Ever since high school, I have struggled with 2 major things that no doctor could ever identify the source of: migraines and “chronic” fatigue.
My mother told me to drink more water for my migraines. I got new prescription glasses every 2 years or so to make sure my eyes weren’t strained. I took Advil when it rained and the air pressure changed. I was quick to assume my migraines were an amalgamation of all these things, despite the fact I was doing everything in my power to prevent them, but I was still getting headaches or migraines consistently almost every single day into my early 20s.
The fatigue I quickly attributed to my poor diet. I battled with different phases of eating disorders as an early teenager including anorexia to binging to orthorexia. Obviously those would affect many things with my health and wellbeing, especially my energy levels. When I was consuming a maximum of 400 calories a day, I would stumble home from school and pass out for hours. This is a normal symptom as there was nothing sustaining my body.
Years passed, and by university, my eating became relatively normal, if not just a regular university kid’s diet. Still, I was suffering from this fatigue. Again, I had an excuse. School is exhausting, there’s too much work. I was consuming an inhuman amount of coffee, which probably led to crashing, and everybody who wants to avoid work knows how great a nap can feel.
This excuse faded when I left the university to pursue other things with a schedule of my own, and I still suffered mid-day with fatigue. This fatigue overwhelmed me to the point where I could not keep up a conversation. I could not focus on a person speaking. I felt sluggish and every movement was like being weighed down. I was questioning if this was normal or not, if everybody else who takes naps midday were feeling as dysfunctional as me.
I was vegetarian for about 6 years by the age of 20. At this point, I decided I would try to incorporate meat despite my morals because I couldn’t function properly with such low energy levels. I was pursuing my own business and needed to work a lot and not reschedule meetings due to my fatigue. The meat thing didn’t work (surprise, surprise), so I bit the bullet and asked a doctor for his opinion. He tested me for thyroid levels, Vitamin B and D levels, and iron deficiency, all of which proved to be totally normal and healthy. He hooked me up with a bit of Vitamin D just in case, but we reduced it down to MAYBE stress.
The stress came from me being diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Now, this has daily effects on the body like IBS and other very severe long-term consequences, but I was well informed of all that and spent years really understanding my stress levels and how they manifest in my body. All in all, I was not sold that my fatigue and migraines were from stress. Not like this, anyway.
I’ve also done research on how C-PTSD and post-trauma bonding can affect insulin levels due to adrenaline and fight-or-flight responses, which consequently can affect energy levels dramatically. My experience with trauma bonding and C-PTSD definitely seemed to justify that conclusion, and yet, the energy level issue had gone almost a decade prior to this and lasted well after the effects of my abusive partner. If you are experiencing any type of emotional abuse and would like to learn more about it, this is a great video to explore the energy issues I was describing, but she also has excellent information on narcissistic abuse that is extremely important to be aware of.
I mention all these things in case you might be experiencing fatigue without knowing why. These are things that didn’t end up being my problem, but are problems for many people and might explain your own issues.
At 22, I found an Instagram post by a beautiful illustrator @ninamaakt where she mentioned she was very tired and decided to come home early from an adventurous day because of her being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Not many people mention the words “chronic fatigue”, so I was immediately interested in what an HSP entailed. I looked it up and found a quiz that was NOT a proper diagnosis but had symptoms of some things HSPs feel and could indicate that one MIGHT be an HSP. I checked off every symptom as something that happened to me in everyday life.
Some of the symptoms on this site included:
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I am easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input
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Other people’s moods affect me
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I have a rich, complex inner life
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When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment, I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable
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I make a point to avoid violent movies or TV shows
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Changes in my life shake me up
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I make it a high priority to arrange my life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations
According to this site, 15-20% of the population is an HSP. It is by no means a disorder, but it can have effects on your day-to-day life. The gist of it is that the HSP is very sensitive to stimuli around them: touch, sound, light, emotions. They can feel others’ emotions very easily and take on that emotion. If they are in busy, loud, boisterous settings, they may easily become distracted and hazy. This is because they take in and are sensitive to all the stimuli, so the more at once, the more intense it is, and it becomes hard to focus. The stimuli they take in in a day eventually pays a toll on their energy because they also have to take in and reflect on what they just took in. Oftentimes you’ll find HSPs are introverts because of this.
This was a huge AHA moment for me as this, above anything else, best describes how I feel in a day and how I react to many things: washing dishes, the screen door staying open and whining while swaying in the wind, my dogs barking, action movies, etc.
If any of this pertains to you, I suggest you do your research on all of these types of things. I counted on a doctor and a psychologist to give me an answer, but sometimes the answer isn’t clear to them. I’m thankful for people who vocalize these types of conditions to provide awareness to those who don’t know what it is. At the very least, it’s a stepping stone to learn how to deal with the stimuli around me and to adjust my life to conserve my energy levels as best I can.
I am not diagnosed by any means. I am still in the process of learning about it, but at least I have a better idea of who I am and my place in the world because of this.