Several of my previous entries were about ways I have accomplished things little by little. But the reality is, some days even half-assing it is not an option. This week was filled with those days. This week I accomplished...NOTHING.
I've always had sleep issues, I realize now it's related to my depression and anxiety. But additionally, every so often, I go through bouts of insomnia. There are things that help. The most drastic difference happened after I started taking SSRI meds 6 years ago. I finally started sleeping...for real. I didn't really know what good sleep was until then. It's true that you don't really know how badly you've always felt until you start to feel better. But that's a topic for another day.
My insomnia has gotten worse with MS. This last bout of insomnia started Saturday night and lasted through Wednesday night. At the time of this writing, I only have two halfway decent nights' sleep under my belt. Maybe it was recovering from last week's heat wave. Maybe it was because I'm finally feeling the effects of my partner being gone. Maybe it was subconscious anxiety. Who knows?
The most annoying part, is that about six months ago, I'd finally found a sleep supplement that truly helped....but Walmart has been sold out for weeks and other local stores didn't carry it. I tried waiting for it to be restocked. I tried a different brand with similar ingredients. No luck. I finally broke down and ordered it online paying more than I usually do, but I was desperate. Even with Amazon Prime, I had to wait two days for it to arrive. Two more days without sleep. Ugh!
The lack of sleep has obviously turned fatigue into...I don't know. What's worse than fatigue? I accomplished nothing this week other than work. I didn't come home and do a little task or part of a task. I came home, fed the creatures, then spent the rest of the evening lying on the couch until I decided to move to the bedroom for another night of sleeplessness and/or sleep interrupted by constant waking.
The thing with MS is, you really have to listen to your body. I knew I would accomplish nothing but stress myself out further if I tried to be productive. Some evenings, I felt guilty for simply doing nothing. However, I do know that forcing myself to be productive would have made the fatigue so much worse. Other symptoms would then begin to flare and, before I knew it, my couple days of insomnia would have turned into a week or more of misery. I know this for a fact because I used to push through the fatigue. I pushed and pushed until I simply stopped and could do absolutely nothing at all.
So no, this is not an inspiring post about how I overcame my illness and carried on. That's not how life with chronic illness works. This post is about how I had to stop. I had to stop and do nothing in order to allow my body to recover. And you know what? That's okay too.
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