I’ve also figured out how to stay mentally busy, even if I can’t be as physically busy as I want to be… so maybe I can’t do midnight theater anymore, and maybe taiko is out of the question at the moment. That’s ok, ’cause I learned how to knit, and I’ve been doing A LOT of sewing lately, and I started a blog with the co-hosts from my radio show. All things I can do in my pajamas! And knitting and needlepoint don’t even really take brain power, for those nights when I’m stupid tired! Hooray!

I know exactly what you mean about the flaking out problem. That is the worst. I used to pride myself on being super conscientious, but the fatigue thing turned me flaky. There just wasn’t any help for it. You can’t do what can’t be done, and it can be hard or impossible to really know in advance what can or can’t be done on any given day. Grrr.

I’m vastly better these days, and it feels like I’m making up for a world-class case of cabin fever. Must! Do! Everything!

I’ll say this for disabling fatigue, though: it can make you really, really organized. When you have fewer waking hours in the day, you do start to learn to put your time in order something fierce, don’t you think?

(hi, i’m dating mr. jtron, who directed me to your recent post about smarty pants fortune-telling chickens. while reading back about WHY you were getting chickens – i’m jealous, btw – i stumbled across this post.)

i’ve been dealing with a weird fatigue issue myself for the last 14 months or so. after months and months of every test under the sun and still no diagnosis, they finally found a slight abnormality in a sleep study, and dubbed it “idiopathic hypersomnia.” (literally translated, “you’re suddenly tired all the time and we don’t know why.) apparently, had there not been that slight abnormality, they would have called it CFS.

before the fatigue hit, i’d been extremely active (i’m a drummer, among other things). i had to go on indefinite hiatus from everything i was involved with, which made me extremely sad. with proper sleep, diet, and medication, i’m doing a lot better than i was last spring, but i’m still nowhere near 100%. it’s frustrating, because i miss playing and being active, but i just don’t feel strong enough to do what i was doing before. and i can’t commit myself to anything on a regular basis, because i never know when i’ll have to flake out because i’m feeling too tired and physically cannot participate. ugh.

anyway, hi. i’m going to add you on lj. cool?

I tend to experience fatigue as a complement to depression, rather than the other way around. (This past December and January were unusual for being fatigue-driven, as I healed from a broken rib; I described it as, “all of the symptoms of depression except the depression.”)

It isn’t fun, and I’m not very good at sucking it up through stage 1 for more than a week or two.

But I had never thought to draw the distinction between stage 2 and stage 3, which really are quite different. Stage 2 feels like I’ve been drugged, but stage 3 doesn’t feel at all; I’m simply absent until my brain can climb back up to stage 2 again. And I tend to live through stage 2 at least once or twice a year, while stage 3 has overtaken me only a few times in my life.

Frankly, I wouldn’t voluntarily visit either one of them … and so I think I understand what you mean by purposefully visiting stage 2 in order to avoid stage 3. I do something mighty similar but (nominally) higher functioning, dipping very carefully into stage 1 for a week or a fortnight at a time in order not to sink any deeper.

Even without taking fatigue into consideration, I’m deeply impressed at how much you get done in your life; add the fatigue, and verily art thou among the baddest of asses.