white noise

In the effort to learn how to pace myself, I keep returning to this Aesop’s fable:

The Hare and the Tortoise

A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.” The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue.

The moral of this story? Slow but steady wins the race. I don’t know about other Fibromites, but I do know that I’m horrible about pacing myself. I’ve grown up and lived in a society that puts vastly negative values on idling, so in my head, if I’m not moving forward all the time, I’m not productive. Sit down for 15 – 20 minutes to rest every 2 hours? In a normal 8 hour work day, that’s almost 1.5 hours of downtime. How many supervisors (at least in the U.S.) would consider this acceptable office practice? I know maybe one.

Yet, if I don’t pace myself, I can’t function at all. In trying to cope and work around this illness, I’ve determined that I have approximately 20 hours of full production a week in me. The problem with this? It includes simple tasks like getting out of bed, showering, and getting dressed.

The effects of FMS (and CFS) on my life are profound. Having to learn how to schedule my days into some semblance of efficiency is sometimes — at best — nerve wracking. Pacing is simple when I need only worry about me. Once I start adding in other factors: Jon, doctor’s appointments, classes, and any outside obligation, managing time at my own pace gets much more complex. I try to make appointments in spaces where I know I’ll have time before and after to slow down and take a break. There are some days, too, when I know that I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bear the pain, and the nausea, and the dizziness, and the heat. It’s difficult, though. The more I hurt, the harder it is to contain myself emotionally. When I worked at Weco, there were days when Scott (my supervisor) had to watch me sit at my desk and cry. No amount of antidepressants can control this type of suffering.