It's Not Always So Complicated (Even Though We Think It Is)...

I've had a tough few days - the culminating result of doing a little too much somewhere along the line. Two nights ago I woke up at approximately 12 am, covered in sweat and burning up. I haven’t had a night of fevers in quite a while – and this was one of the most prominent features of my CFS/ME symptoms in the early days. It scared me somewhat, as it's almost an instantaneous reaction to think that you're going to end up right back where you were in your worst moments. Like most of you, my worst CFS/ME times are not ones that I would like to relive... ever.

I suppose what scares me the most about it, is that – at least at the moment – I feel okay. I mean, the headaches are back, the heavy limbs, the unrefreshing sleep, the night time fevers and sweats, the ‘tingling’ in my body, and today, a little of that inflamed feeling I mentioned in an earlier post. But I still consider myself okay. Is that because I’m used to these types of symptoms and have hardened up to them, or is it because they’re not that bad? I haven’t felt like I’ve pushed myself too far – so my question to myself is, am I pushing too hard and not even recognizing it because I’ve become accustomed to the CFS/ME symptoms?

I did as I had planned. I stayed in bed. I didn’t exercise. I tried to chill out. It was a long, boring day. And it didn’t help my spirits very much.  The following day, I could feel my spirit wavering as I began to acknowledge that just one day was not going to make this go away – I was kidding myself. 

The thing about times like these, is that they are often a time for reflection. We begin to think about what went wrong, and what we need to do to make it better. It's almost like a forced recalculation on a flight path. And this is something that everyone should be doing on a regular basis, but it's easy in our everyday lives to forget about it, and to forget its significance.

So there I sat in my bed once again, with my breakfast of boiled eggs and gluten free toast, and a teacup of green tea with jasmine… two reference books and a laptop at my side… waiting for my aha moment, my revelation, to hit me. I exhausted myself thinking, and then finally - when I felt like my brain was jelly and was considering going to sleep for a bit - I understood. It was but a whisper in my mind, so quiet that I couldn't have possibly heard it for all my 'thinking'. 

So what did I learn from this? 

Sometimes the answers don't come from indepth, emotionally & cognitively draining contemplation - sometimes they're not as complicated as we tend to think they are. Sometimes you just have to be quiet and the answer will come to you. We try so hard to seek answers all the time - to know all the why's, and all the how's... 

What I believe is my 'answer', was so much more simple, and so much less draining. You see, I sat there, driving my way through my schedule, thinking about every action, every meeting, every bit of work or play that I had participated in. I analysed it over and over, looking for that moment that I could pinpoint as being the cause of my minor relapse. And by doing that - by getting so caught up in the minutia of my days - I completely missed the bigger picture. Just before I fell asleep, my final thought was "it was all too much". 

I woke up a good couple of hours later, having had time to digest this in my sleep. I asked myself "what does that even mean? I mean... duh!... of course I did too much!"... [insert the type of silence that would allow you to hear a pin drop]. It was that simple. It was all too much. It was't that any one activity had been too demanding, or that I overdid any one activity. It was that the culmination of what I had done was too much in and of itself. Between work, holiday goals that I had, trying to catch up with friends, preparing for an upcoming trip, getting myself organised and ready for the upcoming new semester, spending a lot of time with my beautiful Godchildren... it was all just simply too much in sheer quantity. 

My usual self-assigned "Offline Days" (which I will explain in a future post) had fallen to the wayside, and whilst I was balancing physical activity and physical rest, the volume of work I felt I had to get done meant that those physical rests were rarely mental rests. Notice I said "the volume of work I felt I had to get done"? My list for my holiday break from university is pathetic. It has 24 items, ranging from washing the car to complete reorganisation of my home, to technology 'clean ups'. And although I told myself I wasn't forcing myself to do all of them, it was just a 'desire' list, I had actually been doing all I could to power through it and get as much of it done as possible. In fact, I'd managed to complete 16 of those items. Then go ahead and add the fact that I'd embarked on an exercise regime.

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? I've read so much recently on using your time to the best that you can - not necessarily filling it up entirely so that you burn out, but doing things with your time that mean something to you, and will give you a sense of satisfaction. The whole point of this train of thought, is that people have more time available to do the things they want than they actually realise. Nobody should really be saying "I don't have time for that".

One of the activities involved looking at your week in terms of hours, and then dedicating set hours to each activity that you felt deserved your precious time. And here's where I failed. I allowed a decent amount of hours to sleep, and then I assigned times to each of my personally qualified activities (study, some form of exercise, cooking/housework, work, reading for enjoyment, spending time with family/friends, etc). But what I didn't do, was think about the fact that, even though I'd allocated ample time to perform/complete the activity... I still need my downtime... and I still have to account for a slower pace than the average person. 

As an example, as part of my 168 hours, I allotted 35 hours per week to my studies, which is all well and good... EXCEPT 35 hours is what I realistically need to keep up with the demands of university - that's the amount of WORKING TIME I need. What I failed to consider, is that I can't just sit down for 35 hours in the week. I will need rest breaks (even for short study sessions of 2 hours). Taking this into consideration, my 35 hours, should realistically be somewhere around 44 hours (giving myself a 30 min break for every 2 hours of study). My hopeful 2 hours of weekly exercise (30 mins x 3-4) needs to be assigned probably an extra hour for each session in order to allow me ample rest. All of a sudden, my mere 2 hour allotment  becomes more realistically 6 hours. It's with this realisation that I can now see the pressure that I've put myself under, and it's reasonable to conclude that this could very well be the underlying cause of my recent downturn (of course with other factors involved aswell).

So, I ask, how often do you reflect on your life, your actions, your plans and how they impact on your CFS/ME or other chronic illness management? Is it time to take a closer look?