Profile of An Overachieving Spoonie

 

My schedule is jam packed with work, assignments, writing, and homework. Occasionally, there’s a hair appointment or an actual meal – you know, one where I’m not working or studying, but just eating and maybe conversing. But most of the time, it’s all work and no play making this Jane a dull girl. I’m balancing a lot of full plates. On one hand, I have a school – finishing up my associates and then my double major, certifications, sports and work. On the other, I’m juggling a writing career, volunteering and life with multiple chronic illness.

I’d be willing to admit it’s this lifestyle that got me into this mess….but then, I can’t remember ever being really healthy. I mean, my lungs and I have been locked into combat since day one.

I know my constant motion, my constant level of activity doesn’t help. I take precautions – my life is regimented by my medication and sleep schedule. I try for 8 hours a night and absolutely insist on 6. I take my vitamins, my supplements and drink a ton of water. I realize my doctor is probably shaking his head when I leave his office, reminding him, “I don’t have time to be sick.”. But the truth is- I don’t know how to be any other way.

I’ve talked about stopping. I’ve talked about slowing down, maybe dropping this activity or that one, but I can’t. The truth is: my frenzied pace is my security blanket. When I’m rushing from here to there or I’m on a deadline for this or that, I don’t have time to think about my next lab draw, my next appointment, or my diagnoses. My thoughts are on this assignment, this article, this fundraiser, this event. I may get a few free moments to worry at the end of the day, but they are blessedly brief as sleep quickly overtakes my exhausted body.

I know the toll this lifestyle has on me. I know the frenetic pace has increased my pain and fatigue and weakened my battered immune system. I know I can only go on vitamin and supplements so long before we may question their benefit. I know I tire of the 10 minute medication routine each morning so that I can function and the 10 minutes at night so I can sleep mostly through the night. I know I’m young, and that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. The thing is – this is who I am – and despite it all – I’m afraid to stop moving. I’m afraid of what might happen if I stopped.

 

Article written by staff writer, Agnes Reis

 

Agnes is a nursing student in Minnesota. She was diagnosed with CFIDs in 1999 followed by fibromyalgia the following year, along with lifelong allergies, asthma and migraines. She can be found at brigid22.wordpress.com or @brigid22 on twitter, but cautions twitter followers that there’s a heavy dose of sports and nursing along with the spoons.

©2024butyoudontlooksick.com
  • Michel

    I’m so glad to have found this website! It is so nice to know I am not alone. I was diaganosed with myastenia gravis a year ago and the hardest part has been learning to listen to my body and slow down. My husband has been my biggest help….he recognizes when I am overdoing it before I do most of the time and will make me stop and rest. Without his help I try to power through the exhaustion making it so much worse.

  • Julie

    I too am a type A overachiever. Four years ago I hit bottom, and had to give up my career, and my 3xper week golf rounds. I have fm/cfids/oa/ facet joint disease/ asthma/ allergies/ bipolar/ depression/ borderline personality, 2 ex husbands, 2 kiddos, a home, etc.

    My docs told me that I needed to learn how to pace myself. HA! That WAS my pace…. my pace was fast. Now that I have “accepted” my disability and slowed down, I have taken on an even more important and challenging ‘volunteer’ job. I can make my own hours and delegate as needed (yeah…right), but I am still buzzing at 100 miles an hour.

    Pacing didn’t work for me. I now go full-on until I just can’t move anymore. Then I accept that I will not be able to get out of bed for the next 3 days. This is the only way I can still do the things I love. Some people just can’t turn it off……

  • Rebecca

    Agnes – if you had an Aussie equivalent, it’d be me. Between working 60 hours a week, volunteering, and studying for my Masters, I feel as though I never stop moving: but you hit the nail on the head. I’m simply too damn petrified to stop moving, for fear I’ll stop altogether.

    While I appreciate that I’m basically in disguise, attacking life at full throttle for fear my disease will take away my chances before I’m ready, I also know at some point I’ll come to a standstill. That day scares me like no horror movie ever could.

