Living With Chronic Fatigue — Laura The Explaura

Each night I would take a scoop of ‘black seed’ which I bought from Morocco with a glass of milk. The scientific name is Nigella Sativa. It helped calmed my nerves, as I found if I was stressed or anxious about anything, it would kill my body. I couldn’t move for days. With chronic fatigue, mental exhaustion affects you just as bad as physical exercise. So, you need to do your best to get rid of all stress in your life. I wrote a list of things stressing me and either tried to get eradicate them or worked on ways of not letting it get to me.

Being tired after exercise is terrible and puts you off doing any exercise. I basically stopped all exercise because even if I did one hour of exercise, the next day I would not be able to get out of bed. I had to give up kickboxing, which I had been training with my sister, for over six years. I had nothing to give anymore.

My doctors’ tips to help with depression and chronic fatigue was to get back to doing some small exercise at least three to four times a week. He suggested going for a ten-minute slow walk each day. But to not push myself and listen to my body so when I felt tired, turn back. Getting outside is good and will help with depression. But do only what your body can handle. You have to stop and think that by trying to push past the exhaustion only means you end up paying for it the next day, and probably the day after. My boyfriend at the time would wash my hair for me, and often force-feed me as I didn’t often have the energy to open my mouth. The simple act of climbing stairs was exhausting, rolling over in bed hurt or reaching my arms up to hang the washing out was just as bad. It sounds pretty extreme, it was. I don’t wish it on anyone.

My young nephews knew I was not well so I would sit down to play with them or only run one lap of the backyard rather than ten times with them. Even after walking around in work boots meant I did not have enough energy to even push the accelerator in the car to drive home. I should have pulled over and let someone else drive but my pride got in the way. It was a constant act of making out I was fine. I was pretty stubborn.

Chronic fatigue also affects your memory. It goes. Before, I could remember everything, I had a great memory. But with fatigue everything is a fog, nothing is retained. Having depression doesn’t help that either.

Sleeping was all I did for the majority of the five years. I was in the fortunate position I could take three of the five years off work, without pay, so I could rest when I needed to. I was fortunate to have a family who would look out for me and continue to look out for me. Some days I would be right and just have an afternoon nap, some days I could barely have breakfast before crawling back to bed for two hours, most nights I was in bed by six. I barely went out at night as I just had no energy even to talk. I had the luxury though of having no one depend on me so I could sleep when I felt tired. I can’t imagine what it is like having children that need you and feeling like you have nothing to give.

My biggest advice for people, unfortunately, suffering from chronic fatigue is to listen to your body. When your body is tired, stop, don’t keep pushing yourself. I didn’t stop and that’s why it took me a good five years to heal. The more you listen to your body, the quicker your body will repair.

It was really out of character for me to sleep lots or even to sleep in but my family tried to be quiet and didn’t give me a hard time if I needed to sleep. It was a personal struggle though because I didn’t want people to think I was lazy so I often tried to make it look like I was fine and not in any pain at all. No one can see how tired your muscles are or that your feet just won’t move.

I don’t begrudge having chronic fatigue. It was one of the hardest periods of my life but it obviously came because I had hard lessons to learn about the way I was living. Pushing yourself constantly and beyond your capacity is not a healthy way to live. My life now is very different from life prior to chronic fatigue and is definitely for the best. A simple and slow life is much more enjoyable.

Originally published at https://www.laurathexplaura.com on November 24, 2020.