Chug Chug Splutter
I’ve had a somewhat productive couple of days. We’ve made some progress on organizing house things, I’ve done some cleaning and baking, and that’s been satisfying. But then, today feels like I’ve gotten nothing done due to clingy baby, I’m exhausted, and I’ve had a fair amount of irritability lately. I’m hella irritated right now because I direly wanted to try to get caught up on actual work today, and that didn’t happen. Maybe I’ve gone too long without enough alone time and just haven’t noticed. I had both kids at home yesterday since it’s midterm. Lilbit went to holiday club today, but still. People in space, and right now I am feeling so filled to the top that I am half considering going upstairs and slamming the door behind. Maybe I should try taking a bath…
Ah yes, that seems to have helped. You guys know how it is — you suddenly go from okay to not okay like a switch with no real gradient. I’m grateful that we have a bit of space here so that I CAN go off and sort of be alone. It’s not great, ’cause British houses are super-tiny. I fairly recently had a friend in the States tell me I wasn’t permitted to complain about how small my house was because his condo is only 2,000 square feet… which is um… about two and a half times the size of our house, where he lived alone, and we live as four. He shut up after I pointed out the size disparity, but still. This house is about 20% bigger than our previous one, and is divided in ways that one can get a bit of space to themselves. So it was nice to be able to engage in such self-care for a bit… when I remember it’s an option!
One thing that I have noticed lately is that I’m recovering a lot faster from moments of stress. The worst of them still annoying piggyback onto when my husband is feeling wretched, but at least I’m not a total wreck all the time now. I think that gives him hope. Certainly, I feel that our communication is getting better about how we are feeling, and that we’re slowly getting better at helping each other out (which is to say, I’m getting better at helping him out; he’s always been fabulous and then some).
Past that, the chronic fatigue continues to reign supreme. I thought about going for a walk today because the weather looked nice, but the thought alone was too exhausting. Even if I’m used to it because it’s chronic, it still is stressful and upsetting. I mean, I’m still in a good mood on the whole, but as the start of this post shows, it doesn’t take a lot to upset the balance when there’s not a lot holding it to center. But at least for today, we’re on the downhill slope of the day, so all should be well.
And speaking of well, hope all of you guys out there are doing okay.
<3
Glad to hear that you had a few good days there and that you’re recovering more quickly from stressful moments! That’s tremendously positive. It’s also inspiring to read how you utilized self-care to create an “attitude readjustment”!
I have a close friend with chronic fatigue – she lives far away from me. Do you mind my asking what has helped you with it – no pressure to share, but I thought I’d put it out there.
It’s good to hear from you and I admire you for juggling so many things and remaining productive in spite of the chronic fatigue!!!
take care,
Dyane
I actually have moments of extreme bitterness because there really isn’t much you CAN do. The NHS guidance, for example:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Chronic-fatigue-syndrome/Pages/Treatment.aspx
Includes therapy to help you accept you can’t do anything (um, don’t need therapy for that), graded exercise therapy (not sure how the fuck that’s supposed to help when there is no energy to build on), and activity management. I do not know anyone with chronic fatigue who doesn’t already know how to horde and carefully use their spoons.
My fightback, really, is being really good at doing things at my desk. I craft, I write, I game, I half-assedly make art. I manage chores as possible, but I have days where nothing gets done. Physical energy aside, there’s also often a huge brain fog factor, which is brutal on cognitive functioning.
Having said that, I am fairly sure mine is due to endometriosis. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to get doctors to take that seriously, since it requires a laparoscopy to diagnose. -__- For now, I’m just glad to be not pregnant, because that made things a looooooot worse. You’re supposedly supposed to get a reprieve from endometriosis/chronic fatigue when pregnant, but nope, not this time.
I’m impressed and inspired that you are able to juggle so much and still keep it together despite the difficulty.
BTW, you’ll notice that suddenly I’m able to read your blog again. I don’t know why, but I’m very happy I can.
Hooray, glad that it’s working now! And well… I’m glad that I’m hanging on. I’m still likely to ask my doctor if she’ll consider upping my meds a bit though when I see her in a few weeks.
I, like Dyane, am glad to hear that you are rebounding from stress more readily. Is it challenging to untangle symptoms of chronic fatigue with symptoms of bipolar depression? As to endometriosis, I was diagnosed with fibroids using laparoscopy. Fibriods mostly cause pain. Luckily now that I am menopausal, I am not so bothered by them. Diagnosis of fibroids was preferable to diagnosis of malignant tumors.
The combination of chronic fatigue and bipolar has its moments of sheer brutality. A week or two ago I had really bad brain fog because of both, and I just wanted to shut down and avoid the world. Doesn’t work so well with children, obviously, but my husband conspired to let me get a bit more sleep and that helped a tiny bit.
As for depression versus fatigue… the former probably does make the latter worse in ways I haven’t quite fathomed. They’ve both been constants for so long that I’ve gotten used to them, yanno? Having said that, I know that depression tends to be worse when I get bored or antsy//feel like I’m in a rut. My meds have done a pretty good job of keeping me above that point though.
I’m glad to hear that your meds help somewhat. Parenting while extremely fatigued whether it be due to chronic fatigue or to depression, is difficult. Sending you (((hugs))) and keeping you in my thoughts (and prayers).
I commiserate with you on the size of British homes. I was particularly annoyed with the Australian that told me her place was too tiny (yet she had a dedicated laundry room, a study and two bedrooms both with bathrooms, as well as kitchen, dining area and lounge with no single room smaller than 150 square feet) for a single person. When I first moved out of my marital home, I had a studio flat, with the grand floor space of 320 square feet total! I got very creative with shelving for storage purposes. Even now, it boggles me that when I visit AZ, I often get a bedroom and closet bigger than an entire floor of my house in the UK…
Pretty much. My studio flat before I moved here was something like 480 square feet; our previous house was, by my estimate, around 682 for what was a rather spacious 2-bedroom maisonette (though our lounge was about the size of my bedroom in the house I lived in before joining the Air Force). And truly, I am mainly fine with the smallness, but it was definitely stressful when I needed a quiet spot and there was a lack. As it were, we’ve even managed to make an airlock room if we need full-on quiet! We put a proper security door between the kitchen and the study, so that means we can shut that off if need be.