a new doctor, the unsolicited advice, the online hold music at Walgreens, and anything that comes in an envelope from insurance and you can be sure it’s not good news. I think it’s important this community always be moving, be talking, making space and making noise for our very existence to be known. I have no intention of abandoning purpose there.

I’m just wondering if this blog should be left alone as a relic of its own time, and the next “creative spark”, whatever it may be, might find a spot in its place—a more modern place that is just as far-reaching.

Let me emphasize, this is not a good bye letter, not at all. Not that anyone is reading because I’ve abandoned this thing way too many times. If anything, it’s hello, because I thought I would get into a routine this summer and write write write all the way home. Maybe I will do that. But I have to mention this inexplicable tugging from I don’t know where, asking still to pursue these ideas, but possibly change up the form, escalate the medium. It doesn’t help that WordPress is completely updated and new and CONFUSING AF. And I’m tech savvy, for a girl and all. (Ha.Ha.)

Anyway this has always felt like a place to tell the truth, and if I didn’t have it, than to write things out and find it. It’s sort of amazing how writing can get you to answers. Mostly I think, it slows things down, and when we are still enough, we do get to our sought after answers. Or at least think to rephrase the initial question differently. No, no, for now this is just a hello and here’s what’s what letter, which of course, I don’t know yet what the what is. Why would anyone read this? My God.

For anyone who’s felt a little lost in their own life, aimless with where they thought their skill set might bring them, you know the constant hesitation and uncertainty that follows you like a shadow. I’m continuously letting myself down by letting this site get dusty and only once in a blue moon filling it in with what’s new. That’s not what a good blog does, and I like to do things well! If anything, I can do better. And that can easily start here, and maybe even stay here— who knows where it will end. Hopefully in a place that feels meaningful, enthusiastic, and mostly, like this blog, like home.

I posted a few of the drawings I’ve been working on when I decide to distract myself from writing instead. I’ll say, putting pen to paper for any intention feels good. If you’re in bed, I suggest this book, which teaches you in 6-10 steps how to draw hundreds of different flowers. (Shop around online, you should be able to get it for around $20) I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I also think it would make a great gift for anyone stuck in bed, stuck in life, whatever they are. There’s a real enjoyment that comes simply from drawing a flower, and I highly recommend it.

Well, until next time, which I hope is very soon….Signing off. Happy Holidays :)

Health, Happiness, Movement

Cutting Down Trees Won’t Stop the Wind

Published on July 19, 2018 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

77969e290ad545088eeb06c11ef0ce88 When I was little, I thought wind was created by trees. I watched the branches bend and break sometimes, as I felt the currents move over and past me, blowing my hair around like I was a passenger in a convertible. A very strong force, what those trees could do. It wasn’t so long before I learned that wind existed in the desert. Whoopse. Naturally I then learned about currents and the true science of wind. Trees were indicators that it was windy, but were themselves were not creators of the wind. Duh.

So, how does this tie into the thinking around a disease I have? And secondly, why am I always writing about this damn disease?! So boring, Mary. But hey, this is my notebook after all. But mostly because there remains a lot of thinking to be done around this subject. The public’s view in this case matters, particularly the medical establishments. *Inconsequential anecdote, it’s very windy out here! It’s also really hot and I’d rather write indoors, but Monty made me come outside. In this case, the wind helps.

So, imagine for a moment that wind is a disease. It’s not so hard to do—sometimes you can feel it wholly, you can watch the effects of its existence in past and present form, you can even predict it to an extent, but is of course itself, invisible. That’s the start.

A powerful and controlling school of thought pervades many minds surrounding this disease; it confuses the behavior of trees as the cause of wind. Or it says that the reaction of trees to this wind is maintaining the wind itself. In other words, doctors—mostly psychiatrists, a lot of them British—are thinking the way I did when I was four. OK six. You get the idea.

This dominant school of thought looks at the symptoms of this wind, some of which can be quantified through tests, some of which are subjective (self-reported) in the absence of diagnostic material and a lack of conventional biomarkers, and a lot of it hiding in plain sight somewhere, yet to be found. We’re getting closer, but that’s beside the point.

Instead of seeing tree branches swaying violently as an effect of wind moving through them, this school of thought sees the behavior of trees as having something to do with the cause or sustaining of it. A common case of conflating cause and effect. Hence, their idea is to cut off the branches. Or in other cases, to just chop the tree down. So they do it. They take a chainsaw and remove the branches, one by one, and then stand outside next to the stripped down, naked tree, or in more unfortunate cases, the mere stump that remains. Outside, what happens? A blustery wind snakes up through the air, kicking up the leaves around their feet then letting them settle, blows their hair around the way a roller coaster does. Sometimes it makes a haunting, high-pitched howl. Still unseen, there’s no disagreement that the wind is making a nearly aggressive presence. In spite of all that chopping! Other times it arrives as a gentle breeze. In any case, they witness the wind despite their efforts. And for the little value it’s worth, the tree stumps says “Just an FYI, I um, I can still feel the wind.” The tree stump is generally ignored and a bird then craps on it.

