I know you hate it when I say that. "The solution is simple," you say, condescendingly, "Just eat better/use this remedy/sleep more."
Come on. I know you know I'm not stupid. I have tried All the Things. I take melatonin, I'm under both a doctor's care and a therapist's, and when I am able to sleep more I'm told I'm lazy/depressed.
I'm being treated for depression, too, in several different ways.
Thing is, fatigue is a symptom - at least in my case - not a Thing in and of itself.
Are you familiar with the Spoon Theory? It's a metaphor used regarding disability and chronic illness and sometimes neurodiversity, to describe that each person only has so much energy to spend in a given day, and was coined in 2003.
Gamer folks were using something similar for about 20 years before that, but the Spoon Theory is a more mainstream way to describe, understood by more people, and generally awesome. Even Muggles grok it, so to speak.
So, my Gamer and Spoonie friends, bear with me while I translate from Gamer to English.
Most games that have health and magic/intellect/tech systems have points or slots or hearts or little blue potions or whatever to describe these things.
In some of these games, as well as in the Spoon Theory, when you run out of Spoons/Magic Points, you have to rest before you can do anything else. In classic AD&D, this means eight unbroken hours of sleep. Which I rarely get, because I'm an anxious single mom with, y'know... stress.
In (my) real life, this means that when I run out of Magic Points, I start casting spells from my Hit Points... in other words, my physical health takes a hit.
Other things can affect these, of course, and it shows how stress is a huge part of our lives.
Example: Say you start the day with 20 HP and 20 MP.
- You are at -1 MP because it's winter and the sun lamp only does so much.
- You are at -1 MP because you're fighting a cold.
- You are at -3 MP because you're worried about your friends and family
- You are at -2 MP for holiday stresses of money/gifts/time
- You are at -3 MP because your government is being an asshat
See, now you're still at 20 HP, but you start the day at only10MP
- You use 1MP to make your contribution to the work potluck
- You use 1 MP to take a shower and get ready to go
- You use 1MP to work on a project
- You use 1MP to mediate a dispute
- You use 1 MP to deal with the daily news
Now you're down to five MP and you haven't even worked your shift yet. Got one back because the coworkers loved the meat pies!
Awesome... six left for the whole rest of the day, including work, dinner, music lessons, homework, and getting stuff ready for tomorrow. After all that, assuming no arguments between the kids, or bad traffic, or whatever, you have one MP left at bedtime. If you do have to deal with traffic or what-have-you, you run out.
But it's not bedtime yet, and you can't just drop into bed and leave stuff undone or you start at an MP deficit tomorrow. So you start (roll credits for the title drop) casting from hit points.
So you lose against the cold you're fighting. Or you get a migraine. Or you can't deal, there are potato chip bags stuck in all the machines, and you have a total meltdown.
This is how stress makes one physically ill... in GamerSpeak.
