Monday, March 30, 2009

Lassitude

Lassitude: Langour, disinclination to exert or interest oneself.

Last week before attending one of many tiring meetings at work, I printed off some information from the MS society about fatigue. I handed copies to the people at the meeting and simply said "this is the reason why I want to work at home". The word lassitude,jumped out at me. The definition of it suits me so perfectly.

Before 2004 I would never have been able to imagine the fatigue I experience now. Would never have thought that lassitude would become a part of my life. The disinclination to exert or interest myself comes partly from fear . Fear, that I will start a project, not be able to finish it, and end up with a mess. I look around my house at all the things that I would like to do and I cry, because I'm afraid to do them. Fear, when I have that awful feverish feeling,get so tired, so suddenly, and the switch in my head shuts off. When it shuts off, I can't do a thing or I do stupid things,like injure myself, cross the street on a red light, fall, or have an anxiety attack.

I remember the summer of 2005 when I was invited to a wedding . It took me the entire morning of that day to get ready. Not because I was getting really decked out, but because I could barely do a thing. Even combing my hair was a huge effort
I sat not wanting to go and yet somehow I was able to peel myself off the couch. The whole experience was an ordeal. I felt like a zombie. What made it worse is that there were people there I hadn't seen in ages .Inside I was happy to see them, outside I could barely make the effort to say hello. It was like a strange dream. I felt like I wasn't even there. The whole summer was like that.

For a person who use to be so active, it's difficult to get use to this new weak, "lazy" me . I know there are people around me who think I'm not trying, but I am .
I am

3 comments:

Diane J Standiford said...

I know you are, we with MS know you are.

Anonymous said...

It is so very hard to convey to people that fatigue is not being lazy.

When my own mother called me lazy, I had to bite the bullet because it was too tiring to explain the difference between fatigue and lazy.

In the workplace, you did the right thing in giving handouts explaining your symptoms. Now, if they just read it (I hope you used a highlighter to emphasize things that pertain to just YOU!), you will be ahead of the problem at work.

I finally had a pin made up (like the election pins of the 1960's & 1970's), saying "I'm not lazy, I am physically challenged." The words "physically challenged" was in the smallest print so they had to get close enough to me to actually read it. By that time, it could be seen that I was fatigued and not lazy just by my body language/expressions.

In pre-tell MS days, I let people interpret it for themselves.

Glad you are seeing some progress on the work front with the representative. Hang in there!

Taxingwoman said...

Yeah Diane the rest of the world needs to know

Anne so nice to hear from you How are you ?