I think one of the most misunderstood parts of any of the illnesses that I have is the fatigue that comes with it.
Pain is tough enough to understand when someone cannot relate to it, when it is primarily internal and is not visible to others, and when it is a constant thing - people with chronic pain get very used to figuring out how to hide it. Who wants to make that 'pain face' or complain all the time? Not many, I wouldn't think.
One very important thing to remember is that pain consumes energy. Pain is processed in the brain... And *usually* only one type of pain can be processed at a time, so the most intense and severe pain is the one that the brain focuses on. When you have someone with chronic pain, the entire wiring system of the brain changes so that it can process more than one kind of pain. The brain is processing that source of pain 24 hours a day. Even while sleeping, it is still being processed - which is why I tend to have lots of nightmares about being stabbed....
Then if you take someone with several different sources of chronic pain - imagine how much extra energy processing all of those pains actually takes up. It's exhausting just thinking about it.
Every single movement, every single decision, every single thing in my day has to be analyzed and weighed in regards to pain.
So when I have a huge day, I often need to 'sleep it off'. This goes for everyone. Hangovers, sporting events, concerts, anything that takes up a ton of brain processing and energy and gets one's adrenaline going... We all need that time to rest. It doesn't always have to involve sleep, but it usually requires some major rest and recuperation time.
So imagine if every single thing that you did - walking to take the garbage out, having a bath, sitting up in a chair, having an in-depth conversation, even focusing on a book or a television show - imagine if any one of those activities took as much energy for someone as an entire game of football for someone else.
That is what it feels like.
Even yesterday - I did have the opportunity to have two naps. One was for over an hour and the other was about half an hour... And I was ready to collapse by the time I finally went home.
Today I have spent the vast majority of my day sleeping or simply lying in bed. And I may have to do the same for most of this week.
Fatigue is a huge problem for chronic pain sufferers and it is SO difficult to explain, and probably even harder for others to understand.... But the basis is - I feel like I have run a marathon every single day.... How do you translate that so others can comprehend the amount of rest that my body requires?
Sleeping it off. It works, but I also feel like I miss out on a lot of life.