Fatigue

I read a Tweet the other day by a random stranger replying to a person who had posted about her ways of dealing with Fibro flares. The Tweet said that Fibromyalgia isn't real. It's a mental health issue. That's a common feeling among the public and even among medical professionals. Somehow people think it's all in our heads. I didn't want to be diagnosed with Fibromyalgia for that very reason. I wanted to have Lupus or something that actually has a test that says I have it.

But as with many other things in life, I can't worry about what other people think or what other people do or do not understand about me. I know what's real and what I experience. Khris said we can't let labels define us. And I don't.

For a long time I thought I had to accept my condition to move on with it. Now I try not to talk about it or use the label very often so it doesn't define me. But sometimes it comes and slaps me in the face.

I was in yoga today and I just couldn't do it. I had to roll up my mat after about 10 minutes into class and go home. I just couldn't do it. I got in the car and cried and went home.

Training has completely changed the way I experience the pain. My pain levels have decreased in ways I never imagined possible. I go out and exercise and go to yoga almost every day of the week. I'm so much happier.

Something that is harder to address and so hard to explain and so hard for people to understand is the fatigue. It's not just being tired. It's being ridiculously tired. All. The. Time. I never feel rested. Never. Ever. And then when it builds up, I can't take it anymore.

I don't have another thing in me. I don't want to move. I don't want to talk. I have to cry. My fatigue is like I'm a cellphone always on 15% right before the battery saver. I never ever get to the higher battery levels. I'm always running on the low levels.

And then sometimes I'm on the 0% and need to be on the charger for quite a while. Even after a night of sleep, I wake up at about 30% and as soon as I get ready for the day I'm at 15% again. The times when my battery turns completely off sometimes catch me off guard. I think I have a little left and all of a sudden. Boom. Gone.

I've started doing more restorative/yin yoga to try to add some slower more meditative movement to my workouts. I need to get back to reading, but my eyes are so tired, I have a hard time.

I need to try to make a more consistent sleep schedule this fall once the KBuddah gym opens and start to read and go to bed and get up at the same time and make a shower/bed time routine.

Summer is not over yet. During the last weeks of summer, I will enjoy the pool and other summertime activities and figure out some ways to work on consistency and helping my fatigue as best as I can. I'm looking forward to the gym and the yoga studio this fall and winter.

I don't really know what people mean when they say Fibro is a mental health issue, but I'm not going to entertain that. I'm just going to work with my own experience and my own coaches and healers.