Frozen in a living grave.
Or swimming through concrete.
That's what it feels like. So painfully fatigued, it is impossible to sleep. Waking with a racing heart - and so tired it was like you never slept at all. Brain problems. Gut problems. No energy. You are forever hitting a brick wall. Half your life is a horrific migraine. You lose your hair. You lose your fingerprints! You lose your empathy and personality. You cannot plan or imagine, most of the time. Every effort has 1,000 equal and very opposite reactions. People target you for shame, because they think you are the big lie. If you had no means to fight back, then they would blithely cull you from their herd. You fight back and end up alone. All you want to do is sleep. And it never, ever, ends. Until you die, a wasted life.
Photo by Ryan Lash/TED.
TED Fellow Jen Brea was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or CFS … and was told that her symptoms were caused by something all in her head. She’s fighting back.
The story and stigma of a baffling illness: Jen Brea speaks at TEDSummit
PS - Note my icon above. It is a glorific tiger. After I got the illness, I sometimes dreamt of a tiger. This happened prior to some recovery of energy the next day. I later found out that this dream is common to people with CFS, (aka, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). The tiger represents REAL energy. It arises from something deep in our genetic history; it arises from something in Nature's vast Unconscious, stretching infinitely in time and space. It is a living, Jungian archetype. A candle in the wind. A tiger in your tank.
2/27/17 UPDATE: The planned movie, "Canary In A Coal-Mine," has been successfully release in 2017, to the Sundance film festival, under the new name, "Unrest." I am therefore changing my LJ (movies) tag to represent this new name for the movie. (For this post, alone, I am adding one "canary in a coal mine" tag, for vague research reference).
That's what it feels like. So painfully fatigued, it is impossible to sleep. Waking with a racing heart - and so tired it was like you never slept at all. Brain problems. Gut problems. No energy. You are forever hitting a brick wall. Half your life is a horrific migraine. You lose your hair. You lose your fingerprints! You lose your empathy and personality. You cannot plan or imagine, most of the time. Every effort has 1,000 equal and very opposite reactions. People target you for shame, because they think you are the big lie. If you had no means to fight back, then they would blithely cull you from their herd. You fight back and end up alone. All you want to do is sleep. And it never, ever, ends. Until you die, a wasted life.
Photo by Ryan Lash/TED.
TED Fellow Jen Brea was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or CFS … and was told that her symptoms were caused by something all in her head. She’s fighting back.
The story and stigma of a baffling illness: Jen Brea speaks at TEDSummit
PS - Note my icon above. It is a glorific tiger. After I got the illness, I sometimes dreamt of a tiger. This happened prior to some recovery of energy the next day. I later found out that this dream is common to people with CFS, (aka, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). The tiger represents REAL energy. It arises from something deep in our genetic history; it arises from something in Nature's vast Unconscious, stretching infinitely in time and space. It is a living, Jungian archetype. A candle in the wind. A tiger in your tank.
2/27/17 UPDATE: The planned movie, "Canary In A Coal-Mine," has been successfully release in 2017, to the Sundance film festival, under the new name, "Unrest." I am therefore changing my LJ (movies) tag to represent this new name for the movie. (For this post, alone, I am adding one "canary in a coal mine" tag, for vague research reference).