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Welcome to FogLight: Why This Space Exists

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 17:48:00 -0500

Some days, the world feels like it’s moving too fast - and I can’t seem to catch up.

Not just physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.

There are mornings when my body doesn’t cooperate with my intentions. Evenings where my thoughts move through honey. Afternoons where holding a single conversation feels like lifting bricks. And in between all of that, there’s a fog. A thick, heavy stillness that wraps around everything - thought, motivation, memory, energy.

If you know what I mean, then this space was made for you.

The Fog We Live In

FogLight was born from a need - not for answers, but for company in the fog.

If you live with chronic illness, mental health challenges, or both, you already know how disorienting it is. How hard it is to be understood. How much weight you carry — and how invisible that weight can be.

I live with ME/CFS, a condition that quietly redefined the borders of my energy, my identity, and my relationships. I’m also a mental health professional - an expressive therapist who uses creativity, softness, and trauma-informed practices to help others navigate their emotional world.

But no degree or training prepared me for what it means to grieve the life you used to have, or to feel like you’re constantly falling behind in a world built for people with more stamina, fewer question marks, and a different kind of brain.

Why FogLight?

This is not a place for toxic positivity. This isn’t a hustle-your-way-to-healing blog. This is a soft corner of the internet where we name things as they are:

The mental toll of being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed
The grief of missed birthdays, unread books, unanswered texts
The way depression wraps itself around your bones after one too many flare-ups
The guilt of resting when the world keeps spinning
The raw beauty of surviving, slowly, softly, anyway

And yet… even in fog, light still exists.

That’s what FogLight means to me - and maybe to you too. Not blinding, not all-revealing, but just enough light to take one more step. Just enough to say, “I’m still here.” Just enough to make space for you to feel seen.

What You’ll Find Here

This blog will hold space for:

The emotional reality of chronic illness
Mental health insights from both lived experience and clinical knowledge
Creative coping strategies for low-energy days
Tools for pacing, boundary-setting, self-forgiveness
Reflections on relationships, identity, grief, and personal growth
Poetry, essays, and journal prompts for soft self-discovery

Whether you’re newly diagnosed, long undiagnosed, or somewhere in the long, foggy middle - you belong here.

Come As You Are

You don’t need to be productive to matter.

You don’t need to be cured to be worthy.

And you don’t need to explain your pain in order to be believed.

I hope FogLight feels like a deep breath. Like a soft place to land. Like sitting in a quiet room with someone who understands without needing you to perform your pain.

This isn’t a finish line. It’s a waystation - a space for resting, reflecting, and remembering who you are beneath the ache.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for surviving this far.
I see you - and I’ll meet you in the fog.

With softness,
Gabby

My Story Briefly Told: Chronic Illness, Mental Health, & Acceptance

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 02:11:00 -0500

For a long time, I thought I was just lazy. Or broken.

I pushed myself through college, jobs, relationships with others, and responsibilities with a deep undercurrent of exhaustion I couldn’t explain. No matter how much sleep I got, I woke up tired. My body ached like I had run marathons in my sleep. My brain felt like static. I was often dizzy, nauseous, and disoriented - like I was floating above my own life, trying to catch up with everyone around me.

It took years to get a proper diagnosis. Years of going to doctors, making appointments, getting bloodwork, going to the doctor again - and on and on. Being told maybe it was “just anxiety” or “stress,” or worse - being dismissed entirely. “Have you tried diet and exercise?” Yes! “Have you considered it may be pressure from work?” Yes! “Have you done this? Have you considered that?” Yes! At times, even I began to believe that maybe I was just overreacting. Maybe it really was all in my head. That’s what it felt like - like I was quietly losing my mind, and no one else could see it happening.

The truth was far more complex. I was living with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) - a condition that affects nearly every part of my body and mind. But I didn’t know that for a long time. What I did know was that every day felt like a battle between pretending I was okay and surviving the aftermath when I wasn’t.

There’s a particular kind of shame that comes with chronic illness - especially one that’s invisible. I wrestled with feelings of failure, inadequacy, and guilt. I watched others around me live “normal” lives while mine felt fractured by symptoms I couldn’t explain. Pain, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression - they all blended together into a blur that was both physical and emotional.

It wasn’t until I began naming what was happening - and fighting to be heard - that things started to change. I learned to advocate for myself. I connected the dots between my physical symptoms and my mental health. I saw how deeply intertwined they were. I researched and researched and finally found the right doctor who would listen to me fully. Not dismiss me. Not judge me. Hear me. And she began to help me understand that none of this made me lazy, or weak, or broken. It made me human.

