Pacing
How I Always Manage to Burn Myself Out
I’ve been living in a minor purgatory of my own making. I mean, not entirely my own making. I didn’t choose to strip my myelin away and have dodgy MS nerve pathways, but I did choose to hammer my body in the name of appearing ‘normal’ and well.
Last month I was shortlisted for an award (The McDermid Debut Novel Award, no less) and went up to Harrogate for the ceremony and the Theakston’s crime writing festival. This is entirely my vibe. Bookish people, writing people, readers, talks about books, authors everywhere, people I knew online but had never met. I was also staying in the hotel where Agatha Christie stayed when she disappeared in 1926, which added a layer. I felt like I should have been wearing a cloche hat and acting mysteriously in the lift.
For a person who often spends weeks unable to leave the house and who is naturally talkative, this was an absolute joy. I was unleashed. I downed enough coffee to provide a week’s worth of coffee enemas for a dodgy health retreat. I was high on endorphins and pushed and pushed. I’d wander around all day, chatting and collapsed for dense periods of sleep at night.
What I forgot, was that there’s a reason that I spend days wilting on the sofa and that no matter how much adrenaline and caffeine I buzz through on, my body is still flawed. I came back and collapsed, sleeping and reading through a blur of days and nights, barely able to walk or sit upright. My body became dysfunctional, and my eyesight faltered with my vision blurring, landing me in Urgent Care (I’ve had issues with eye inflammation from an MS flare before). Luckily, this resolved in days. The nerve pains decided to move from present and annoying to punishing and the nausea was intense. A fortnight later and I’m almost, but not quite, back to my baseline.
So why do I do this to myself? Two things: I wanted to enjoy myself and grab the chance I’d been given, and I also wanted to appear well. The former is understandable, but the latter is madness. Everyone knows I have a chronic illness. I’m ridiculously open. I mentioned this to someone recently and they were surprised that in the 21st century I’d feel obliged to hide being ill and want to fake wellness. But I do. There’s a sense of embarrassment to being ‘other’, to looking weak or pathetic, that I can’t lose. If I’m talking to people and the fatigue starts to hit, then I mask it. I skirt around the strange word-finding difficulties that I get, ignore the blurring vision, nausea and pain. I graciously wilt onto seats and pretend I don’t feel like all my bones have fallen out. More coffee, more effort, more adrenaline pushes me.
The most insane thing is that I wouldn’t judge anyone else for appearing ill. I certainly don’t think illness is pathetic or a weakness. I’d want to help and support them. I also know that that’s how people feel around me. But the easiest and also the hardest thing is the fakery. Being able to hide being ill is a double-edged sword for a perfectionist like me.
Did I win the award? No, but it was an honour to be nominated. I’m being genuine here, by the way.
Did I have a whale of a time at the festival? I did. It was fantastic.
Do I regret hammering my body to the point where I was incapable for a fortnight? Not at all.
I remain a fool.
Books for Sickly Days:
I ate this one up in a day. It’s a twisty tale about a group of young people who all worked together in 1999 on a complex dating app based on psychological tests. Things didn’t end well but they’re back, congregating for the first time in 25 years for a plush dinner party. But why has the electronic door locking system gone wild and locked them in? Why don’t their phones work? And exactly how much danger are they in and who from.
This is a riot of a read. It’s high octane, high stakes, high drama. All the highs. I loved this.