But they try other versions. They tell the tree stump to quiet his thoughts, imagine no wind is blowing. Or accept the wind, and live life as he always did as a tree…with branches…and leaves, despite not having those things anymore. He’s been reduced to a tumbleeed and being asked to live as a 30-year-old flourishing Live Oak. In spite of feeling like a tumbleweed, he attempts to live outside in the wind. He’s told to go slow, be cautious. But it doesn’t go well.

The wind blows on, the psychiatrists scratch their heads. They go back to the drawing board. Cutting off the branches, chopping down the tree, and still these powerful gusts of wind! It’s hard for them to wrap their heads around, and they’re not the only ones. This is a complex wind with a lot of strange behavior and variables. Particularly, standing in the middle of the desert where a wild wind blows, so forceful it’s difficult just to walk, none of it seems to add up.

Frustrating as a disproven hypothesis can be, it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s still an answer. A real scientist knows you go back to the drawing board despite you’re hypothesis being “wrong” or “right”, or more accurately, true or not true. You don’t throw it out, but by ruling out one idea, you make more room for the true one to emerge, right? It’s all useful information. Knowing what works and what doesn’t. For instance, Well my humble colleagues, it would appear the behavior of wind is not based on the behavior of trees. Let’s look into one of a thousand other ideas we have. It would seem that’s how progressive science would go.

But…

Alas…

No.

Back at the drawing board, they can’t give up the ghost. They’re stuck on the idea that trees either make the wind or maintain it somehow. They’re convinced that stripping the trees, changing the trees thoughts, encouraging the tree to do things he’s hardly capable of, even if just slowly at first, will eventually make the wind stop. In the meantime, forrest are demolished, the wind blows on.

Hopefully, one day, this school of thought will be carried away like a fine dust caught up in a large gust of wind and patients with MECFS won’t be subjected to it again. Like in Aladdin when he drop kicks the magic lamp containing the evil genie into some other universe. It’s not that what they’ve found can’t help the people with this disease. Every finding is useful in it’s own way. But something like psychotherapy being touted as a treatment for this disease is as effective as cutting down forests in expectation of the wind to stop. It won’t. The studies that say they have are chock-full of issues, and the patients speak for themselves, if we’ll listen. Typically ruling out one theory means pursuit of another. It also means letting go, if you’re really seeking answers and aren’t attached to outcome.

This BPS model has dominated the whole scene: the narrative helped shape the media coverage (and vice versa) that CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and GET (Graduated Exercise Therapy) were helpful treatments for those with MECFS. It informed policies and advocated for “treatments” that don’t work, for a disease causing immeasurable harm to millions of people. And yet, they can’t let it go, convinced somehow, if we trim the branches like this or hack off the top like that, eventually this will work! If we continue to pursue this idea some perfect way, eliminating the tree will eradicate this wind. It won’t. They have worked this idea to death.

Specialists of this specific wind will tell you, will show you, that’s not going to work, because the wind is due to underlying geological processes. The people, the TREES, having their lives destroyed will tell you the same thing, but their voices won’t be heard as loud or clearly. Doubt has muffled their voices for decades. As such, there has been a lot of loss.

Like Peter Paul and Mary Sang:

The aaaanswer my friend,
Is blowin’ in the wind,
So pleeeease stop
Decapitating treeeeees

Very slowly, this historically dominant narrative is finally starting to change, despite opposition, which has doubled down on their bet that CBT and GET are actual treatments and helpful for sufferers. They will disagree with what I’ve written here, but that is nothing new. The BPS model, (biopsychosocial model) has reigned long past what it’s warranted, but in an historical absence of biomedical research and answers, it’s been easy for that to happen. We know better now, we know so much more, thus it’s far time we let that model go concerning MECFS. And for the sake of sufferers everywhere, we definitely don’t tout it as a treatment, when we know that this “treatment” can and has made patients worse. For many the damage has been irreparable.

We are getting closer and closer to real answers, thanks in particular to organizations like the Open Medicine Foundation and the handful of specialists who’ve dived deep into the heart of this disease. But this organization runs off the charity of the public. I’ve said it time and again, but real scientists and doctors working as hard as they are, shouldn’t have to protest on the weekend so they can get their work done throughout the week. This is the whole reason for institutes like the NIH, which the public already pays for.

