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Personal Story: Presence of Mind
By Andrew Mosmiller
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Andrew Mosmiller has had CFS since the end of his teens. He now invests much of his focus in music, nature and computer activities.
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Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and my related neurally mediated hypotension (NMH) bring a whole host of symptoms to the table, but if I must boil it all down to one subject, it would be presence of mind.
First, let me define the term a bit. When I say "presence of mind," I mean the focus it takes to hit a baseball with the bases loaded, give a speech in front of people or write a report at work after being kept up all night by an unhappy baby. This type of mental focus gets stripped away if you have CFS—through the condition itself, and also by virtue of the necessity to overuse this focus on a moment—by—moment basis.
You see, most people summon presence of mind to overcome obstacles they don't face as a matter of routine. A baseball player doesn't have to focus on coming through with the bases loaded more than once a week on average. People don't give speeches every day either, unless it’s the same speech repeated for a different audience. And most new parents receive some help along the way in the form of family, friends, schooling or day care.
For someone with a chronic fatiguing illness, however, it takes presence of mind just to get up in the morning, to sit straight in a chair, to have a conversation with someone or to accomplish virtually any task no matter how insignificant—even something as benign as paying attention to the plot of a movie. The activities that require serious mental focus essentially become out of reach in most cases, eroded by the nature of the health condition itself. What focus remains must be used constantly just to make it through a day.
As I write this, in what would constitute a no-pressure situation for most, I must constantly fight to keep my mind engaged at a basic level. On several occasions, I’ve needed to force myself away from staring vacantly out the window, for instance, which then requires me to re-read sections of my writing to remember what I'm trying to accomplish. Later today, I’ll likely require the mental focus I'm using now to make a phone call and then to endure the many problems I face when eating dinner, such as global muscle tiredness in my jaw, back, legs and hands.
So in order to achieve something greater than simple survival, I am forced to hurt myself in some way, whether mentally, physically, psychologically or all three. Writing this will preclude my reading anything coherently for at least several hours—more likely the rest of the day and possibly into tomorrow. My well of already eroded mental fortitude is essentially used up.
In a pinch, I can summon the ability to focus on activities in sequence, but at great personal cost. This is how I’ve been able to attend college for lengths of time, be in wedding ceremonies, complete web projects, perform in a recital and the like. The consequences of such prolonged overuse of "presence of mind" results in months of increased symptoms on all fronts. For instance, after I have attended a semester of college, I can expect constant vision problems, disorientation, inability to listen to people talk and inability of minor wounds to heal. There are a great many more examples like this, but hopefully this illustrates my point adequately.
I suppose that the level of mental focus I or anyone with a similar condition must summon is comparable to the classic feat of strength of a woman lifting a car to release her trapped child. We as humans are simply not built to endure that type of long-term focus and energy. Otherwise, we would lift cars as a matter of course.
I have used up my presence of mind for the day, but I hope I have helped shed light on this aspect of the CFS experience.
Andrew is a 29—year—old man from Baltimore, MD, with a passion for classical music, nature and politics. He’s struggled with CFS and NMH for the past decade. He recently created a web design business for himself called Gray’s Creek Designs (www.grayscreekdesigns.com).
Editor’s note:
Andrew is one of many men worldwide affected by CFS. He and other men with the illness offer some feedback in “Men with CFS,” the cover story of the upcoming fall issue of the CFIDS Chronicle.
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