Relationship Headache

From Tumbling Rams SLMeredith

We are two entirely different people to the ones yesterday.The ostensible reason is CFIDS. Perhaps it isn’t that so much as how our roles necessarily change and uncharted limitations are stretched.

After a happy week of feeling above CFIDS – the familiar creeping pains and fogs are crowding the skull like a pouring tap of trampling rams. My strengths simmer beneath and my faults rise to the surface - Irritability leading the pack.   I accept help ungraciously  but hastily change tack as I notice my reflection as a cantankerous old man. I endeavour to communicate. I explain that I feel like I have a tiny person inside screaming and pushing against this coffin of a lumbering body. Al surprises me with her patience and understanding (again) and reminds me that perhaps that body has something to teach me. The body is as much me as my will that bounces around trying to beat against it. I feel better quickly and cease to wriggle from the inside.

Most of us will have to deal with these kinds of frustrations as we get older and we are lucky in a way, to have to start now. Al and I are both building new parts of ourselves. I am not known for accepting help and Al is independent and fast-paced. I am genuinely in awe of how she rises to these challenges though we agree that it makes no difference who is in what seat; we could well be swapping over in the future. We are on a long road but - as commonwealth citizens hanging on for a royal telegram - we have have seventy years to get there...

Feeling Hyper with CFIDS/CFS/ME

I am well – perhaps steering close to hyper - today. I have been a lot better for over a week with only a piece of the weekend finding me feeling particularly ‘CFS-y’. I watch myself now swiftly dissociate from the illness. I am acting exactly as I said in my first entry

My head remains foggy and the muscles are heavier than they used to be, but I feel sharper and excited to engage with people. I am contentedly tapping away at my computer. I have been working today on a work project and went to work at a Charity Call Centre last night to earn some extra cash. I am also making study plans and mapping out a yoga course to teach in the future. I am thinking of all the things I can do with this brain that's polishing off its rust and grime. There is a rising but - as of yet - targetless anger saying ‘which bastard kept me down’? Sigh. It’s a long way to Nirvana.

'CFIDS Sophie' wrote:

"Inevitably, very soon after the outburst, I am forced to remember with a crash just what CFS is and I lie here with the consequences of having been reckless enough to have behaved like…a normal person.: "

Sophie today thinks inevitable is an irresponsible and defeatist word. Will I be proved wrong? The evidence is stacked against me. I suppose this is human nature. We always forget and it helps us get on with the show, but it also reduces our empathy. I am doing a six week online CFIDS course (http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org/online-courses) with some fabulous people but hearing their stories and even reading mine from a few weeks ago, I don’t feel like I understand so well, already.

I can see here, in theory, that I am a clear push-crash cycler. So, this is my new test of pacing myself while I feel well. It is also a test to understand how my body and mind are linked. When my symptoms are much worse, I am forced to remember. When I am able to hush my body because it gets my mind where it wants to go it takes discipline to listen to it and respect it. That discipline is fueled by a conscious effort to understand beyond the narrow periphery of my ego and this blog is already helping out with that.

I am choosing today to practice a lesson in intervention. I am intervening in a clear cycle and proving inevitability wrong: I am off to meditate the manic away.