My educational background in psychology and art therapy helped me frame my experience through a different lens. And I have spent over two years working as an Expressive Therapist, guiding others through healing - and now, I had to turn those tools inward. Self-compassion became a lifeline. So did creativity. So did acceptance.

Acceptance, for me, has been about reclaiming a life I didn’t choose, but one I’ve learned to own. It's about learning how to live with the fog, not waiting for it to clear - because it won’t. It's finding purpose in the pause, strength in the stillness, and meaning in the mess. It’s the reason FogLight exists.

I created this space because I never want anyone else to feel as alone, confused, or broken as I did during those silent years of trying to figure it all out. If you’re still searching for answers, I see you. If you’re newly diagnosed, I’ve been where you are. And if you’ve been carrying your story quietly for too long - this space is for you, too.

You are not lazy. You are not crazy. You are simply lost in a fog - but I promise you, you are not alone.

What Chronic Fatigue (or ME/CFS) Really Feels Like

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 02:17:00 -0500

Let me be clear right from the start:
Chronic fatigue is not just “being tired.”

Everyone gets tired. Tired is what you feel after a long day at work, after a poor night’s sleep, or after chasing your little ones around all afternoon. Tired has a cause and a solution. You rest, you sleep, you take a break, and eventually, your energy returns.

ME/CFS doesn’t work that way.

What I live with - and what millions of others live with - is something else entirely. It’s more like a total system crash. It’s a rewiring of how energy is produced and used in the body. And the exhaustion is just the tip of the iceberg.

It feels like your body has run a marathon at any given time of the day.
My muscles ache like I’ve overtrained. My limbs can feel heavy, shaky, and weak just from walking across a room. Some days I can’t stand for more than a few minutes without dizziness, nausea, or my heart pounding in my head. And when I push through it? I pay for it. Not hours later - days later. I have learned that this is called Post-Exertional Malaise - and it’s one of the most defining (and debilitating) symptoms of ME/CFS.

It feels like your brain has been unplugged.
There are days my thoughts won’t string together. I lose words mid-sentence, forget why I’m in a room, and stare blankly at simple tasks. The mental fog is thick. I’ve forgotten passwords at work that I’ve used since being hired. I’ve taken wrong turns on the way to the grocery store that I have frequented for years. I’ve burst into tears out of frustration and panic of not remembering where I left my keys during a frantic morning - which are in my purse, on the table, where I always leave it. This isn’t just distraction - it’s neurological shutdown, and it’s terrifying.

It feels like you're sick - constantly.
ME/CFS can make you feel like you have the flu every day of your life. Deep body aches, joint and bone pain, sore throat, chills, and full-body fatigue hit without warning. I’ve woken up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. It's like your body is fighting something invisible, all the time, and never winning.

It feels like you're not fully in your body.
There’s a strange disconnect that happens when your mind and body are both failing you. I’ve had moments where I couldn’t feel my legs properly, or where light and sound became too much for my nervous system to handle. Even sitting upright for too long can make me feel like the room is spinning. On bad days, I lie on the couch and feel like I’m dissolving into it - like my body is too heavy to hold itself up anymore.

It feels like you're losing yourself.
The longer I’ve lived with ME/CFS, the more I’ve mourned the person I used to be. The active, social, creative, ambitious, spontaneous version of me has had to be reshaped into someone who now needs to schedule rest before everything else. There’s grief in that. There’s fear. There’s shame and guilt. There’s a quiet unraveling of identity that no one really talks about. And it’s isolating - especially when you look “fine” from the outside.

But it’s also real. Valid. And worth talking about.
ME/CFS isn’t “in your head.” It’s not a mindset problem. It’s a real, complex, multi-system disease - and it can be devastating. I write about it not for pity, but for recognition. So others with this condition or other chronic illness might feel a little less invisible. So those supporting loved ones with chronic illness might better understand what they’re carrying. And so I can remind myself - and maybe you - that we’re not alone in this fog.

If this is your reality too - I see you.
Not just the tired version. But the strong version. (Two things can be true at once.) The one who keeps going. The one who learns to rest, to grieve, to adapt, to hope.

You’re not weak for feeling wrecked. You’re strong for surviving every day your body says “no,” and still finding your “yes” somewhere within.

Thank you for being here.

With rest,
Gabby