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.

Paul,

Your last paragraph is so spot on with my experience, I get hit with the same thunderbolt and of course our instinct is to just push through! That in no way works now. I have had trouble with public because I don't know when it will hit and my best offense against it is as you say....lay down and close my eyes or pull my bible out.

Bud

Yes, absolutely. Time out is the only solution. Pushing through makes a very bad situation even worse.

On the positive side, I eventually found that I could get fairly well restored by even a short episode of "doze time". Of course, any dozing would depend on where you are. If a doze is possible, I was surprised to find that even a few minutes was great. ...Though, if some dozable peace/quiet is possible, there's a risk of sleeping long, (which may disrupt the day-night cycle, if that's got settled).

... Just finding that a short doze could be a remedy was a big morale-booster, I found.

And by the way, I always went everywhere with earplugs and an airline eyes-mask. Not that I really used them all that much, but having them in my pocket was a comfort somehow, and I suppose I did use them a fair bit. After TBI, as you very probably will have experienced, we're not able to screen out or filter all the sounds and sights coming in order to auto-select just the ones we want to attend to. I think that all the stimuli crashing in (particularly the sounds, even smaller ones) contributes to tiredness (and anxiety, itself tiring too). Earplugs don't insulate enough but they help. ...I finally don't currently still have earplugs/mask in my pocket the whole time; I think the difficulty (mine and others I've talked with) does get better.

Paul,

I am currently becoming less worried about a nap....the sleep issue really had me quite scared to take a nap or rest fearing I would lose even more sleep.

I am doing better at slowing down now and calming the anxiety.

Bud