With my partner George

Similarly, I seem to have sprouted all this wonderful self-confidence. I’ve brazenly told friends and writer colleagues that my new novel is excellent. And it bloody well is!

Only I wouldn’t have been able to see that before, let alone say it. I’ve also started to like what I see when I look in the mirror and I’ve lost that feeling of inadequacy when meeting new people. I just march in as myself – lovely, funny, stupid, flawed and brilliant, and people like me. Just as I am. Who knew?

The only problem with my new modus operandi is that I sometimes find myself wanting to cure everyone. It’s odd when people write to me via my website or social media, telling me about how they’ve struggled with ME for fifteen years but don’t think that my recovery would work for them.

While they of course have my deepest, most genuine sympathy – I know how life-sappingly awful ME is – I sometimes want to say, what part of ‘I got completely well in three days’ doesn’t appeal to you? Why are you not biting off my hand for more information?

But we all have our different paths. I am not here to judge. As I said before, I thought it sounded like a load of bunkum until I got desperate enough to try it.

And of course there’s been the realisation that people don’t always like happiness. Someone commented on an article I wrote recently, saying that she hoped my stupid fake little bubble would burst soon. Others wrote that I sounded like a ‘smug tw*t.’

I let it sting me for a few minutes and then I remembered I had a choice.

I chose happy. And I’m going to keep on choosing happy, every day, because it’s so much better than any of the alternatives. I learned the hard way how precious my life is and I don’t intend to squander that gift one single day more.

Words: Lucy Robinson

'I choose happy; it's so much better than the alternative' one writer on how a devastating illness changed her outlook forever