During rides with Regiotaxi and Valys I usually have a chat with the driver. All kinds of topics are covered, from the driver's dogs to COVID, from my disability to politics. Often I am asked if I have a job. “Sure,” I answer. “I am the manager of a dynamic team.”

In general, sports have my complete disinterest. I just don't care what league has been going on now or who will win. Apparently I'm not that competitive. But the Tokyo Paralympic Games turn out to be a different story…

So far I have not talked about sex on this blog. That I will change now! Because sex is important to me, as it is to most people. But since I became chronically ill, sex is no longer selfevident.

At one point I saw an occupational therapist as part of a rehabilitation process. One day they asked me what time I normally get up. That varies a lot and depends on whether I have a good or a bad day. On good days I get up at 10 in the morning, on bad days I don't get up until 4 in the afternoon.

"What you get from afar is good" I thought and decided to hire a British psychologist. So our conversations are in English, which gives our sessions an extra dimension.

I'm stuck in an abusive relationship. My partner is convinced that I’m cheating on him. He thinks I'm asking too much of him. He systematically breaks down my self-esteem. I want to get out of this relationship, but I can't. Life couldn't be more lonesome…

It is important to have a community where you are among like-minded people. Where people accept you as you are, where half a word is enough. In short, where you are at home. For me, that is the community of transmen. Only there are made no (unspoken) assumptions about my gender, my youth and/or my physical appearance. Only there I can be fully myself without expectations.

For a long time I didn't want to write about MUPS, for several reasons. Because ME/CFS is not a MUPS. Because I don't want to encourage the MUPS myth around ME/CFS. Because the MUPS myth bears witness to an unparalleled arrogance. Because... However, I notice it is time for me to do write something about it. Why? For exactly the same reasons!

In various groups or forums people regularly complain that it's so annoying that ME/CFS can't be determined biomedically. I think docters are able to determine ME/CFS biomedically indeed. After examination ME/CFS specialists are able to determine whether a person has or hasn't ME/CFS. They are able to exclude ME/CFS as well, for example if there's evidence of another disease.

Now I have been ill for about 3 years, something strange happens to me: I am starting to forget how it used to be. I realise very well I could do much more for the ME/CFS than I can do now, but the memory of my old life is starting to fade. I have become so used to my current situation that I can no longer imagine well what my former life was like.