The paradigm is shifting and I’m grateful for that. But charity alone is not going to pay for what is needed in the way of biomedical science. When you continue to pursue a model that’s collapsing in on itself, that’s half of how you’re harming sick people—by taking away already scarce resources that could be allocated toward research that has an actual chance of providing answers, and putting them toward a method that’s already yielded results. Those results aren’t the answer here, but there is one. There many be many. Answers lead to treatments, and hopefully, eventually, one day a cure. We need resources to go there.

I believe that will happen. I can only hope in the meantime that we hear and validate patient voices, recognize more humbly what hasn’t worked, and that we use past research to lead us in a new direction of what will.

Health, Happiness, Save the Trees

**Please add your voice to the petition if you haven’t, especially if you’re an MECFS patient. Your story is important. We’re very close to 49,000 signatures …Good stuff yall, good stuff. THANK YOU.

https://www.change.org/p/increase-research-funding-for-me-cfs

The Catch-Up

Published on July 11, 2018July 11, 2018 by Mary Gelpi2 Comments

A suitcase lies open in my hallway still. Anyone care to guess how long it will stay there? Mine is a week and a half, but who knows. Maybe I’ll get energized this afternoon and lug it to my closet, where I’ll continue wearing clothes out of it as though it were a portable dresser. That’s basically what it’s become. And hey, that’s OK!

Returning home from travel has it’s perks—like climbing into your own bed, returning to a dog a like Monty (who, if I’m being honest, exhibited roughly 5 seconds of excitement and then acted as if I’d never left at all). Walking into your own place of familiarity and taking a deep breath. Ah, so this is what my place smells like. Not bad! Even if you’re sad to have said goodbye to the people visited, a grand relief always seems to accompany coming home. Unexciting, mediocre, quiet, deer-less home. What’s tough about it is the game of catch-up you’re about to play.

As soon as I enter the front door, all the projects that have been mentally stacking up, making their way onto various to-do lists over the years seem to glow brightly, asking to be next. I feel a wave of inspiration- paint the sunroom! Organize my closet! FINISH PART 1 OF THE PETITION PROJECT. (More on that later) Paint the armoire! Return my 10,000 plastic bags to the grocery store. And these are just simple tasks, even if some are bigger, more time-consuming than others. I bought the paint for my armoire, Parisian Grey, two years ago. It’s been perched on top of it as though it were real decoration. And none of these include the creative endeavors I’ve been dreaming of starting or working on or finishing the last few years. They’re just things, most of them. And yet they take years to do. Years! Again, ridiculous.

There is so much I feel I have to do. I have to finish. And ever since entering the world of advocacy, those tasks take an obvious precedence and a new urgency over the rest. But traveling means you not only ‘check out’ of your little world a while, it also means you don’t get to return to it just because you’re back living in it again. You have to recover first. I always feel a small sense of guilt when I travel, because I know it will be a hindrance to finishing the important things. I always fear a loss in momentum, so I go over my plans in my head like a song on loop before falling asleep. Until they melt and I can’t remember what I’m even thinking about anymore. But I’ve written about plans before—they’re about as solid as jello. Anyway, the plans are a basic timeline of the things I’ll do when I get home, but that means about as much as saying “one day.” Still, you know how making a list makes you feel organized, even if you do nothing on the list? I guess it’s like that.

Because where do things lie, actually? For starters, my suitcase lies open with clothes spilling out like the innards of a science class frog. I couldn’t even be bothered to wheel the thing to my closet or bedroom. We arrived home just after midnight- Marc wheeled the suitcase to the hallway and that’s where I laid it down, put on my pajamas, and immediately climbed into bed. From there I spent three days. Poor Monty, a boring few days for him I imagine.

I was out of juice. Is this a poor excuse for leaving a suitcase in the middle of the hallway? Sure, fine, an excuse. I don’t care what you call it, it’s simply the case that when you’re physically weak, in pain, running on empty, your priorities become very compressed. They almost become easier to sort and identify, because your options are reduced. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that more choices are a good thing. But when I stand in front of the toothpaste aisle and there are 40 different tubes to choose from, I sort of just wish there was one or two. If there’s only two to choose from, or if one costs 5 bucks and I’ve only got $3, well then there’s not a whole lot to think about. That kind of thing.

You know what else is on my list? Laundry. Nothing but a regular old chore that I, like my mom, happen to enjoy for some reason. (I also love ironing, if I can sit…) However, the washer and dryer are at my parents house. That means walking the approximate 20 steps there and back and there and back holding a basket of heavy clothes. Darks, whites, delicates. Are you bored yet? Me too. Is laundry a hard task? Of course not! If you have the energy to do it. But when you’re playing catch-up, calculating every move as if it were dollar bills you had according to a daily stipend (or see the spoon theory) then there just isn’t enough money for tasks like this. At least in the beginning. And I was considering painting an armoire! Hah. Hah.

