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Some Days Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work

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Negative Blogpost Alert !

You have heard the song It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To ?
Well this is My Blog and I’ll moan if I want to . . .
Feel free not to read on.

There are some days when all the positive thinking in the world just doesn’t work for me.
And I want to throw all my self-help books, gratitude lists, motivational, inspirational & philosophical quotes, etc etc etc onto the nearest bonfire.

And just scream :

  • I hate having CFS

  • I hate how I have lost so much of my life to it

  • I hate how it becomes more “normal” to have symptoms than not have them

  • I hate how I have been in bed for so much of this year

  • I hate how it is often 1 step forward, then 2 back

  • I hate the view out my bedroom window – the side of next door’s house, a brick wall.

  • I hate how the longer you have CFS the more symptoms you seem to develop

  • I hate how I have been treated by GPs

I hate that I have been taking anti-depressants for such a long time, maybe 8 years.
I actually wonder if they make the “brain fog” worse ? This is an incredibly disabling symptom (especially when trying to work).

  • I hate how I can’t manage GP visits well, always a disaster. I crumble every time.

  • I hate how my husband often plays it down to people. It makes me look as if I’m exagerating how bad it has been.

  • I hate that the house always needs cleaned.
    (I can’t manage it without half killing myself, hubby is overloaded with stuff to do, and we can’t afford a cleaner.)

  • I hate that our grass is always overgrown at front and back.
    (Same reasons as above but substitute gardner for cleaner.)

I hate that our central heating system doesn’t work properly (the boiler is approx 40 yrs old). The heating doesn’t heat the rooms upstairs well (bedrooms & my office).
Dreading winter.

  • I hate that many people seem to think CFS and ME are trivial

  • I hate that I have no help or guidance managing my CFS.
    On my last visit to my GP I virtually begged for practical help. She just doubled my dose of anti-depressants. This was 2.5 years ago.

  • I hate that I wasn’t strong enough (physically or mentally) to have coped better with the stresses of the last few years. Partly caused by a tenant from hell, a very poor letting agent and scum/bullying tradesmen.

  • I hate that I cannot get away from my work and have a long long break

  • I hate that I know how much Mickel Therapy helps CFS, but I haven’t been able to use the “tools” for the last few years.
    Everything in my life seems to be working against it.

  • I hate feeling that I just want to run away from everything at times

  • I hate how very pathetic this all sounds . . . !

  • Some days I am totally sick of everything.

I feel quite a lot better now for having this rant.

I am sure it is healthy and positive to let these bad emotions out once in a while. Coping with a long term (mainly negative) situation by just surpressing these emotions all the time – we are in danger of becoming like a pressure cooker. Ready to burst.

We can positive think all we want, but this will not change the practical reality of a physical condition.

To quote what David Mickel once said to me :

” The body is the boss”

ie. it will not be fooled into being told a situation is ok when it’s not.

The Chaos Of My House

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The Chaos Of My Life

Right now all around me feels chaotic so thought I’d write a post about it – as it may calm my head down.
My work is totally chaotic and has been for ages now as I am struggling so much to do any of it. The harder I try the worse my CFS symptoms get. Over the last week or so I can hardly even use my laptop. This is severely restricting what I can do as rely on email very much. Just looking at the screen (no matter how I alter brightness etc) is giving me almost instant headaches some days. Also use my mobile phone (an old style one) for text messages to communicate a lot. But this isn’t great either – as it is feels like shining a bright torch into my face . Not to mention that I go thru my pay as you go credit at a lightening rate. (And not everyone does text messages anyway.)
I have probably already mentioned how difficult phone calls can be with CFS – when the brain fog or racing brain kicks in.  Not to mention everything else.
In fact – just actually thinking (about anything work wise) is giving me such bad headaches and exhaustion now.
So its not making for an easy life  : if I can hardly use my laptop, mobile phone or even think . . .
But I know there is a funny side to this. I did chuckle to myself this morning as the thought of trying to explain to a angry employer (if I had one) that I was too ill to come into work because thinking was too much for me ! I don’t imagine that would be well received or understood – do you ?

