Christmas can be too much for ME sufferers

AROUND Christmas time, year after year, people with a chronic illness like ME face the chore of writing Christmas cards with dread because it is so energy-sapping.

It’s a task they could do without and yet they always do it, usually because of social pressure, or to avoid being thought a Scrooge or party-pooper by people who would probably not say it if they knew how much effort it costs and how long it may take to recover from the effort.

Some ME sufferers can cope with Christmas and even enjoy it, but others, perhaps a majority, find it an extra burden from which they may take months to recover.