    But still, we power on – through brain fog and pain and generally feeling like death – to achieve everything we always hoped we could, albeit at warp speed. It’s lovely to hear I’m not the only one living life in fast forward – soldier on, fellow overachievers!

  • Joe

    I am so glad to have found this website, I have felt so alone for years and no one seemed to understand how difficult life is for me. People told me that I was just a complainer or a hypocondriact. It was all iin my head, I was sure that I was mentally ill. I got so tired of hearing ” you look good today” and
    thinking wow today is one of those days that I was going to call in sick because I was in so much pain. I have felt so alone because no one wants to be around a sick person. I try to be positive and most of the time I am able to look at all the blessings I have and I just keep on reminding myself that I have gotten through another day and have accomplished something even if it is brushing my teeth and shaving. Thanks for letting me vent and not feel embarresed. Having Fibromyalgia has made me appreciate when I do have some good days and I am so thankful for those days.

  • Jessica

    Thank you soooo much. I too was an overachieving spoonie. I just graduated with my doctorate of physical therapy at the age of 25. Never mind that I have my undergraduate major is in athletic training and I have my EMT. I now have a job and am waiting for my state to send me my license number so I can start working. I also try for at least 8 hours a night of sleep… sometimes more as this fatigue is never ending. It was just really nice to see that I’m not the only overachieving spoonie out there!

  • Amanda

    I completely identify with this. it’s so hard to relax even though I know I should. When I have 0 energy it’s easier to just power through than to stop and take an unrefreshing rest before I have to find the energy to start again. sometimes it’s easier to keep on running on empty than to stop and realize how drained I really am.

  • Sumbalina

    Yes I am a spoonie too. i work 9 to 5 just coz I am afraid to stop. i have AVN too alongwith a hip replacement, but I have to go on to keep my little son going on too.

  • unicorn

    Hmmm…cautionary tales? Well, yep, there was me tearing around and doing it all and then some and BAM!

    From putting in 18 hour days 2 hours of slep ad doing it all agian to… not being able to walk across a room, from disecting policy documents to not beingable to read halfa page of a fluy novel and know what I had read…

    Scarey, scarey time, andtook a long time to get back on my feet (literally hehe) and even longer tom get my head around what was happening. Faced with something new, my response is to research it but there I was not being able to source and make use of information. What was the ‘new’ me? Well who knew kuz just when I thought ‘this is how it is ‘ symptoms and what I was capable of changed again.

    It takes time to learn how to manage your condition… but personally for me that meant getting back to having most of my personal resources availble to me most of the time.

    This means a de-frag of my life, looking at what needs to be done and asking
    does it really have to be done?
    does it have to be done by me?
    does it have to be done as often?
    does it have to be done that way?

    Identify spoon suckers and time wasters… take the lift/elevator and use the spoon for something more important.

    having said all that, I am useless at pacing, better at not letting other people suander my rsources, useless at getting the basics like house chores done when there are study courses to attend, projects to initiate, creative stuff to become involved in.

    I do more than an lots of non-spoonies and can’t really see this changing as, has already been said, this me being me. Yes I suffer when life throws a spanner in the works and factors outside my control cause stress (usually from folk anf organisations and systems not being organised and efficient and being unnecessarily unreasonable grrr!) and I do flare.

    Ha, my uk government should love me asthey ar trying to get all spoonies to stop thinking they should be anything other than workers or Job Seekers with no special considerations : )

    Good luck Agnes, but remember to de-frag : )

  • Marilyn Winspear

    I hit that wall and have had the toughest year and a half trying to figure out who I am now that I can’t be all you have expressed that makes you, you. So very hard. I hope you can keep going, but if you can take time to stop and better pace yourself – do it. Then maybe you can have the dream.

  • Lizzie

    Totally agreed about being scared of what happens when you stop. I took a year off a few years ago, and physically I felt quite good. I was much healthier than I had been for a LONG time. I even managed to come off pain killers.
    But psychologically, it as the worst thing I ever did. It made me feel so useless, and boring. I wound up more depressed than when I felt horrid.

