Tim Bichara

I became ill in November 2003, but for the few years before that I hadn’t been feeling “quite right”. I had often been ill with colds and flus, and had found that my energy was often low. However, it wasn’t until November of that year that I finally crashed. After a particularly heavy birthday celebration I caught a virus that didn’t want to go away.

Things became worse through into Christmas and the New Year. I think the worst time was probably January 2004. I felt ill all the time and worst of all, I couldn’t sleep a wink. I was a walking zombie surviving on about 2 hours of sleep a night. I felt so exhausted I could hardly move but at night my body just did not want to switch off. By this time I was signed off work as long term sick.

Luckily I already knew something of ME and figured out that was probably what I had, and this was eventually confirmed by the doctor. I read up all I could on the illness and tried to find out as much as I could on alternative treatments. I have to say that the “classic” books on ME are not very helpful. They basically pedal the line that you are unlikely to get better and after reading them I went into depression for about a week. However, I did find out some very useful stuff on diet that I put into practice.

By February, I was feeling a bit better and came back to London from the country. I managed to go on holiday with my partner which improved my spirits a bit. However, I was finding that although I was beginning to have periods of relative respite from the illness I was also having seeming arbitrary periods of remission. I continued to try and find something that would help, seeing a number of practitioners and increasing my experimentation with nutrition.

The nutritionist that I was seeing happened to mention Alex’s work and his book “WHY ME?” I immediately ordered a copy on Amazon and read the whole thing in about two days. It excited me immediately, as here was someone who had actually recovered from the illness – not just another “expert” advising me on how to cope with my “disability.”

I spoke to Alex on the phone soon after and made an appointment to see him. The first time I saw him I knew that he was going to be able to help me. His understanding of the psychology of the illness was amazing. He helped me to see things about myself in the first session that I’d never realised before. Specifically the way I had got myself into a frenzied state of anxiety and how that had affected my health. Alex explained how anxiety speeds up the nervous system and this in turn impedes the immune system and the digestive system. Some of it was new and some of it I had heard of, but Alex really made me understand it in a way that I never done before. It really was as if a light bulb had gone off in my head.

Most importantly Alex taught me a way to change my anxiety. He taught me to stop myself getting into the terrible patterns of thinking that I didn’t even realise I was getting into. It was as if someone was assisting me in slowly taking my foot off the gas pedal. He and Niki (one of the nutritionists that works alongside him) also advised on diet and nutrients that would help.

I realised that I had control over the illness and that was one of the biggest turning points and that was even after two years, it took two years for it to sink in, two years later I suddenly realised I can control this, I can control my recovery, I have all the tools and all the skills and all the competence I need to recover, it’s just a matter of waiting it out and being diligent and doing what I need to do and that realisation was a major turning point because it took away the anxiety and also empowered me and for me that was what I needed.

My recovery was absolutely up and down for three years and the last 5-10% took a long, long time and that was really a process of ‘what am I down about’ and really trying to think about and, without going over the top, think about what could be wrong, think about what it might be trying tell you and trying to find ways to just push myself up to the next 2-3% and the next 2-3% and one day you wake up and you’re better.

Now, I do a lot of sport: running, I play tennis, I go to the gym, I do kick boxing, I do yoga, so I’m making up for the three years that I lost. I used to be quite active before. The first time I went for a run was fantastic, I’d been in pain as well, I know a lot of people listening will have have had a similar experience, but I’d had pain from the injury as well as the ME, so it was amazing. I went running for 15 minutes on Hampstead Heath and it was incredible and now I love playing sport, I love being active.

I now live in the South of France, and I’m starting a business, if you think about a healthy Prêt a Manger, healthy eating became a passion of mine and I’ve always been into food, so I’m starting a business which is a healthy version of Prêt a Manger, in Montpellier, where I live and that’s great. I would say, my life is like 100 times better and for me the ME was ultimately an extremely positive experience, it put me on a whole new spiritual plane and was something for me that I needed to go through. It might be difficult for someone that’s been ill for 20 years to appreciate that and I accept that but for me it was ultimately a totally positive experience. At the time it felt like the worst thing that could have happened; now I see it was ultimately for me, meant to happen.

If you have ME then don’t believe the hype. You can get better with effort and time. You may even find that it improves your life in the long run. I would recommend Alex to anyone who has ME, he is a fantastic therapist and his results speak for themselves.

Tim shared his recovery story with members of Secrets to Recovery in May 2007. To find out more, click here. Click play below to listen to an excerpt of his interview.