As the body goes, so does mind. Neurological flare ups, locking down muscles with stiff tendons and burning skin, weak and achy joints with a underlying Numb Tingly Velcro Feeling. Urgent bladder 24 hours day and night with irritable bowel syndrome avoiding all sexual contact and your doctors cannot figure “IT” out for years is mentally disturbing. But “IT” doesn’t stop there. “IT” gets worse.

(7) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

You feel like you just ran the Boston Marathon, only you just got out of bed. You’re completely drained. Washed out. Running on empty. Not just today but every day. Fatigue affects every thought in your mind and every muscle in your body. During a flare up you can go to sleep at 6:00 PM and wake up at noon and still be tired. You always feel like your coming down with the flu and when you get the flu it feels like your going to die that day. This chronic fatigue may be a contributing factor that limits your ability to Multi – Task. The ability to think, do and accomplish many things at once. Your daily errands, your domestic plans, your job, that million dollar idea. Your internal dialogue, your automatic contemplator/iterator/problem-solver has gone flat so you can only “do” one thing at a time. Like getting milk and bread. You can only get the milk first then you can think about the bread later. You’re going 35 MPH while everyone else are going 125.

Interestingly FMS victims can think vertically pretty well if it’s one thing at a time, But not horizontally - like anything outside the body or into the future. You can think up a million dollar idea but getting it across the street is the catch. It takes legs, memory and timing. Maybe the mind knows you don’t have the energy, the physical coordination or social skills so it automatically drops off that horizontal equivalent so you end up late. The next time your fired.

(8) Insomnia

As tired as you are all day with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome you can’t get to sleep at night. Not just tonight but every night. Somehow the night and day got flipped. You intermittently nap in the day and intermittently wake up through the night. Another reason you can’t sleep is Restless Leg Syndrome: RLS. Restless Legs is a bizarre syndrome where your legs neurologically bolt and jerk around all night. You can never quite get comfortable. This is normally experienced as a twitching (untying of knots of stress) in your neuromuscular system as you settle into sleep. Chronic twitching magnified as restless legs.

Urgent Bladder – Barely able to hold only 1 ounce causes one to eliminate 24 – 36 times a day including the night is another reasons for chronic insomnia.

Fibro-Fog - You always feel tired and disconnected from life and the people around you as if you lived in the fog. You’re prone to forgetting things, losing your keys, even your way home. You can see a movie and 30 days later only remember the movie as it unfolds before you. Weird! This may be caused by mal-absorption in the blood chemistry from Irritable bowl syndrome, urgent bladder or leaky gut syndrome or general nerve damage.


(9) Depression

Its not that you really want to die it is that you are utterly convinced for years that you actually are dying. You live a life in 2 possibilities one for life your to “do list”, and one for death, your to “don’t do list”. You can never plan on next week. When you commit to someone for something next week you might not be able to get out of bed. And when you don’t feel good today on an invitation for next week, you get left out. You experience severe bouts of sadness and loneliness, often crying for no reason without hope. Will “IT” ever end?

A personal story from the author: My father went through a physical-mental break down when he was 50 yrs old. He opted to cut both wrists & neck. My mother found him in the bathroom in a pool of blood. She took him to the LDS hospital in Idaho Falls. He then went for the river across the street, but finally lost too much blood and didn't make it. They saved my dad but he didn't speak for 6 years. I always wondered why “the happiest man” I knew felt like killing himself? Now, I believe I know ... “IT” will never end.