Things I have to say no to:
-late nights
-intensive workouts
-wine :(
-shopping marathons
Things I hate saying no to:
-meetups with friends
-yoga
-driving down to see family in Red Bank
-knitting
-subbing (okay maybe I don't hate saying no to this, but it's hard to say no to extra money)
Things I can't say no to:
-cooking
-taking care of Raven, my dog
-food shopping
-laundry
-sleep
It's really hard for me to say no. Finding balance in what I can do and can't do is frustrating and hard. What usually happens is I don't say no to anything and then in a day I'll end up doing way too much. Wednesday I drove to my parents (50 min drive). After I heated up some soup and ate lunch, I took a nap. Then I went down to a bookclub (another long drive). The drive was tiring but it was worth it to see some friends I used to work with. A few hours later, I drove back to my parents exhausted. Then Thursday, I went for a knitting lesson early in the morning and ended up staying in the shop for 3 hours trying to finish a Christmas gift. I came home and ate a late lunch. I took a nap on the couch in the quiet house. Soon after I laid down, my dog was sniffing my face, her way of telling me she had to go out. I took her for a brief walk, went to the market, helped with dinner and packed up my things. When I sat down to eat dinner, it hit me. My whole body hurt. I was overwhelmed with exhaustion. My throat was killing me, I didn't even want to eat. I started to panic. The thought of driving home at 6:00 pm in the dark was torture. The past two days felt like a marathon. Instead of bolting through the finishing line, I felt like I was inching along like a slug. A beat up slug. I drove home, carried some bags in and collapsed in my lazy boy chair. I couldn't move my legs. My arms and legs felt like they weighed thousands of pounds. I wanted to get a drink of water, but couldn't move. I wondered, what could I have said no to?
This is a really hard post to read, because I hate to think of you suffering from doing things you want and need to do. But you express it all very vividly, and I'm glad you're sharing this. In one sense, this is part of your "new normal," as you wrote about in the last post. But while I can see the good of accepting lots of things about your life with CFS - a slower pace, listening to your body, a lot of stuff everyone would benefit from but few do unless they're forced to - it's hard to see the good in your feeling crappy. I just wish you didn't have to.
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