Does anyone else end up crying from time to time just cuz the effort to stay in forward gear and be positive wears you out? Seems to happen once or twice a week for a couple of minutes at a time.

I hate to admit it but sometimes I just break down for a few minutes before grabbing the boot straps again. This is hard work and sometimes I get so weary from feeling screwed up.

I hope it isn't detrimental to others to post this, not trying to be a downer here to anyone just an honest question.

Bud

It is actually a common symptom of PCS. The term is emotional lability. Emotions can be hard to contain with PCS, on all extremes.

It happens to me all the time. Especially after a good day, when the symptoms get worse again the next day. I start crying, but after that I feel a lot better.

My seven year old son hugs me when I cry and it feels good. He is the only one who understands.

Usually when I'm tired it can reach a point where I can get down about it all. I try to see the bigger picture and the progress I've made over the months but sometimes you have to let the emotion out. Who knows it could be good for balancing our brain chemistry! I know what you mean about having a good day then slipping back the next, I say to myself if I can go 7 days where I feel OK I'll be happy lol.

Anja,

It is amazing the power of touch since this.....I can be really upset now and just a simple touch from my wife can quiet me now like never before.

Super,

I have attributed some of this to fatigue as well.....my goal is one week of not falling apart as well. I think if sleep can become consistent other things might just fall into place as well.

Mark,

Going to look that term up, thanks. Hope all is well in Boise.

Bud

Hiya Bud. Just to add a couple of things --

-- As well as attributing things to fatigue (right on), emotions are especially energy-demanding in themselves, = mega-tiring;

+ It can be VERY hard to be properly aware of how tired one is, after TBI-ing. You may think you know when you're wiped out, and know that it's sooner/faster than you were used to, but the chances are you may be closer to a wipe-out threshold some of the rest of the time (... but family / people close to you may learn to recognise signs of getting tired before you do).

-- In my opinion, touch (from/with a loved one) is potentially mega-wonderful maybe partly because it's like direct emoto-cution (to invent a new ugly word, sorry!) in that it's so ultra-direct and circumvents all tangly cognitive processing for something like emotional electrocution, but being a good kind of electrocution, if you see what I mean.
... as you probably know now, Mark's "lability" more or less means rollercoasting on emotions.

-- To be uncheerful, a really big problem arises for lots of us, I think, that sleep's not sufficiently energy-restoring. There's a long-long-long-standing difficulty that it's difficult to get re-charged enough (to prolong the tricky electricity metaphor). However, a bit more cheerily, I think that gets better for many or most of us. ... Individually, for my own part, I used to get absolutely floored so often, without warning it seemed, completely like a thunderbolt hitting out of the blue, so that I just HAD TO lie down and close my eyes (practically anywhere!) ... like a total system-"close-down", but that's improved a huge amount. Me apart, I think that managing energy and not being so consumed by fatigue seems to improve for lots of people I've met, altho it takes variable lengths of time and/or is difficult to monitor.

Mind yourself well.