recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome and long covid is possible

insights and practices for mind and body from psychology and beyond

welcome to the fatigue psychologist 

I am a psychologist who has been living with a combination of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS, also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or ME) and Long Covid for over three years. While I’m not yet fully recovered, I have made some amazing progress. I have gone from being housebound and barely able to walk, to moving back into the world and starting to rebuild my life. Woohoo!

Along the way, I have been profoundly struck by the relevance of ideas from psychology to my recovery. I am very aware that most people living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long Covid do not have psychology doctorates. So, I created this site to share insights and practices for mind and body from psychology and beyond. I hope you will find them as valuable to your recovery as they have been to mine. 

Find out more about me.

build your recovery from cfs + long covid across 3 dimensions

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Seeing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long Covid through a psychologist’s eyes
Seeing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long Covid through a psychologist’s eyes

There’s something inherently destabilising about being diagnosed with what is often referred to as a “medically unexplained” or sometimes even “incurable” illness. We are conditioned to expect a medical diagnosis to offer clarity. Instead, receiving diagnoses of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Long Covid can rapidly breed confusion, despair, overwhelm, rage, hopelessness and defeat.

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2. manage your recovery by learning to live in:

a) your body

B) the world

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The mindful way through Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & Long Covid
The mindful way through Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & Long Covid

I’m trying to avoid claiming any one idea or tool as being essential to recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long Covid. Allow me one exception then. Because mindfulness has felt like a precondition for my own recovery progress. It also appears to have been a foundation of many other people’s recoveries from CFS and Long Covid. And, in case you’re worrying, it need not involve crossed-legs and burning incense.

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Let recovery from CFS and Long Covid be your purpose
Let recovery from CFS and Long Covid be your purpose

During the most acute period of my CFS and Long Covid journey, I felt like I was in a wilderness. It was hard not to define my life during those months by the things I could no longer do: work, walk more than a few dozen steps, stand longer than a couple of minutes, sit up for very long, sleep a full night, watch TV, read a book, empty the dishwasher, cook, clean, talk on the phone, see friends. It seemed I could barely allow my mind to think without my brain feeling engorged and my skull pressurised.

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