As I continue on my journey as a book and personal development coach, I feel that for you to be able to trust me with your stories, you need to know I trust you with mine.
Each of us consists of thousands of different stories, millions. Today I tell you about the one that has shaped every part of me and my life.
When I was 14 years old and thinking about how to make my dreams for my life come true, I got sick from a virus. Where most people recovered, I never did. The virus that turned into a chronic illness tentatively diagnosed as myalgic encephalomyalitis has dictated my life ever since.
In the years that followed, I went from being a girl who was full of potential to a shell of a teenager feeling insignificant and hopeless. Disbelief and mistrust came my way everywhere I turned. It led to dashed hopes. Broken dreams. Medical gaslighting. Cut-off friendships. Not to mention fatigue, physical pain and other assorted symptoms.
Having lost so much along the road of invisible illness, I turned back to stories.
During my early childhood, books had always been by my side. However during my adolescence, school took over and while I could still be found in the library all day it was now to do my homework; not to read fiction.
Until I got sick and I rediscovered my love of books. It was then that I made new friends. Although they were fictional, they were always there for me when I needed to be comforted. My fictional friends never got angry with me over another cancelled birthday party. They offered a safe space when reality did not.
These stories also taught me a lot. About life, love, friendships, good and evil and history. They stimulated my imagination and provided a safe haven for me to escape to. They formed a world where life made sense, friendships lasted and endings were mostly happy.
Stories have been an important part of my life since. They still teach me about life, love and humanity. They still provide me the safe space to be myself.
But for a while now I no longer see stories as the escapism they once seemed to me, as the escapism I needed them to be. Now, I see these stories I read as mirrors, reflecting reality back at me. As life has continued to throw its challenges my way, as it will have done you, stories have remained there to make sense of a world that often doesn’t seem to make much sense at all.
After years of downward spiralling after graduating from the University of Groningen with degrees in English and Journalism into worsening illness, anxiety and depression, I was slapped in the face by a website that has ended up changing my life. The opportunity that website offered, namely to become a certified book coach through Author Accelerator, was a flashing red ‘YES!’ sign.
After losing any sense of purpose in life, experiencing loneliness throughout countless days spent alone and feeling a deep loss of hope for better days, a bright yellow torchlight suddenly shone straight into my face, guiding me out of the downward spiral further into darkness and instead into hope.
I discovered a new purpose for myself. A perfect fit for all the life experience I had gained through being sick combined with my love of stories and passion for storytelling.
I now get to be part of the creation of the stories that have meant so much to me in my life. To me there is no greater purpose to devote my working life to.
I get to help writers write what lays deep within their hearts.
I get to be part of the journey of a fellow human as a creator, as a writer and as a storyteller.
I get to help writers tell stories, stories in which marginalised people like me, being chronically ill, can see themselves. I now also get to help spoonies (re)find a sense of purpose, fulfilment and joy.
I hope you join me on this wild adventure, whether as a casual onlooker, a fellow book coach or as a writer.
Let’s together create stories from our hearts, real and fictional ones!
x Sandra
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Oh Sandra, thank you for sharing so openly, so beautifully. I am so pleased I get to be on this journey — as a writer and as a spoonie — with you.