Jul 30

 Last few days have been horrible.

Yesterday was the worst.

Given everyday has been a hardcore exhaustion day I decided not to even bother yesterday and planned to take it super easy and sleep a lot.

A left hand headache ghosted around the front of my head again. The same kind of headache again. I slept it off. And woke up feeling awful. Groggy. Foggy. Befuddled.

I got up anyway and decided to chew my way through it. Perhaps it was just deep sleep that needed to be waded through. Did a few very minor chores in the kitchen and then spent an hour playing games, felt steadily worse and came off to once again go back to sleep.

Some time later the headache had shifted to the right side and stepped up, a migraine threatening to break. I took some painkillers, watched some tv, it developed into an actual migraine and once again I had to go back to sleep. At this point I had been suffering all day, and now the migraine was stomping through my head and my mood tanked.

This is not living.

The past few days I have been to the very greater degree chained to my bed. Exhausted. Foggy head. Pain. All the other host of usual bullshit that I get stacked up as well that I mostly don't even bother tracking anymore.

I don't want to live like this. It's just a state of torture.

Take a breath.

This is a very minor version of what I faced at the end of 2020. Same tune. Different intensity. The words are never the same twice. But it's the same dance.

But even so.

It's not worth living. No life at all. And the realisation that the reason I retreat into sleep is because....

I stop feeling.

I often can't feel it in sleep. It makes it stop. All of it. And I get peace.

Whilst sleep is supposed to be recuperative, rest, wake better. For me at times it's just a temporary stop in feeling like shit. An oasis of not suffering surrounded by wakeful suffering.

At that point sleep moves from a restful period with light at the end of the tunnel, to merely a cessation in hostilities.

It is when you look at it, a mini death. Suicide without the heavy consequences just left to a rational call in the moment.

Give me oblivion.

Ho hum.

Yesterday in a bid to try and right myself despite the raging winds against me, I started to make some dinner in the ninja, chicken and rice, but halfway done I collapsed, the migraine raged back. And I went back to oblivion. To wake in the late evening, gone 9pm, feeling like shit and the migraine still grumbling. I got up. And finished making dinner. It now covering a span of 3 hours.

I ate. And it pushed the migraine out. I felt better. By 10pm I drew my first non suffering breath. The world had righted. I felt better. This is my life when I am bad. It takes me literally all day through false starts and gritted teeth to shake off bullshit. And in some cases, I don't even get there. And we go into the next day. And the next.

Ho hum.

My brain is desperately trying to cope.

When I come out of the suffering my head starts to fill with things to do. Oh we feel better now ! We can do the hoovering ! Do the washing up ! Think about redecorating ! It's like it doesn't even want to think about how shit we just felt. And concentrates on the positive. I mean. Well done. It's trying it's very best. But it's so weird. You get this ping pong effect from horror to relief like a rubber band pinging back into shape.

I can often get the same with a pure migraine cycle. Awful suffering if it's a bad one. Followed by a short period of a euphoric high. My god. The world is lovely. And I don't hurt ! Everything sparkles. For 45 minutes. Then fades. I don't know. But I suspect it's a storm of endorphins that have been trying to dull the pain. And when the pain goes, it takes that torrent of natural highs a little while to turn off. Just a theory.

Today, we shall see.

My sisters are due to visit on Tuesday. I had planned to spend the days in run up just tidying the house a little, but instead have been on survival mode. Nothing done. Story of my life.

I suppose I should be thankful of what I've managed to do in the month prior. Been active. And busy.

But I do very much wonder if moving Hazel about was an obvious step too far. I told her I couldn't do it. We did it anyway. I think I paid a heavy price for it. But maybe not. Maybe that's me just trying to pin a rationalisation on something that isn't connected.

It's midday today. I have woken up. My dreams have been anxious. Not cool. And mixed with the erotic. The latter really unusual for me. Another weird thing I am navigating. Whilst in the waking world my libido has dropped to zero. In my dreams, once in a while, it springs to life in a way it has never really done ever before. Perhaps its a balance thing. Perhaps it's a sign my libido isn't really dead, just heavily suppressed. And in my dreams, neglected, it sneaks back in. Curious.

I feel better today. Better than I have done in several days. Perhaps today is the day it turns around. But then I am so very used to false dawns. A period of 30 to 90 minutes where you feel ok before suddenly you crash. And feel like utter shit.

The CFS people would nod wisely at this. And say all of these patterns are foreseen. Over done it. Blown out. Now you pay the price and slowly recover. And the advice they would give is to not over do it in the first place. Navigate between the storms. You have to admit. They have the pattern right. They're either good guessers. Or they know how it behaves.

Of course. As I waste my days curled up in a ball, work rolls around, the thorn in my side. And instead of feeling like 2 days on, 5 days off. It feels like 2 days on, a haze of suffering 5 days blurred into some muddy single day. I am not getting the benefit of having time off. Other than being able to curl into a ball.

Ah well.

We shall see how today goes.