I'm so tired of being tired

"Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complicated disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that can't be explained by any underlying medical condition. The fatigue may worsen with physical or mental activity, but doesn't improve with rest." - Mayo Clinic

Ok, now try explaining it to people.  Here are 99% of the replies:

"Maybe you should exercise more"
"You're lucky, I can never sleep"
"Sounds kinda lazy"
"Have a coffee"

Yeah....no.

Do you know that feeling you get when you are deeply, bone tired?  The kind of fatigue you feel after you've been swimming all day, in the sun, had a few cold beers and your body just wants to crawl into bed and sleep for 18 hours?  Now imagine feeling that way all the time.  I mean ALL THE TIME.  It doesn't matter if you just worked out for 3 hours or if you just woke up in the morning after a good 8 hour rest...you still feel that tired.

That energized feeling of a good night's sleep or an invigorating workout?  That never happens.  EVER.

You want to read that book?  Good luck, within half an hour you'll be snoozing.  You want to marathon a show?  Why bother, one episode in and you'll be zonked out.  You wanna hit that workout?  Ok, but your body and brain are gonna fight you the entire time and you don't get that energized feeling afterwards.

I developed CFS after a very nasty bout of mono in my early 20's, it lasted nearly a year, I was hospitalized with multiple internal infections (kidney, liver, stomach etc) and nearly lost my spleen to a rupture.  Most people think of mono as the 'nap' illness that makes you sleepy for a few weeks; not knowing it can be very serious and have permanent effects. As one person put it 'damn, you didn't get mono, you got stereo" 

 It's been over 10 years, and trust me, I've tried it all.  Caffeine, weight loss, sleep aids, naturopathy, red bull all day, sleep timers, exercise, prayer...I've tried.  I find I get a lot of the same reactions to be chronically fatigued as to depression...people have had a peripheral experience with the feeling (sadness, tiredness etc), so they feel the need to offer their own 'helpful' suggestions as though they 'get it'.  Would you comfort a suicidal person by telling them to 'cheer up'?  No, because the problem obviously runs deeper than you understand.  So the next person to tell me to go to bed early, exercise or have a coffee is going to get a beating...after my nap.

Don't get me wrong, I know it can be hard to know what to say when someone tells you that they have a condition, a problem or something of the sort- your first instinct when presented a problem is to think of a solution...but I urge you to refrain- just saying 'dude, that sucks' is preferred. Chances are the reason I'm telling you about the issue is to offer a reason as to why I didn't attend something, am leaving early or fell asleep on your shoe at a party before the first beer; so I'm not expecting you to have a solution- just give me a pillow and keep it down.

"She loves her sleep"...ya, and diabetics sure 'love' their insulin....fish 'love' to be in water instead of air..."she loves not being stabbed by a murderer".  Yes, the fact that I have to sleep a lot means that I miss out on things, but I was lame when I was an insomniac, so I feel kinda even on that end of things.  

Let's also face it, getting older certainly isn't helping either.  I remember when a hangover was a minor inconvenience for an hour until I could get my hands on some greasy food- now, a hangover lasts 4 weeks and requires divine intervention to stop the pain.  The impending Canadian winter doesn't bode well either; the long dark nights, the abhorrently cold weather, the long work days as the year winds down, all of these things make a snooze on the couch sound even better than normal.  I guess what I'm saying is that I need a fountain of youth and to live in the tropics.  

Until that happens (lookin' at you lottery tickets), I just have to cope with being tired of being tired.  I keep hoping that in one of my many dreams, my subconscious will think of the cure (by which I don't mean I wish I could dream of Robert Smith in his eyeliner).  

Rant over. Nap time.

A Woman's Rant part 2- Bras

I still remember being about 10 years old and wishing I had big boobs so that the boys would notice me.  Man, what a stupid kid.

Much like buying pants, buying a bra is easy for a lucky portion of women; the rest of us are simply doomed to suffer.  Even the name bra...short for brazier...sounds uncomfortable.  The only enjoyable part of a bra is how good it feels when you take it off at the end of the day.

Bras have been around for quite some time, over a hundred years in fact, so why are most of them still akin to medieval torture devices?  I'm sure if you told a man that he was expected to wear underwear that has metal wire in it to support his testicles, he would not fancy the idea of putting metal near his sensitive skin.  However, as women, the bearers of breasts, those mixed blessings that give nourishment to the young and provide entertainment for the slightly older are our closest comparison.  They are composed of flesh, blood, ducts, fat...namely, human material...however their natural state is deemed unappealing and they must be covered and restrained in bras.  Functionally there is some benefit...if you're over an A cup and have ever tried to run while bra-less, many risk injury to themselves and passersby.  So, every morning (unless it's a lazy Sunday), we lock and load our girls into the bra for hours of wear.

Bras come in many shapes and sizes, which is probably why the vast majority of us wear the wrong size.  We get measured for our first bra in high school and the first post-breast feeding bra after childbirth and that's about the only times we bother to ensure we are still the same size.  A bad bra is like having a self-inflicted wound that you willingly re-open every day.  The bra is meant to lift and support, so a bad bra does the opposite- it weighs you down and puts strain on all the wrong spots.  Thanks to my frontage, I still have massive back, neck and shoulder problems from years of carrying the weight incorrectly because La Senza hasn't got a clue how to make a real bra.  If you pay less than $50 for a bra, you may as well just go without and dislocate your shoulder preemptively.  Sure, many of them look cute, sexy etc...but 99% of them should be worn for an hour tops before you're actually doing harm to your body.  This is all assuming that you are among the proportion of women who need to wear a bra because they have breasts that are too big to go bra-less- which is <10% on average worldwide.

So since only <10% of women could consider wearing clothing without having to wear a bra underneath, can some explain to me why all fashion now makes it impossible to wear bras with the outfits?  I've previously described the most recent fashion trend as 'waifchella', which means that it all looks like it belongs at Coachella and would only suit women of waif sizing (aka half a toothpick).  This style trend also includes a lot of cut out tops, low cut, backless, super tight etc clothing.  None of this clothing actually accounts for any type of bra or breast support under the clothing.  Therefore, they are marketing 90% of clothing to a maximum audience of 10%....and people wonder why we have body issues.

However, if you're like me and you have a plumage that needs one of these bra contraptions, I cannot recommend a proper bra any more highly.  Find yourself a real boutique, not La Senza (La Crapza), not Victoria's Secret (whose secret is that they make terrible bras) and get yourself properly fitted.  Any professional couturier will tell you that those chains mentioned above do not measure you properly- they will simply give you whatever size they want to sell you, not what fits you.  A well-made, well-fitting bra and change your life.  It will make you look 10 pounds thinner and 5 years younger.  You will stand up straighter, you will feel less pain in your shoulder and back and you'll notice how clothing fits better.

So ladies, take care of your girls, because the bra may never be a girl's best friend, but we can at least try to make sure they aren't our worst enemy.