ISOLATION? Been there, done that
For many people the Covid-19 lockdown has been a first and unwelcome taste of social isolation and restricted movement. Not seeing friends, getting away on holiday, or heading to the shops for a bit of retail therapy has been challenging for some and traumatic for others. But it wasn’t something new for singer/ songwriter Julia Green. Having suffered with severe M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) since 2016, the 23-yearold Balerno resident is well-acquainted with feeling isolated and trapped – not for months, but for years. Julia had begun the second year of her HND in music performance at Edinburgh College when a neurologist diagnosed her M.E. Also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the illness had been affecting her increasingly for about a year. Doctors could not explain why she was experiencing migraines, pain in her legs, muscle spasms and extreme fatigue.
This was the start of Julia’s own personal lockdown. As her energy level dropped, her freedom seemed to evaporate. She was no longer able to take a bus into town, meet a friend for coffee or take a walk lasting more than 10 minutes. “I’m a foodie,” she says, “but at times I didn’t have the strength to pick up a fork.” She could sometimes watch films on her laptop, if the volume was turned down quite low – extreme sensitivity to noise and light often comes with M.E. But looking at screens exhausts her, so she had to be careful. And she had to “budget” whatever energy she did have each week, so she wouldn’t be flattened. Most of her days were spent lying on the couch. So that she could go out occasionally, her parents invested in a wheelchair.
“Have the events of 2020 and the changes we’ve all had to make sensitised us to those around us in their own personal ‘lockdown’?”
She struggled to rehearse with her band and to cope with the two-bus journey home. Eventually, after Julia collapsed at college, a lecturer convinced her to defer her studies. “I was just starting to get gigs,” she recalls. “In fact, the following year I was 16 | BALERNO
offered a contract to do nightly shows at the Edinburgh Festival, but I had to say no.”
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