I can’t believe how quickly I can go from one extreme to the other. No sooner do I write an optimistic post about how I feel like I’m actually getting somewhere, than something triggers me and I feel all pessimistic and frustrated again.

Saturday’s “date” went fine; she was lovely and I was engaging, and we had fun together. No, not that sort of fun. We just had an enjoyable time. Started off with coffee/lunch, and then headed to see the Archibald Prize exhibition. I wanted to see it partly because the winner is a portrait of my favourite comedian, Tim Minchin. The fact that I have a favourite comedian, and an interest in art, went down pretty well with my date as she loved comedy and art. She had something on in the evening, so I headed home thinking that since I had a Saturday night free, it would be a good opportunity to head out to some of the nightclubs in the city to check them out.

By the time I got home, I was really starting to feel the late-afternoon malaise hit. When evening rolled around, I found myself heading towards bed feeling totally rotten. Goddam it! And I thought I was getting better. Talk about mega-frustrating! Damn damn damn! “Fuck this Gupta programme bullshit, it doesn’t seem to be working!!!”, I’m thinking. Stop-stop-stop, meditation, sleep-sleep-sleep. I just felt like crap.

Woke up Easter Sunday morning in an only-marginally-better mood. Hardly much of a resurrection, but I got up anyway. Spent most of the day reading The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, which a friend from my guitar class recommended. It’s one of the most reasonable Christian books I’ve read, but it’s predicated on the absurd notion that the bible in infallible and that therefore the gospel accounts are reliable eyewitness testimonies as though they’d been written by 21st century reporters. I still just don’t buy it, and the chapter on Suffering didn’t even touch on the obvious possibility that our suffering has no meaning, but we’re compelled to give it one anyway because that’s they way humans work. Anyway, I’m only half-way through. Perhaps a bolt of blinding light will hit me in part two. We’ll see.

Sunday night I dragged myself off to “rep”, which was pretty quiet given it was the Easter weekend. Still, a couple of guys from my class were there, and we had a really fun 3-way rep. After that, I checked out the nightclubs I didn’t get to on Saturday night. It felt really lonely wandering around the city from club to club just visiting, and wishing I had the balls and the skills to approach people and say hi. I’ve never been a nightclub kinda guy, as I spent my formative adolescence in the clutches of christendom, believing that alcohol was evil and that church was a better place to spend my time. As a result, I feel totally out-of-place and self-conscious in a nightclub; which makes it decidedly un-fun.

I spent most of Easter Monday resting, playing guitar, and contacting women on a couple of Internet dating sites. I ended up chatting to quite a few interesting women, which is unusual. Normally I spend most of the time sending contact requests which don’t go anywhere. I think I’m getting better at writing profiles and sending engaging contact emails. I’d almost given up on internet dating, given that the women my age tend to remind me of my mother… and I sure as heck don’t want to date anyone like her! They’ve either got kids, or look like they’re in their 40’s. Crikey!

I definitely feel happier when I’m not worrying about symptoms, feeling pissed off about being ill, or worrying that NLP thought-breaking techniques are bullshit and won’t work for me. I’m a smart guy, and there are a lot of things I want to do in life. It feels like that’s all on hold until I recover physically, and I didn’t appreciate Saturday night’s reminder that I still get exhausted all too easily. Today I’m taking it easy, before heading out for more rep tonight. And I don’t feel too bad today, so I’m thankful for that.

I’m off to have breakfast, and watch Session 6.

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Graham Stoney

I'm a guy in his early 50's, recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

2 Comments

Elaine Stammers · April 8, 2010 at 8:47 AM

I am not much good at the pacing side either. I woke up Easter Sunday feeling euphoric due to the sun shining and wanting to go out to do gardening. Felt energised all day and evening but sure enough Monday slump came as usual – so it was adrenalin all along. Never mind it was such a great day it was worth it this time.

To tell someone in their 20s to do nothing when they are having a better day is well nigh impossible. I could not have kept to it.

Nothing wrong with being in your 50s either apart from old age. No seriously I am able to accept slowing down a bit more now than I could have done if ME/cfs had happened to me earlier.

Lee Lee · April 6, 2010 at 7:26 PM

Hmmm …. it sound like maybe you are just trying to do to much to soon. People keep telling to ‘pace’ and its so true. I have learnt my lesson with going off to do something fun when i think i am feeling a little better. My Dr (who is a genius with CFS) says when you are feeling better then just enjoy those moments but do not go and ‘do’ anything, just rest like you do on the bad days .. it’s the only way to gradually get better. I realy think this is a good approach and it is also how the graded exercise works … you only ever do half as much as you feel like you could do, and that seems to be working.
Oh and one more thing … there is nothing wrong will looking or being in your 40’s hahaha!!!

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