Name: Luke* Country: UK

In the early days of being ill (when it was originally thought that I was suffering from acute stress), I was advised by my GP to take longer and longer walks each day. This I faithfully did, until one day my legs gave way suddenly and completely, pitching me onto the roadside.

Fortunately, living "in the sticks", with rarely a car passing by on the tiny backroads, I wasn't involved in an accident. It took a good fifteen minutes or so for enough strength to return for me to be able to stumble to the nearby post office, where I was immediately offered a chair and a glass of water. It was a further twenty minutes or more before I was able to struggle home.

This event turned out to be a landmark in the further downturn of my condition.

I was also offered half a dozen sessions of counselling on the NHS, during which the counsellor (bless 'im) attempted to teach me to juggle. Although I approached the task with dogged determination, I was completely unable to learn, because of marked loss of coordination, bad balance, lack of muscle strength, difficulty with concentration and visual disturbances (not to mention the blinding headaches etc.) and rapid exhaustion, which, of course, all made me feel even worse physically, not better.

With hindsight, I realise that both these attempted activities were beyond my capabilities at that time, and may actually have done me long-term harm. I clearly allowed myself to be pushed too far, and that, I am sure, was ironically because of my usual determination to solve problems, overcome obstacles and do a job properly.

Nowadays, although I still have a similar determined approach to life, it is no longer "terrier-like", but gently persistent - and realistic. My concern about approaches to treatment for M.E. such as CBT is that patients are "persuaded", against their better judgment and experience, to attempt far more than they are actually physically capable of, being made to feel that they have the "wrong" attitude of mind.

As a result of following a course of CBT years ago (although it helped me psychologically to cope with being ill), I tried persistently to not use my walking stick for some time. Again, with hindsight, this made my walking problems worse.

I can't blame anyone for what happened to me in the early days, to be honest, because these "treatments" may well be very appropriate for, and beneficial to, someone suffering from stress, anxiety, depression etc. But they clearly weren't appropriate for someone in my condition.