Tag: overwhelm

Tales from times of exhaustion #3 – rapidly fluctuating

Posted in chronic fatigue, Pain, patience, self-care, sensitivity, uncertaintyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Having a rubbish day.

Have left the kettle boiling away 4 times now… Kitchen is well steamed. Have no attention span what so ever. And my coordination sucks so am constantly dropping things and misjudging my movements.

Don’t have much patience with myself on a day like this. Wish I could just lie down and sleep and not be aware of anything. But if I lie down I start thinking about all sorts. Especially all the things I want or need to do but can’t. So I am up and about trying to keep myself distracted without doing too many stupid things…

Last week I was in a swamp of exhaustion. This week I am fluctuating rapidly which is frustrating to deal with. In a different way than the full on collapse. Last week I was readjusting to a massive change in ability and energy. This week I am having to constantly readjust to my fluctuating mood, fluctuating energy levels and fluctuating tolerance of my environment. I can go from feeling alright to feeling completely overwhelmed within minutes.

I want steady linear progress. I want certainty and predictability. I want to know that if I do A then I will feel like Z or C… But no. Because factor K, P, X, F, Y etc plays in. It’s a bloody mess. If I do A at one time I might feel Z but if I do it an hour later or in a different room or on a full stomach or after having done B then it affects me differently. There’s no knowing when things are going to be ok for a while and when they’ll suddenly go to pots.

I am forced to be patient with myself and deal with the here and now as it is. Whatever the here and now is at any given time.

I’ve had good days and bad days this week. Good hours and bad hours.

Bad times are annoying. But good times have their own challenges. The temptation to start doing loads and getting a bit high from relief. Where as I should be keeping a low activity level and rest as much as I do on a bad day… But the restlessness has been stored up and is overflowing. So when my energy is better I inevitably do too much and then there is a backlash. I do need to take advantage of energy ups – I need to move and socialise because it helps my overall state. But I need to pace myself. Constant trial and error.

I can’t make plans and I can’t commit to anything because I am not reliable and I don’t like disappointing people. Luckily I’ve got a friend who lives around the corner who is understanding and who I feel comfortable around even when I feel rubbish. It helps me to avoid complete isolation. Because the less I socialise the harder it gets. Socialising don’t come easy to me anyway so I have to keep practicing otherwise it just becomes this massive hurdle to get over and I have to re-train myself to be around people which can take a while.

My therapist has talked with me about a concept called ‘the window of tolerance’ which I am finding quite useful. Thinking about my fluctuating mood and energy in terms of over- and understimulation helps me accept what’s going on and readjust in more appropriate ways. Finding that space where being me feels tolerable. Where I am not understimulated (feeling low and sad) and not overstimulated (irritable and confused). My window of tolerance exapands and shrinks. Sometimes it takes nothing for me to start fluctuating. Other times I can test my limits a little bit.

Having to rest and slow down is a lot hard work…

Tales from times of exhaustion #2 – how a day might go

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Food is my focus. To eat at least 2 good meals throughout the day. But this takes a lot of planning. No energy for spontaneous creative cooking or hours of shopping and preparations. Also I have to cook things I will actually eat which can be tricky as my desire for food is diminished and changeable.

I don’t want to eat junk food – it’s tempting. Quick and comforting. But I know it will prolong my exhaustion if not make it worse. I do allow myself to have treats like ice-cream because it helps my mood. Overall I try to get vegetables and protein into my body.

Sometimes I prepare breakfast in the evening. Sometimes it works out that Rufus makes porridge and I’m up early enough to have some too. Then I don’t have to worry about eating for a couple of hours. If neither of those work out I’m likely not to eat till midday or early afternoon.

In order to have a proper evening meal I cook in intervals. Sometimes I start in the morning. I do some preparations for 20 min. Then a couple of hours later I’ll get a bit more done. My aim is to only have to do 20-30 min in the evening before we eat. On a bad day I leave the cooking to Rufus.

I try to slowly stop or lower my intake stuff I know can be straining for my body to deal with. Caffeine, sugar and dairy. One thing at a time. Caffeine is usually the easiest. Sugar and dairy I just try to minimised as much as possible without going cold turkey.

I loose my sense of time. I’ll get up between 8 and 9, figure out food in between rests and suddenly it’ll be afternoon. I try and remember if there is anything urgent I need to do or messages I need to respond to. I might get 1 or 2 things done – like a wash or some writing – before it’s time to do the last preparations for dinner. We eat around 7.30pm or 8pm and then I rest again.

Getting outside is tricky – too much going on, noises, people and bright light. It’s easier if I go with Rufus or a friend or if I have a task like getting cream from the corner shop or checking on the plants in the garden. I try and get out at least once doesn’t matter if it’s just 10 min. On a bad day I dont get out at all and I don’t always realise.

Any energy I have after sorting out food I spend on tidying and washing up. External chaos causes me anxiety and panicky feelings which are draining so I try to keep things around me as non-stimulating as possible.

Any rest I have usually means half lying down on the sofa and watching something. Something just entertaining enough to keep my mind from thinking and simple enough so I don’t need to really pay attention to follow it. I need to be in a state somewhere between distraction and low level stimulation. Too much stimulation and I have a melt down. Too distracted and I forget too many things and have a melt down.

When I’ve been still for a while it hurts like hell to get moving again. So it’s tempting to stay still. But I know its just a downward spiral of further exhaustion and pain. Too much rest creates problems too.