    I’ve got a reasonable balance now. I work in out of school hours care, in a job that I adore. I work 7am – 9 am, come home and have a nap, and get things done around the house, then work 3pm – 6pm. I even get the school holidays off on full pay. (12 weeks off a year, pretty cool.) I’m also studying off campus.

    It still sucks, because I remember how well I COULD feel… But mentally, I’m so much better off just pushing through. The only thing that annoys me now is that I’m using my holidays to crash and burn, where as everyone else gets to go on holidays to Bali and the like, lol.

  • Cara

    My crash came in my 3rd year of studying veterinary medicine. I never was able to finish my degree. I don’t know if I would have listened to the cautionary tales if I’d been told them ahead of time but I like to think that, if I’d figured out how to take my health into consideration and balance my life, I would have finished school. I might not still be a veterinarian now, but I would have had the choice. Iris is right…. life with a chronic illness is a marathon… try not to run full force into the wall.

  • sarah

    Sounds like my life about 2 years ago. 72 hours of night shifts a week in the ICU, 16 credits of college and somehow someone gave me a 15 year old that was in trouble at home and was running out of options in the state she lived in.
    Got the girl child straightened out and back home after 6 months of stress, then I woke up one day and realized that I was in full crohn’s flare. week in the hospital, blood transfusions job trying to fire me because the boss thought I was joking.
    My mom came to Texas and made me go to Wyoming so she could take care of me while i regrouped and tried to recover from everything hitting me at once. lol got healthy and was working two full time jobs, helping with my grandkids and helping everyone who had their hand out.
    Found t6he love of my life two years ago, after 25 years of not knowing where he was, and he said we have got the rest of our lives together you do not have anything to prove and you do not have to take care of anyone but you. what a concept, never thought of it that wa;y. so I now work one job and it is barely full time, in a slow paced specialty clinic and life is good.

  • Sophie

    I have CFS and can sometimes manage a couple of days like that before my legs stop working and I can’t complete sentences. Or get out of bed. I was forced to stop trying so hard. Everyone else has cautioned you so I won’t repeat, just say I understand and am slightly jealous you can do so much, even with all the backlash!

  • Fiona

    It’s so hard finding a balance ! Is it our type A’s can better deal with chronic illness due to our strong will and stubbornness ! Or wee end up ill due to our fighting our bodys! r most chronic ill people type A? My life would b so much simpler if I was like some people I know u could call them type D- they r happy & healthy as a horse! But I know I would not be happy lol can’t win keep up the good high wire trapeze daily and let our team be our net from a type A stuck resting in her net planning 2moro’s juggling already.

  • Barbara

    I used to be like you, but was brought to a grinding halt. My specialist said that typa A personalities are his most difficult patients. The sooner you force yourself to listen to your body, slow down and better pace yourself, the longer you can delay hitting the brick wall & not being able to get up again.

  • I know the feeling. I’ve just shifted into high gear getting ready to move to San Francisco and it’s a roller coaster. It took immense will power to take a rest day yesterday and not do anything – not even daily art – but I’ve got to pace myself or I won’t manage to get it done. The crash hit hard when it came.

    Good luck on your balancing act. Those achievements do a lot to help keep you sane, if you can stay positive it’s worth a lot.

  • Agnes, you remind me of me.

    I can remember how much I hated hearing my specialist saying: “Stop trying to prove you can have a normal life.” How often I tried to explain to him I wasn’t trying to prove anything I was just being me.

    He was right – the crash came. Eventually I just couldn’t do it any more. By that time I couldn’t do much of anything any more.

    Try to pace yourself – hard as that may be – because living with a chronic illness is a marathon not a sprint.

    Now, when I’m only working part time and sleeping half the day as well as most of the night, my doctor still occasionally takes blood pressure or looks at blood test results or listens to me moan about my aches and pains and says: “Your personality’s starting to show through, you need to push it down. Stop trying to achieve things.”