I have some form of autoimmune disease. I’ve never got very far with working out which one it is but I would assume ME as it started after I had glandular fever at 18 and tests have ruled out lupus and a few others. It has always flared up and down and I’ve had good and bad days/weeks/months/years. Fatigue has always been a feature.
But now I’ve got the added complication of long covid and it has really kicked my arse over the past year. I’m trying so hard to get better and have changed my diet, am taking all the supplements and medication recommended to me but I’m just getting worse. I have a few good hours every morning after which I am crushingly exhausted. Really bone tired. I’m signed off work at the moment (I can only manage 20 hours per week at the best of times) and the thought of going back makes me want to cry.
Even though I know I have these conditions, I often wonder if how I’m feeling is actually normal and that maybe I am just terrible at coping with life. Does everyone else get in from work and fall asleep on the sofa within an hour? Is everyone else too tired to stand in the kitchen and cook a meal for 15 minutes? Does having a shower, getting dressed and putting on a bit of make up leave everyone else feeling like they need to lie down and catch their breath?
I am sure there was a time when I just did all of those things without thinking but it is so far away that I can’t remember. I have no idea how anybody does anything after work - goes to a class or swimming or anything like that. Or how they have the energy to take their children for days out most days in the school holidays. But people do so I’m assuming that they just do it without much thought and exertion? Am I just not coping with life? Or am I ill? Or something else? I’m writing this from bed having waved DC off for the weekend with his dad. I got back through my door and couldn’t even face sitting on the sofa.