But I wanted to make this post about non-work things.
Some other things that feel chaotic right now are :

a) The House is dreadful mess.
Cluttered with stuff everywhere and nothing in a logical place. To explain, Hubby moved back again 6 weeks ago. (Both happy about this – may do a separate post later.) He had been living in one of the flats that is normally rented out near Shawlands. For 9 months. So various items of furniture and loads of belongings are now here – but most have still to be merged back into the house. At the moment they are all over the place. Things keep getting lost or misplaced everywhere. And neither of us have had the time or energy to sort it all out properly.

b) My Office is a mess too.
Same reason as above – on top of my ever growing backlog of work and problems.  Sitting at my desk typing this I can see on the floor and table ahead of me : surplus pillows, various lamps, a mirror, a painting, 6 mini boxes filled with stuff, lots of bags containing Xmas gift bags that were taken out a cupboard to let other stuff in . . . etc etc.
A setting that doesn’t make for clear thinking at all.

c) An over-flowing laundry room.
I am lucky to have a decent amount of space at home – but not much storage. Have 2 downstairs cupboards but the larger one is used to house the washing machine and washing baskets. At the moment it looks like a very out of control laundry.  The 2 washing baskets have doubled to 4. Hubby has 1 and it is fairly empty – he is good with his.  The other 3 are for my stuff, and towels and bedding – and they are all totally overflowing. Its getting to the stage that almost every towel and item of bedding in the house needs washing. Not to mention most of my own clothes.
Why – because I haven’t enough time or energy. The usual issue.

d) We are lucky to have a 2nd TV room – but its a muddle too.
After 21 years together and 9 months apart (recently) Hubby and I realise that we must have our own separate time as well as together time. So he will use this room at times. But right now the room is a shambles.  So much stuff everywhere – I try not to even look into it when I pass to go to kitchen. The TV and DVD player aren’t connected up yet and there are wires, rolls of cable, remote controls etc all over the floor. And it has been like this for 6 weeks. But he hasn’t had time to sort out yet. Even the switch for the cable modem I need to put on (to use broadband) is in this room underneath a table. So I have to crawl under every day to switch on and off.
Not ideal . . .

e) The only good bedroom is unusable.
The central heating system and boiler are ancient – over 40 years old. We have had quotes but too expensive to replace it. It still works and works well in downstairs rooms. But the heating now struggles to get to some rooms upstairs. In particular the main bedroom which I love because of its size and brightness. And its bay windows – something about bay windows I find calming. But this room is now (for me) a “no go” area as simply too cold. And will get much colder yet as winter approaches. (Everything has been tried, adjustments, an extra pump, new radiators etc – but the ancient system simply isn’t coping.)
So we now use a much smaller bedroom at the back of the house which heats up well (so far). And realise am lucky to have this option.
But its not ideal as quite small. And gets a very poor light – even on a bright sunny day. It has a lovely view of the side of next door’s house – a brick wall ! And its crammed with far too much stuff at the moment.

f) Finally – and to cap it all – we now have fleas from a visiting pussy cat !
Yeh  Gods . . .
We thought we were imagining it at first – as haven’t actually seen any.  Do you actually see fleas . . . ? I have no idea . And certainly couldn’t see any on the pussycat herself – who is a very fluffy girl cat with a massive tail. Simply gorgeous and irresistible. How could I turn a pussy like that away . . . when she meows at the kitchen door for attention ? And cats are always washing and grooming their fur (very proud animals) so we didn’t suspect anything at all.
But the lovely ankle bites can no longer be ignored.  So that’s something else to deal with.

Oh well – I wouldn’t like to have nothing to think about . . .
Aaaaargh .

Undernote :
I changed the name of this post as the previous one gave the impression of things being more dire than they are. Its not my total life thats in chaos – just some parts of it !

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