"I'm going to keep being stubborn"

Meet Michelle O'Connor, senior copywriter and avid runner in today's edition of New Year, Same Me.

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Jan 18, 2024

How can you plan for a new year when you don’t even know how you will feel tomorrow?

This is a notion that’s true for all of us, not least for those of us living with physical and/or mental health diagnoses.

As you probably know by now, I have been writing a series called New Year, Same Me, where I take a moment to appreciate how things are now during a month that we’re so commonly made to feel like not enough.

The new year rhetoric is littered with a shame/guilt cycle that makes even the strongest of us start to believe we should make lifestyle changes after over-indulging or ‘letting it go’ over the festive period.

We are organic beings. We can’t always stick rigidly to a plan; that’s just not how humans work. I have written in the past about how getting sick with a cold can knock me mentally, because I get so frustrated with my inability to do anything useful.

With that in mind, this time of year is a particularly tricky one for those with chronic illnesses. When your energy levels are unpredictable, and you don’t know whether you have enough spoons to do your basic tasks, the last thing you need is a tirade of ‘motivational’ content coming at you from your phone.

One of my most popular newsletters from last year was the one where I asked my husband Craig to write about his experience with being diagnosed with ADHD at 29 and how this impacts his daily life now. He explored his perception of his past, having been raised with the idea that his inability to do things in a typical way was simply “laziness” and something that was within his own control.

Conversations By The Sea

ADHD is not a superpower

This week’s newsletter is a guest post written by my husband and business partner, Craig Boyle. I asked him to write about his experience with ADHD and the current medication shortage, as well as how the condition is portrayed online. As Craig’s wife and partner for over a decade, ADHD is a big part of my life. However I don’t think it’s my place to wri…

a year ago · 13 likes · 26 comments · Ellen Kate Boyle

I could write about my own experiences until the cows come home, but I am only one person. This newsletter is about mental health for the chronically online, and I want to explore these subjects from different angles - so that’s why I have invited a few people to participate in interviews.

Over the coming months, my usual personal essays will be interspersed with Q&As highlighting someone whom I have specifically chosen to share their thoughts on a certain topic.

Today, I am very excited to share this interview with

Michelle | Specky Scribbler

, a fellow copywriter (and running enthusiast) who was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune condition in 2022 and faced additional health struggles in 2023 - all while working on some big projects and setting herself some pretty impressive fitness challenges.

Let’s get into it.

For readers unfamiliar with you, give us an intro about who you are and what you do.

I'm Michelle O'Connor and I'm a senior copywriter and brand voice consultant. I'm Irish, living in Edinburgh and I work with fintech brands and youth and women's charities.

Are you the sort of person to set New Year's resolutions, or do you have another approach you'd like to share?

I don't really set them because I end up in a cycle of guilt and shame when I set resolutions and then fail. This is because I hate anything that's enforced or feels like a chore, no matter how much I love the thing. But, I always use the festive period to reflect on the year gone by and see what I might like to do in the year ahead.

Last year, you did some pretty awesome running challenges, including a 10K and 33km in September. What people might not realise is that these physical feats were coinciding with health struggles that revealed a chronic illness. Has your diagnosis changed your perspective on exercise and fitness in general? Are you still working out for the same reasons, or have you seen a shift in your motivation to stay fit?

I'm a really stubborn person, and when I was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune condition in September 2022, I ignored it and thought, "Ah it'll be fine, sure I've been sick for a while without knowing." This reaction is probably because I was told my diagnosis while coming around from sedation and then just sent away home with a little brochure and a prescription. So I just went about my life, including training for and running my best-ever 10K race in March 2023.

But by May, I started getting more symptoms and feeling more tired than usual. I put it all down to general life and work woes (I was working on a really challenging project), and the fact that my condition is often concurrent with chronic fatigue. My symptoms were 'mild' and weren't impacting me too much, so I ploughed on. I had stopped running because I always, always stop running after I do a race. I told myself it was too hot in summer, so I just didn't bother.

Then, in September, I decided to run 33km in the month - one kilometre for every year of life I've had. And it was awful. I mean, it's rougher than even the first time I did CouchTo5K. I couldn't run for more than 3 minutes without stopping. My whole body felt like lead. I assumed I was just very, very unfit… then I went for a blood test in October and found out I had only 2/3 of the haemoglobin in my body that I was supposed to. I was classified as clinically 'severely anaemic'.

In brief: when you're anaemic, your body doesn't have enough red blood cells and red blood cells carry oxygen all over your body. Hence why I was exceptionally out of breath while running on, essentially, empty.

When I was in my 20s, I was 'skinny', but I was surviving on a diet of caffeine, cigarettes, and panic attacks, and I couldn't even jog lightly for the bus. Now, I'm heavier, but I can scale a rope to the ceiling of a warehouse (I also do aerial ropes) and I can run when I want and need to.

My diagnosis has come with lots of changes, and one of those is a massive shift in my diet, so a lot of 'healthy' foods are off the cards for me because I can't tolerate most fruits and vegetables. My focus now is on staying active and getting my heart healthier. Depending on my energy levels, I'll either walk or jog or do some weights. And definitely, more often than not, on a Thursday evening, I'll travel across Edinburgh to my aerials class. It's all about sustainability, without pressure.

Health is one thing I still think many people take for granted. In your experience of living with a chronic condition, have you felt pressure to set and achieve goals like everyone else?

From the outside, I look healthy. But my body is constantly attacking itself, which means I'm using up energy by just existing. This makes it really hard to plan things because if I have grand plans that are rigid and immovable, I might not make them if I'm floored by fatigue. So instead, I have vague ideas of things I'd like to do, and working towards them, one teeny tiny step at a time is enough.

Selfie of Ellen Craig, Michelle and Daire

Me, Craig, Michelle & partner

Daire O S

(who also has a Substack:
Beard Trimmings
) on one of our many visits to Edinburgh

At the end of 2023, it felt like everyone had a huge list of achievements, but many of us simply celebrated surviving a very difficult year. With that in mind, have you developed any coping mechanisms for when it feels like everyone is doing something and you can barely do anything?

Comparison is the enemy of contentment.

When I was going through counselling back in 2018, during a period of intense anxiety and depression, my counsellor told me to keep a notebook of achievements. She told me anything is an achievement. Getting out of bed and getting dressed is an achievement.

And finally, this series is called New Year, Same Me, so I have to ask - what's one thing you love about yourself that you will be keeping the same in 2024 and beyond?

I love that I'm stubborn; it can come in really handy! It means that when I put my mind to something, I tend to achieve it, so I'm going to keep being stubborn.

To hear more from Michelle, subscribe to her newsletter below.

Final thoughts

Reflecting on Michelle’s responses, I think it’s important to note the non-linear journey of chronic illnesses and how it’s not as simple as pre and post-diagnosis. Michelle’s diagnosis in 2022 was one episode, but the associated experiences with anaemia and other issues have taken her on a journey of learning as she gets to grips with what her body can manage on any given day, week or month.

I also love her point about skinny ≠ healthy and how finding what works for us isn’t quite as easy as looking in the mirror. In fact, society has led us down a dangerous path that celebrates certain body types, often to the detriment of our well-being.

There’s a lot to think about here, and I hope I got your cogs turning this cold Thursday morning. Keep reading to see my favourite offline activities for the week, and I’ll see you all next week for another instalment in my New Year, Same Me series.

If this post sparked anything, leave a comment below.