Emotions

The Anatomy of Hope
How to keep hope alive, even when you have an illness with no cure.

Building a New Life: Illness as a Spiritual Journey
Creating a new self from the ashes of the old.

Coming to Terms with Loss: A Personal Perspective
FMS patient Linda Borell describes how an experience of loss earlier in her life prepared her to deal with the losses brought by fibromyalgia.

Grieving Your Losses
Grieving can help you work through the losses resulting from illness.

Honor Your Emotions
Emotions like fear, anger, grief and depression are normal reactions to chronic illness. Strategies like those in this article can help.

Is Recovery a Realistic Goal?
Developing realistic hope in response to an illness with no cure.

Killing Me Softly : FM/CFS & Suicide
Depression, which is common in long-term illness, sometimes leads to thoughts of suicide. This article by guest author Lisa Lorden offers ideas for coping when life seems hopeless.

Rebuilding Life in the Face of Loss
How one person moved through denial to acceptance and finally to new meaning and a new life 

Smoothing the Emotional Roller Coaster
How one patient tamed the emotions triggered by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Taking Action Helps Defeat Negative Emotions
Using problem-solving to improve mood and quality of life.

Taming Stressful Thoughts
A three-step process for making your self-talk more realistic and more positive.

Permission is granted to re-publish or re-post this material as long as the use is non-commercial (e.g. support group newsletter), the article is used in its entirety and the source is credited as CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Self-Help: www.cfidsselfhelp.org/