Figuring out what to do and how much to do is a constant puzzle. I have to try and trust my experience of having gone through this before. Because a lot of the time there is no instant effect of anything I do. No relief, no sign that it is helpful. So it’s hard to stick with what is sensible and what I believe works. Daydreams of drug induced highs or oblivion starts coming along. Dealing with physical exhaustion is as much about looking after my thoughts and feelings as it is about looking after my body.

Tales from times of exhaustion #1 – the initial readjusting

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I wish my body collapsing on me would be as intriguing as this house collapsing. But it’s really not.

 

It’s been coming and it’s understandable but it’s still frustrating and depressing. I had hoped to catch it in time and I slowed down but no luck.
I am now trying to settle in to the state of things. Readjust to the current level of tiredness, pain and cognitive limitations.
My days more or less consist of thinking of something I need to do and then forgetting it. This include basic things like eating, drinking, getting dressed or going for a pee… Then remembering it again, try and decide if I am able to do it. I usually have a time frame of 20 min of activity before I will have to rest for X amount of time…
Am still managing to get out of bed every morning which is good. Mainly because the pain means I can’t keep lying down. Silver linings…
I am not able to get outside much which makes me feel sad. Having to do as little as possible and yet just enough to keep me from getting caught in unhelpful thoughts. My main mantra is ‘you’re exhausted and that is understandable’ – cause dealing with my body collapsing also means dealing with all kinds of internalised judgemental crap that I’ve been socialised to think.
Cooking and eating are my main priorities as well as keeping my environment neat so that it doesn’t cause anxiety, overstimulation and panicky episodes.
I am having to rethink my plans for the next months. Simplify, slow down and be sensible. And worst of all ask for help with stuff and rely more on Rufus than I’m comfortable with.
Hopefully this first week will be the worst – I know I can make a difference if I just focus on food, rest and manageable movement and I’ll eventually get out of this absolutely awful sense of being caught in sand. Like when you are dreaming and you want to speak, open your eyes or move and you just can’t no matter how hard you try. Same sense of heavyness and confusion.
Then I’ll just have to wait and see how long it takes to recover to a more acceptable level of limitations…

Finding belonging, random acts of kindness and other thoughts while travelling

Posted in england, kindness, social skills, travel, wordsTagged , , , 1 Comment

Have just arrived in Gran Canaria airport and am now sitting in a bus. I think we are waiting for other passengers as there is only 4 of us so far… Plane was delayed from Liverpool so it’s now quarter to one and I haven’t had any proper food yet today… Wondering how I will find it here with my diet. When we arrive I will need to go shopping.

The flight felt long but I read my Ian Rankin book while You+me and Sia kept me company on my headphones so time passed alright. There were a lot of families on the plane going on holiday and it made the atmosphere quite friendly – even the delays didn’t seem to bother people too much. Kids were excited and parents seemed relaxed. Most marked was the lack of boozing adults.
When we were descending to land there was a fair bit of turbulence and both adults and kids where exclaiming and giggling – a mix of fear and excitement. Once we landed people got up and got ready to disembark, then after 5 minutes we were told to sit down again as the plane needed to move. People quickly did as told and the plane started moving only to stop after 10 metres. Comments and laughs erupted but our troubles were not yet over. Shortly after we had been allowed to disembark we were suddenly at a stand still again and after a while we were told over the speakers that we would have to be patient as there were no busses available. Still I heard none of the usual disgruntled remarks and complaints that I was half expecting. I thought to myself that British people aren’t half bad, really.

While travelling and living in England I have struggled at times to decipher dry English humour, the reading between the lines and the endless politeness that seems like a protective glaze burned into most people behaviours. I am still learning and trying to understand, sometimes feeling alien and despairing. It reminds me of being in my teens and early twenties when I really felt confounded by all the unspoken social rules in Denmark which it seemed everybody but me had grasped. Now in my early thirties I am having to learn a new set of social rules and skills.
In Denmark it felt painful because I thought I should be feeling some sense of belonging, I couldn’t understand why I felt like such an outsider and had to work so hard to be part of things. At least in England the feeling of being an outsider is relevant but also I am far from the only one. The diversity almost makes outsiders the norm…
Even though social life is a tough nut for me to crack it is also in England I have had the most experiences of random kindness from strangers. The most recent from last night. Yesterday didn’t go as planned at all – Thursday I thought I had it all under control and just needed to do some potting and planting before catching the train to Liverpool to stay the night. I had even packed everything. So ready to wind down and just ease in to my holiday time. But Friday ended up being a nightmare – suddenly I had to sort out loads of stuff and reschedule plans for later in April. Feeling completely overwhelmed my head started shutting down. It took hours to get everything sorted and eventually I left home a lot later than I had hoped.
I arrived at my accommodation at 9pm feeling miserable and ready to have my third cry of the day. But the guy greeting me had other plans; he made me a cuppa, got me to sit down and chatted with me for about 20 minutes, telling me stories from his time in the army and encounters with Danish (drinking) culture. Even though it was just small talk it cheered me up massively and I felt much more grounded and optimistic about my holiday.

I felt grateful and was reminded of other times where I have been met with kind friendliness at unexpected times in a british society that has a certain roughness to it. But it seems that  hardship can awaken awareness and in harsh conditions gentleness can still thrive – maybe it becomes more vital and one feels it so much more. The pain of life is so present in England and it continues to open my heart; I keep falling in love with the jarring contrasts.

But for now I will be taking a break from everything 🌞

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