Hip
Senior Member
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I am not sure whether my increasing need for quietness, solitude, and spending a lot of time away from people, and away from television, newspapers, books, etc, is part of the normal cluster ofd CFS/ME symptoms.
Does anyone else experience this tendency to withdraw from the world a bit? I don't mean withdrawing just because you are suffering from high fatigue at that time, and therefore just need to sleep or take a break. Even when my energy levels are relatively OK, I often prefer to shy away from these general stimulii of people, TV, newspaper articles.
The need to be away from these stimulii is because the amount of information input often overloads and confuses my mind.
If I have to go to a social occasion, like a small party or family gathering, where there is noise and people and conversation, I can manage, and I can "perform" reasonably well for a few hours (I used to like parties); but afterwards I find my mind is shattered for two days, as if my mind needs days to resettle itself, to slowly come back to itself, or to center itself again. This is without having any alcohol, and sticking to my health diet. During these recovery days, I often cannot even watch TV, go online, answer email, as my mind is that "raw" and delicate.
Does anyone else experience this sort of thing?
Does anyone else get this information overload problem, that takes days to recover?
Is this a normal part of CFS/ME?
Also, a closely related thing: Nowadays, I am particularly bad at following the background context of the information in front of me. For example, I used to read a lot (science, art, philosophy, spirituality, novels, etc, etc), and had eclectic reading tastes. I could easily dive right into any context (eg: the historical era, the geographic setting, the social or idealogical values of the time, etc). Whatever area I was reading, my imagination would easily construct the background context of the story or article. But now my mind often strains to imbue itself with the background context and flavor of a book, newspaper article, TV program.
DOES ANY OF THIS SEEM FAMILIAR TO ANYONE ELSE WITH CFS/ME?
Or could this be some other neurological symptom?
Thanks for reading.
Does anyone else experience this tendency to withdraw from the world a bit? I don't mean withdrawing just because you are suffering from high fatigue at that time, and therefore just need to sleep or take a break. Even when my energy levels are relatively OK, I often prefer to shy away from these general stimulii of people, TV, newspaper articles.
The need to be away from these stimulii is because the amount of information input often overloads and confuses my mind.
If I have to go to a social occasion, like a small party or family gathering, where there is noise and people and conversation, I can manage, and I can "perform" reasonably well for a few hours (I used to like parties); but afterwards I find my mind is shattered for two days, as if my mind needs days to resettle itself, to slowly come back to itself, or to center itself again. This is without having any alcohol, and sticking to my health diet. During these recovery days, I often cannot even watch TV, go online, answer email, as my mind is that "raw" and delicate.
Does anyone else experience this sort of thing?
Does anyone else get this information overload problem, that takes days to recover?
Is this a normal part of CFS/ME?
Also, a closely related thing: Nowadays, I am particularly bad at following the background context of the information in front of me. For example, I used to read a lot (science, art, philosophy, spirituality, novels, etc, etc), and had eclectic reading tastes. I could easily dive right into any context (eg: the historical era, the geographic setting, the social or idealogical values of the time, etc). Whatever area I was reading, my imagination would easily construct the background context of the story or article. But now my mind often strains to imbue itself with the background context and flavor of a book, newspaper article, TV program.
DOES ANY OF THIS SEEM FAMILIAR TO ANYONE ELSE WITH CFS/ME?
Or could this be some other neurological symptom?
Thanks for reading.