Too tired to change

I have been sat here staring at a blank screen for nearly half an hour.

A flicker-show of thoughts and worries plays on the back of my brain in a constant, dim haze. Ever so often one with extra clout will leap out of me at full volume. A doubt, an anxiety, a feeling of guilt or pressure. SOMETHING. It will make my heart beat a little faster before slipping onwards, before the wave of fatigue sweeps me back into numbness.

I am seriously tired. Even for me. Tired to the point of losing the little spacial awareness I have at the best of times. Tired to the point of losing my ability to string more than half a dozen words together. Tired to the point that my eye sight is poor again.

Really tired.

A month long illness has catapulted Kai back into the realms of sleeplessness. Wake-ups are getting earlier and earlier – 5am if I’m lucky, and that’s often after long sessions of restless tossing and turning throughout the night and many tears. I know it won’t last but right now it’s close to finishing me off.

I am hopeless at getting up early. Even after nearly 20 months of very rarely sleeping past 6am I am not used to it. I struggle to fall asleep much before 11pm, however tired I am. I’ve always worked best later at night – it’s the time when my brain seems to come alive and earlier bedtimes usually just mean a couple of hours lying awake watching the flicker-show again. If I’m lucky I’ll get six hours, lately nearer four or five with time spent settling Kai through the night.

Mornings are spent battling the effects of the night before. My body shakes, I find myself falling asleep if I sit so roam around in an endless fog to try and keep myself awake. If Kai has an earlyish nap I gratefully pass out for an hour but wake-up groggy and unrefreshed. However part of my strategy for trying to get Kai to sleep a little later and not be too wiped before bed is to make sure his nap is late enough in the day to give him a good rest, by which point the adrenaline has kicked in and I struggle to switch off. I live for the weekends when Ant can watch Kai and I can go back to bed, and where I would stay the whole weekend if only I could.

I know not all if it is the lack of sleep. The Fibromyalgia plays a part too – it makes my body less efficient at recharging and adds muscle aches and a feeling of being muddled, like I’m moving through thick custard that don’t help.

I’m sorry. This isn’t making very interesting reading is it? I did have a point somewhere…

Ah yes. That was it. I just needed you to understand how tired I am right now so you get what I’m trying to say.

There are a lot of things right now which I need to change. Things that I know will make my life better. Things that I need to change about myself, about my routine, my attitudes, my thinking. Things I want to do.

But I am just too tired.

It sounds pathetic doesn’t it? A complete wimp out of responsibility and self-motivation.

One thing I hate in life is an ‘I can’t’ mentality. I’ve always been an ‘I can’ kinda girl. I make stuff happen, me. I sneer at people who are forever making excuses, forever opting out. Yet that’s exactly what I’m doing.

And yes, I know I know. You’re all going to tell me to go easy on myself, that I can’t do everything, and you’re probably right.

But what I want to know is, when is it right to just give-in, surrender to the fatigue until things change on their own and inevitably more energy comes, and when is it right to push, to fight through the fog and not let it rule my life?

I consider myself a strong person. I think one of my best traits is an amazingly persistent instinct for self-preservation and survival. Nothing ever stops me for long. I have learnt that even when I feel at my most low, most overwhelmed, or blocked or anything else, if I give it time SOMETHING will kick in and pull me out again. A new idea, or a new inspiration will come from somewhere and push me forward, even if it’s just a little way.

But I don’t want to sit and wait now. I don’t have the energy to do the things that make me happy. I’m increasingly slipping into more and more unhealthy habits and tendencies, things that aren’t doing me or Kai, or Ant for that matter, any good at all. I’m withdrawing more and more from my friends, retreating into myself more. My confidence is at an all time low. Those relationships and friendships that I seem to have lost lately I’m finding harder and harder to rekindle and establish contact. Online friendships increasingly leave me feeling easily hurt and left-out, even if those feelings are completely unfounded.

Most importantly, getting up so early, being so unbelievably wiped in the morning and needing Kai to have a good nap at home in order for us both to survive the day, is making it harder and harder to get to morning playgroups and other social activities (and I can’t find any later ones) – I just don’t have it in me. Given how hard Kai finds social interaction anyway, I know I need to make this a priority but…

…yep you guessed it. I’m just too tired.

I AM trying. I’m trying to remember to eat, to go to bed earlier, to sleep during nap-times rather than write or browse online. This week I’m working hard on projects for Kai, trying to make his environment a bit more enabling and ‘Kai friendly’. But I am so aware of all the balls I’m dropping right now. My family, my friends, my virtual projects and pals. Myself.

Do I need to just try harder? Is it simply a case of mind over matter?

Or should I accept that the greater force rules and find a way to ‘make do’ till this time passes. Even if it’s to mine and my family’s detriment?

How about you? Are you ever too tired to change, even though you know you really need to? How do YOU deal with it?