I'll Be Ok

Things haven't exactly been easy going recently; I've succumbed to yet another virus. Which (inevitably) has caused yet another setback in my health. But I'm still fighting.

Going through this rough patch a song that helped me in my first year of having M.E. came into my head. And it's stuck there like a mantra again. McFly's 'I'll Be OK' was released in August 2005 about three months after I was diagnosed with this cruel illness. Back then I was (and still am) a big McFly fan, but I was also scared, confused, angry...to be told at 12 that you have a chronic disabling illness, to see everything you'd come to know as 'normal' life slip away from you as this illness progressed and the symptoms got worse, to slowly but surely lose contact with almost all your friends...I couldn't help but ask the question of 'Why Me?'.

That might sound selfish but it is what went through my mind as I watched the life I knew slip away. I must have been awful to live with at that time, I can remember jumping down people's throats for seemingly nothing (but to be it seemed a big thing to me), bursting into tears at the slightest 'normal' activity I was no longer able to do. At one stage during that 'journey' I honestly thought I'd be better off dead (this led to my parents putting all medications under lock and key). But I came to realise my life wasn't over, yes it wasn't how I'd expected things to be but I could still do some things. And I would be OK.

This song by McFly came out at a low point in my life and the lyrics, despite not actually having anything to do with the situation I was facing, somehow made an impact and the chorus or at least part of it became my motto:

"Just try a little harder
Try your best to make it
Through the day,
Oh just tell yourself
Ah, I'll be OK"

To this day I still live by that motto. Things have never seemed quite as bad as they did back then, even though at times over the years I've been more ill than I was then. I now know things can get better, and I will be OK. Perhaps not in the same sense as I thought I would be when I first heard this song when I was 12; back then telling myself I'd be OK meant I'd fully recover and be back living a 'normal' healthy life. Nowadays I'm more realistic, being OK now means being able to get on with the seemingly easy everyday tasks some people take for granted. My definition of what OK means all depends on how I am at the time when I tell myself I'll be OK. But whatever the circumstance I am basically telling myself that I can and will survive this and see better days coming.

I can't explain exactly why this song struck such a chord with me, maybe it was the timing of it's release in relation to my illness, maybe it's the lyrics, maybe it's just because it's by one of my favourite bands or perhaps it's a combination of all that and more. All I really know is it's a song that has stuck with me through the years and helped me get through some rather tough times with this chronic illness. To this day when things get tough I'll listen to this song, or it will unwittingly come into my mind and instantly I feel more hopeful about what the future might hold. So should any of McFly be reading this, (highly unlikely I know but still...) I'd like to say thank you for creating a song that has had such a positive impact on my life with chronic illness. You don't know how much of a difference it has made.

Does anyone else have a song that has had a similar effect on their life? I'd love to hear your stories, as always feel free to comment below or drop me a tweet @ALifeWithinME or a post on the Facebook Page!