The treatment of Lyme Disease patients is a scandal. Modern medicine has failed sufferers, and failed them miserably - perhaps even willfully. There is something utterly unfathomable about the way the authorities, the CDC and health services around the world treat us. It's supervised neglect to say the very least. Duly, there's an unparalleled cognitive dissonance engulfing most Lyme Disease sufferers... yet still a defiance and a heroism in the face of adversity. We must protest! My first protest will be recover. My second protest will to to write this book - 'IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD!!??'

There are few Lyme patients who haven't heard this utterance - usually from the mouth of some ill-informed doctor or specialist. The irony is not lost on any of us. Yes... it is in our heads. Tick-borne infections reach the brain in many cases.

Again, the treatment of Lyme Disease patients is a scandal; but where the scandal intensifies into nothing short of a human-rights violation is when Lyme patients are pathologized mentally for 'believing in an imaginary illness.' This is beyond unacceptable. This happened to me. A 'nightmare' wouldn't even begin to describe it. I'm far from the only person this has happened to. It's time to speak up. This is what I'm doing. I hope you can help with a small donation towards funding illustrations that will make my account / graphic novella even more powerful. I'm aware a few other books have been written from the first-person perspective, but that's no reason for another not to join the ranks. Especially as mine will have a very important and specific focus...

ABOUT ME - STUART ALEC - THE AUTHOR OF "IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD"

I used to be a reasonably successful filmmaker but this disease has pulled the plug on that for now - mostly because of the fatigue and for the fact that my eyesight is badly affected. While I'm moving through the long, laborious journey of recovery, I've turned to writing as a way of expressing myself creatively. The first draught of my very first novel, 'The Greendon Palace', is already attached to an agent, which is exciting stuff. It by no means guarantees a book deal, but she's confident. So, we'll see about that!

My current project though, "IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD!!??', is a novella. It will be a first-person, narrative account of my own experience - suffering from this complicated and grueling disease. Some pretty terrible things happened to me by virtue of my dealings with the health services. 'Terrible' actually might be the understatement of the millenium.

What I will be writing about, as much as the condition itself, will be how I was systematically treated like a delusional mental-patient to the point that I was sectioned, ironically while immobilised and being pumped full of ceftriaxone in a conventional hospital, for believing in an imaginary illness. It's taken me years to process how this could be; but recent, revelatory findings have finally made sense of this madness and it's time to speakout. I posted on various Lyme forums about a year ago regarding this, and was shocked at how many others had suffered similar treatment. Trauma piled onto trauma. The world needs to know. This is an outrage of the highest order.

So yes, like all those chronically ill with tick borne diseases, I'm furious and I want to express my anger. More importantly though, I'm sure it will be another tool in our toolkit towards spreading awareness about the awful situation many of us find ourselves in. It'll be pretty stiff reading of course - there'll be no getting around that. I want to write about the Kafkaesque experience contracting a serious disease and juxtapose this against the the unfathomable, unsympathetic and downright brutal response from authorities and the medical world in most countries.

I want to stress, this would not in any way be a vanity project, or woe-is-me tale. I'll be sure to express many of my experiences are universal. Alongside campaigning, there's a power to be wielded in an articulate, first-person narrative that reflects the multi-faceted obstacles and horrors a person afflicted with Lyme can often face.

It will be dark. But It'll end on a positive note - that there's more than hope for recovery for all of us. It will also focus on the kindness and solidarity of our community!

Writing it'll be the easy part. What I feel will strengthen it will be the mages I'd like to use throughout the book as well as the cover. image.

I've teamed with an extremely talented ex-Disney artist, who can produce exactly the sort of images that will suit such a piece; but since I'm struggling to make ends meet while paying for my own antibiotics, I'm hoping to crowd-fund the amount needed.

The images attached are from a separate project, but give an indication of how this artist is able to reduce work that will really suit the Kafkaesque take on the story.

I will make no profit from the book. I'll either sell it at cost of production or add profit to donate to Lyme charities.

If... no, WHEN I get a book deal, lol - this should add some clout to the project too.

Best wishes to all fellow Lyme sufferers and our dear allies.

In Solidarity - Alec, or 'Stoo' to my friends