jennita, I'm glad you're feeling better now. I don't mean to belittle your experiences whatsoever, because depression is a terrible thing. I just want to explain:
You wrote your husband was able to "force you" to get out of bed (good man) and brush your teeth and do sit-ups etc.
When I say "I can't get out of bed," I mean if I stand, my heart rate doubles, it feels like the "bottom falls out" of my head, the world starts going dark, if I do not sit down I will faint, I can't lift my arm above my head to brush my hair, etc.
No amount of "forcing" could have made me stand up and brush my teeth. When I was over the worst of it, if I would walk two or three blocks to the store, I would feel like I had been hit by a truck for days afterwards. Even years later, I came within a hairs' breadth of passing out doing nothing more strenuous than walking around the ground floor of a museum. Never before in my life had I ever fainted, before I got sick. This is a physical ailment, caused by low blood pressure, disordered autonomic nervous system response, a lack of muscle energy replenishment that is characteristic of CFS/FM, etc.
You also wrote that you couldn't stop thinking. When you have what I have, thinking is almost as difficult as physical activity.
Depression vs CFS is the difference being out of gas, and an engine that is rusted solid.
That doesn't mean your experience wasn't equally terrible in different ways. Your car still wouldn't go. It's an issue of terminology, we only have so many words.
Dang :( I'm really sorry you have to deal with this. I've definitely not been through anything like that. Thanks for explaining it better, I really had no idea what it was. (I also just googled it and am reading more about it) Don't worry, I hope it didn't bother you that I tried to relate to it. I do hope you can find a way to get better though!
No worries at all. I haven't had to go through chemo, so I'm sorry you had to go through that! That must have been terrible. We've all had our problems, and nobody was saying "Mine is worse!" -- I know you weren't, and I certainly wasn't, and hopefully it didn't sound like I was.
You wrote your husband was able to "force you" to get out of bed (good man) and brush your teeth and do sit-ups etc.
When I say "I can't get out of bed," I mean if I stand, my heart rate doubles, it feels like the "bottom falls out" of my head, the world starts going dark, if I do not sit down I will faint, I can't lift my arm above my head to brush my hair, etc.
No amount of "forcing" could have made me stand up and brush my teeth. When I was over the worst of it, if I would walk two or three blocks to the store, I would feel like I had been hit by a truck for days afterwards. Even years later, I came within a hairs' breadth of passing out doing nothing more strenuous than walking around the ground floor of a museum. Never before in my life had I ever fainted, before I got sick. This is a physical ailment, caused by low blood pressure, disordered autonomic nervous system response, a lack of muscle energy replenishment that is characteristic of CFS/FM, etc.
You also wrote that you couldn't stop thinking. When you have what I have, thinking is almost as difficult as physical activity.
Depression vs CFS is the difference being out of gas, and an engine that is rusted solid.
That doesn't mean your experience wasn't equally terrible in different ways. Your car still wouldn't go. It's an issue of terminology, we only have so many words.