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Do anger and disappointment cause PEM?

Messages
78
Is it possible for anger or rage or fear or disappointmet to cause the same kind of PEM that excessive physical activity causes?

I have had few things making me angry and full of rage (my computer crashes) scaring me (thieves in the building) and disappointed me (people making excuses instead of telling me the truth) in the last four days and yesterday I had the same kind of PEM that I would have if I ran for 10 miles. In fact I slept the whole day, had weird dreams, light was painful to the eyes, mind was foggy and had vertigos and couldn't even lift the arms because they were powerless and sore.

So do you think those big emotions was the reason for the PEM or that's not possible and there must be another physical reason or another of those idiopathic symptoms?
 
Messages
13,774
I'd have thought so, yes.

I'm often suprised by how little my emotions seem to affect my symptoms though. Maybe I'm so chronically angry/anxious/whatever, that I'm always maxed out for emotional exhaustion anyway, but predictably stressful events don't seem to add to fatigue.

It could be those emotional upsets led to disrupeted sleep, which then led to a worsening of symptoms.
 

3CFIDS@ourhouse

still me
Messages
126
Location
Southeast US
Anything that causes a release of adrenaline leads to PEM for me. Anger is really toxic, but even good excitement is bad for me. Hurrying, being startled, fear, even being really joyful affect me in a negative way physically. One of the things I hate (let me count the ways ;)) about this illness is that even good emotions have to be moderated (modulated?). I heard a psychologist say that every emotion except sadness causes physical arousal. If our sympathetic nervous system is overactive and our parasympathetic underactive, it makes sense that anything that jazzes us up further is a problem. Somehow it all ties in with the oxygen problem, but my cognitive "issues" make that all too complicated to even think about. It is so interesting to me that even as diverse as we can be, there is so much we share.