Katie Miller, who has ME and Craniocervical Instability, talks about how lockdown is giving people a glimpse into her world.

The world around me feels like it is going crazy and it feels like it happened overnight.

Doctors are on the front line of a war with a virus. Emotional and heart-wrenching stories are being released from nurses in intensive care units.

Stories of shortages of protective gear are everywhere.

Also read: Teacher makes masks for care home in school tech department

The public are buying anti-viral masks. People are stealing anti-viral masks.

There is a fear of stepping outside your front door.

Many are navigating the restrictions of self-isolation and worried about how they will cope.

Whereas life for me hasn’t changed much.

Oxford Mail:

I have become increasingly more isolated over the 16 years since getting ill.

Isolation is quite common for a lot of elderly and/or sick people.

Most healthy people go about their lives; restaurants, holidays, sports clubs, etc, unaware there is a huge subset of society living an ‘underground’ life.

One in which leaving the house is an occasion, often thrilling in its rarity.

Being immunocompromised, the challenges of the coronavirus are second nature to me. Despite the stakes being higher, as it could kill me.

Read again: 'I need £80k surgery so I can eat again'

The challenges though, I am used too. I have worn an anti-viral mask for years.

I have had to learn how to deal with isolation, it was not always easy at the beginning. For many years I rebelled against being ill and paid dearly.

However, feeling rough was not much fun, so after a while I was forced to self-isolate, so that it was possible to enjoy some of my life.

After a while, I got used to self isolation. I tried not to miss things, there were so many things to miss. If I went down that path, I would lose my mind.

Instead I tried to focus on the positives and live in the moment.

Oxford Mail:

Strangely, as my life of isolation barely changes, around me everybody’s else’s lives have.

Bizarrely they are getting a window into what my life is like.

Interestingly people’s reaction to my wearing a mask has changed overnight.

I used to get looks of surprise or confusion but no one said anything.

Now people look at me with interest or compassion.

People ask me where I got it from or offer some words of condolence. Now my masks are sold out and I can’t get any.

Most people’s coronavirus self-isolation will last a matter of months.

Also read: Oxford GP launches urgent appeal for PPE

For me it could well be the rest of my life. There is of course the physical isolation, but the isolation is much more than that.

It is the looks people give you because you are wearing a mask and they think you’re strange.

It is the isolation because so many friends and family don’t fully understand.

Often, we don’t understand something until we experience it. It is the isolation because often we don’t have the energy to be social even via things like social media.

So, if you are self isolating because of the coronavirus, then try to make peace with your confinement, live in the moment, use it as an opportunity to do the things at home you have not had a chance to do.

In no time at all it will be over.

However, for me, and other chronically sick people and some elderly, this is our life you are experiencing a little of.

We live like this every day of the year and it is hard.

Ms Miller is fundraising for an £80,000 surgery to help with her condition, to donate search 'Katie Miller spinal fusion' at gofundme.com.

You can also follow her blog at katieabigailmiller.wixsite.com/website.