I realize that people with a shallow knowledge of MECFS might roll their eyes at this ‘predicament’ if either of us would even call it that. (I wouldn’t actually, I’d call it the simple and unfortunate state of things) Yeah, laundry is a pain in the ass. So is unpacking. 20 steps to your parents? Get. Over. It. In fact sometimes I think these thoughts myself! But, they don’t really help, so I let them go. The point is, I can see why this thought pervades so many people’s minds, which is to say, I can see how much work still remains on our plate when it comes to this disease. The Post-Exertional-Malaise part of this—the hallmark symptom and also another name doing zero justice—is also the part that no one sees.

I realize I’ve written about this before, and it’s not my intention to be redundant, but it’s not as if this is a publicly, well-understood or moot point. It’s one of the biggest features of MECFS that people have the hardest time making sense out of. That includes people with the condition! Both are understandable. Unless you live with someone who has this, you don’t truly witness the price attached to attempting to live in the real world a while—which if you’re moderately functional, or can play that way at least a little while, you’re always going to try. The soul needs what the soul needs. But the body pays a price.

This doesn’t even mention that you could be one of the hundreds of thousands, or more likely millions of people who return from some normal life event and pay a price in the form of a crash; weak, heavy, dizzy, pain, brain-slow-as-sap—and they do live with people who see it. Does this mean they believe it? No, it does not. In possibly more cases than its’ opposite, the sick person is assumed a malingerer, lazy, aloof, or hysterical. (Ah, if only I had the energy to be hysterical. Wait I’m hilarious, I take that back) I can’t imagine the crushing doubt from people I love, stacked on top of a crash I’m earnestly trying to climb out of. And the fastest way to regain your strength is honest-to-goodness rest. And guess what laziness looks like? You see the problemo there. In this way, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. It doesn’t mean people ‘out there’ always smell what I’m cooking, but how could I care? I’m hardly out there. The people closest to me are helpful, supportive, encouraging and compassionate. You know, the things you crave when you’re sick. Imagine being eight months pregnant and no one believing you. On top of it they’re suggesting lots of herbs and yoghurt or something. Wouldn’t that be weird? YES IT WOULD.

Anyway, I’m writing about this not because I face it in my own family, but because I’ve become so aware of the staggering amount of people who do. The emails I get and the stories left on the petition page are crushing, heartbreaking and keep me up at night sometimes. I’ve got insomnia anyway so, what gives? This isn’t about me, it’s about doubt, and the incredible amount of damage it has done to people’s lives. Vulnerable people who need help and encouragement, where they’re getting skepticism, judgment, and advice. This is why we have to get it right. And like 40 other reasons, but you feel me.

The nice part about the suitcase in my hallway is that I laundered the clothes before I came home, so they smell like Colorado! With a touch of Southwest Airline Zest. The advocacy has to come before the painting and the laundry and the bath I really would like to give Monty because he’s beginning to smell like a dog. I don’t have the energy for all of it at once, but I can do a little at a time. People have emailed to tell me the petition is a waste of time and won’t do any good. They might be right, but even if they are, it’s a little too easy to shout from the sidelines, isn’t it? Also, is that maybe a waste of time? We can at least say, if you’re not trying, your chance of changing anything at all is zero. And I sincerely don’t believe that. Maybe this project won’t work, but I don’t think it will hurt. So, I’m going to keep trying. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else.

unnamed-5 — BONUS: We’ve surpassed 48,000 signatures on the petition. Boo Yah!

Unfortunately, it takes a very long time to scratch out all the personal information on over 300 prescription bottles. And since I’m sending the 2500 pages to Mr. Collins in this box with these “packing peanuts”, the process is taking longer than I thought. At least I can scratch out info on a bottle even from bed. I promise I’m working on it, and will deliver on what I said I’d do, which is to attempt a genuine disruption. Emails are a little too easy to delete. Tweets are easy to ignore, if they’re read at all. It doesn’t mean we stop those things, but I’m trying to think outside the box. Hardy har. This, I’m hoping, will take a moment of consideration before it’s thrown in a dumpster or lit on fire. Either one. That’s the hope, and at least when you’re trying, there is some hope to hang onto.

There are so many of us in the M.E. world looking for something to grab onto, particularly through those dark times of despair. I’m hoping to add at least one hand that will reach back when they are searching for a way out. We’re going to get there, so hang on.

Health, Happiness, and Catching Up

P.S. The petition has been gaining signatures and is now over 48,000. My reliable calculator says we have only 1,643 before reaching 50,000. I say we make that happen! If you haven’t yet, please sign and/or share the petition. Every name, story, comment helps. Thank you, all of you.