Jan 1

It is perhaps fitting that my literal first experience of 2026 was CFS related severe pain and body exhaustion. The all over submersion into the pool of acid. Every muscle squealing. This was my immediate thought on groggily coming to just before and during the New Years fireworks popping off. How apt my first 2026 moments where. Start. As you mean to fucking go on. But. How did we get here. 

 Yesterday I took the car to the garage to see if they could figure out its intermittent - probably wiring - fault.

Whilst I had an attempt at resetting my hours, doing this is very hard for me, and I ended up with a halfway compromise of resting more, but, still fucky hours. Dropped the car off for 8am. Having not been to sleep. But felt reasonably ok. A moment of relative stability.

By the time I got home from dropping the car off I was buzzy as fuck. And very much pushing my luck. But it was ok. Ish. I stayed up. Trying to reset my hours more. Pushing my luck more. My friend popped back up, returning from his own christmas celebrations and wanted to play some games.

So I did that. And definitely took the piss. I knew what I was doing. I was very conscious of it. The nausea ticked up. The unwellness ticked up. The buzz ticked up. But. I resisted it. It was very very much. Conscious. I was monitoring it realtime. Pushing my luck. Playing with the fire. And seeing what would happen. I have learned this is not what you do. The CFS people tell you, that's not what to do. ChatGPT has told me explicitly, don't do that.

I did it.

Because I don't know. A want to be normal. A want to sit and play some games and not have to bow to the almighty fucking clusterfuck that is my health. A want to sit in the driving seat for a change and dictate what happens and not instead be ridden around and told what to do.

I held out until around 8pm. Many hours of gaming. I was on the verge of collapse. I masked it hard. This time. Entirely aware of what I was doing. I am putting my head in the tigers mouth on purpose. But I had reached my absolute limit.

Got up from the computer, all the warning lights flashing. Pain. All over. Every nerve squealing. Ah. This old chestnut. The smothered in acid thing. The every muscle has a glittery quicksilver knife of pain in it.

I considered eating something small before I wiped out entirely. Smart. Realised I had zero energy reserves to do that. And instead collapsed immediately with a loud groan. Not smart by forced necessity. No gas in the tank. Now conked out between gas stations. So clever.

I had pushed it too far. So far that I didn't immediately stabilise or feel any better when I hit the bed. I would need to first, somehow, somewhere, gain a little stability before I could sleep. This is super shit territory. Not enough energy to even go offline. It's a weird contradictory space. But. It's something like. If you try to sleep. Everything stops. Breathing. The lot. You can't. Go there. Until. Your automatic things are in a state to keep on going. I guess that fits in very well with autonomic exhaustion. It's like you have burned through your energy - of course, long ago, duh - but also through those critical emergency life support only energy reserves too. Oh. Is it bad when all the lights go off when we turn off the engine ? Yes. Oh.

Anyway.

I fell asleep. Into oblivion. Let me go. Let me desecnd into the depths of that dark quiet ocean. Where no light penetrates. And everything is silent. The silence of non existence.

Whilst asleep I came up near to the surface of that ocean a couple of times. Not properly awake. But I could feel how terrible I felt. Smothered by a horrible aching exhaustion. And. Knives. Knives everywhere. That slippery all over stabbing. Like every muscle has a deep bruise or wound, and they are all simultaneously being pushed on, like pushing your finger into a bad bruise. But all over at once. Oh no.

I woke up properly a minute before midnight. Whether this was some spooky inner clock. Or perhaps some premature firework had woke me up. I don't know. I felt awful. Breath stealing pain all over, and that odd, bizarre "fogginess" all over your body. Too heavy. Flu like. Exhaustion. A sickly blanket of lead. Like a held breath from a corpse in a centuries old tomb. And as I came to in that state. Fireworks started popping off. I groggily asked Alexa what the time was - I was disorientated, I could figure it probably meant it was midnight, but, this confused me. I had expected to sleep longer.

It took me 20 minutes to think about moving. The squeals were slowly subsiding. Hungry. No nausea. At least that had gone away for the moment.

Shuffled off to the kitchen, all the warning lights suddenly and urgently all going off again. Here. Have some exquisite muscle pain. Hnnnngggg.

Mentally I did a once over. Checked in with each muscle. The familiar patterns. Ah yes. The lats worst of all. Squealing like fuckers. The obliques one step down from that, but also squealing hard. Shoulders. Squealing. Pectorals. Squealing. Biceps. Squealing. Thighs. Hard squealing. Many knives. Calves. Squealing. Fuck. My. Shitty. Stupid. Fucking. Life.

There is perhaps a pattern there. All the bigger muscles. Squeal like a fucker. The smaller ones get off easier. Perhaps that means something. 

But eh. Perhaps this is fair payment for me taking the piss.

I stuck my head in the tigers mouth. This is perhaps getting off lightly. By all rights. I should have also hard crashed exhaustion wise for a long period.

At the moment... that's... not true. But. As I know full well. Sometimes it takes a little while for the sting in the tail to land. Sometimes 24 hours for it to properly develop into that mushroom cloud explosion of aftermath. We shall see.

If I am miserable and utterly exhausted later today. I only have myself to blame. 

As my friend chuckled to himself earlier on as I described me not taking the opportunity of getting the car fixed down South and instead risking breakdown on Boxing day. Very smart. But also so stupid. 

I know. No denial. I know many things. It doesn't mean I always make good choices. I am even aware of the meta of it. I can see myself. Being an idiot.

I like to think it's not quite outright idiocy. It's more. I don't know. Wishful thinking. Perhaps thats exactly what being an idiot is however. An idiot with sugar sprinkles. 

As Rick and Morty didn't quite say. Lah de dah. That just sounds like idiocy with extra steps. 

PS for the lols, here what Dr GPT has to say on it. It nails it. As ever. See next post.