The Night is Now My Enemy

It has taken me a few days to post and update because I have been very tired. I had hoped to have more positive updates about my progress. Unfortunately, I don’t. Not this time. But, hopefully I will again soon.

I’m making adjustments. I’m not giving up.

I realized this past week that I need to make further adjustments to my pacing schedule because my current plan works for only one day. By 4pm of that day, I am wiped and I stay like that into the next day.

I also realized that my attempts to study and adjust my sleep schedule may be futile and bearing no fruit.

When I made these realizations, it put me into a very dark mood. I felt like I was running out of ideas and options. I felt defeated.

But after some reflection, prayer, and talks with my family, I am feeling a bit better.

Given my updates, today felt like a good day to talk more about my fatigue and sleep problems.

I titled this “the night is my enemy” but maybe the more appropriate title is “the morning is my enemy.”

Every night, I prepare myself for bedtime like I am going to battle. I follow a specific pattern and I turn on my sleep tracker. Recently, I also started sleeping with my smart watch on so that there were two forms of sleep records.

You see, even though I wake tired every morning, I also have problems sleeping at night. I get to sleep fairly easy most nights. But, I usually wake up at least a few times in the night.

Sometimes, I know what it is. It’s a vivid dream or nightmare (which happens more since covid); it’s aches or pains; it’s suddenly feeling really hot or; it’s a noise. Sometimes, I don’t actually know what wakes me. That’s even more annoying.

I joked with my parents that sometimes I feel like I am the princess in The Princess and the Pea. Even the slightest disturbance seems to throw me off.

But, since I have been working on my sleep schedule, I wake up fewer times at night. I’ve gone from waking up countless times every night to having several nights where I only wake up once or twice.

But, still no matter what, I wake up with the same level of fatigue no matter what I do. And that’s the worst part. Waking up and not feeling any better or different.

Every morning, I wake up tired and disappointed. I honestly feel like I have forgotten at this point how it feels to not be tired.

I envy “Past Erica” who thought she had it bad because sometimes, she had trouble getting to sleep and felt tired the next day.

This is different than that. Every single small activity that I do feels daunting. Every action has a price attached to it.

Trying to explain how severe my fatigue is often feels a bit like trying to explain brain fog. It’s really hard to explain how bad it is.

I am more than just a little tired. I feel heavy. I feel like I am forcibly dragging my body through this life.

My body feels like a stubborn kid. I have to tell it over and over to do something before it gets accomplished. And that one thing feels like it takes everything in me.

I think there’s a greater frame of reference for fatigue. A lot of people have experienced fatigue at some point. But, I think the big differences to try to understand are that it is incredibly severe, it doesn’t go away, and you can’t just push through it.

I think others with other chronic illnesses like CFS and depression may be able to understand.

But, many out there may think that they understand what someone with long-covid is going through. But, they really have no idea.

As I begged with brain fog, I beg again to those of you with friends and loved ones with long-covid fatigue. Please listen to them when they tell you that there’s something really wrong. This is not your average fatigue that we are fighting.

#mentalhealth #sleepdisorders #insomnia #pacing #medical #cfs #chronicfatigue