sqbr | Another I'm bored and chatty post, mostly about Radiohead

If it is possible for your work to be flexible you might find it a lot better doing the same hours but more evenly spread over the week.

I work 2 or 3 hours a day, five days a week. But I do them on a strict 1 hour work, 2 hours rest, regime. Fridays are still very hard, but that has been the difference between me keeping working and having to stop entirely. When I tried to do those hours all in one chunk at a time it constantly crashed me.

Frankly the thought of ever doing a full working day the same as normal people makes me freak. It just seems an utter impossibility and I have no idea how anyone manages it. After five years+ of this thing I now find myself constantly unsure of and bemused by how much energy other people seem to have - don't they know how dangerous it is to work that hard :D

Oh, a "full day" for me is four hours :D I've thought about trying a few hours on, a few hours off but I had full control over my hours during my Phd and find I need to work a few hours in a row to get any momentum. Do you have somewhere to nap?

after five years+ of this thing I now find myself constantly unsure of and bemused by how much energy other people seem to have - don't they know how dangerous it is to work that hard :D

Yeah I keep watching movies and thinking "Dear god, why are they walking up all those stairs, they'll regret that tomorrow!" :) I'm very grateful to

lilysea for introducing me to the idea of working parttime when I was ill but not bad enough to be diagnosed with anything or god knows how much worse I would have gotten, and I think it could benefit a lot of "Not actively unwell but a bit under the weather" type people.

Oh, a "full day" for me is four hours :D

Ah! That sounds more like it :D I had been thinking 3 days sounded amazing.

find I need to work a few hours in a row to get any momentum.

I used to find the 1 hour at a time rule really frustrating, especially since I have to spend a little time getting organised and then clearing up at the beginning and end of every hour. But I am so used to it now that it works fine. My brain and body are now accustomed to working in hour long chunks. And not being knackered every minute of every day is of course the prize worth all inconveniences.

Do you have somewhere to nap?

I only accept clients within ten minutes drive of the house. My carbon footprint is horrendous of course, but again that is one of those things I have to just let slide. One of the little talked about aspects of CFS is that it teaches you to be selfish :(

Yeah I keep watching movies and thinking "Dear god, why are they walking up all those stairs, they'll regret that tomorrow!" :)

Hee.

I drive my family mad by nagging them to not do too much despite their insistence that they are perfectly capable.

Ahh. I have a fairly unchallenging desk job where noone yells at me if I zone out staring into space for a while, which I imagine is much easier to do for four hours "without a break" :D I don't know what you do, but I've found face-to face stuff like tutoring MUCH more tiring (which is unfortunate, since that's my vocation, oh well :/)

One of the little talked about aspects of CFS is that it teaches you to be selfish :(

I was just thinking about that today, actually, it is a bit disturbing.

One of the little talked about aspects of CFS is that it teaches you to be selfish

or, it teaches you to look out for yourself, when in our society we're trained to always put the needs of others first...

I think we're taught to feel bad for not putting other people's needs first, but I'm not sure we're taught to actually do it :/

I was just thinking about that today, actually, it is a bit disturbing.

I think it's a bit like the charity thing you were talking about the other day. CFS forces you to look at the world in terms of 'effort'. You become a sort of accountant of how much effort everything costs and know to the last spoon how much you can afford. So a few years ago, if you had asked that question about standing and not saying anything when you know something to be wrong, I would have cheerfully chimed up and said of course it was wrong, and quoted All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing at you. These days I first calculate how many spoons I wish to devote to even answering the question, never mind if I want to stand up for the issue.

This is where I found some CBT tricks helpful - in learning not to hate myself for having to make these sorts of adjustments.

I think becoming more aware of and coming to terms with the whole idea of spoons etc means I expend what social justice etc effort I do more thoughtfully rather than inefficiently out of knee jerk guilt. In general I've had to come to terms with not being able to do everything, and once I'm in that mind space it's easier to think sensibly about what I will do.

Does anyone else think Thom Yorke looks kind of like John Simm? No? Ok, just me then.

They do have similar eyes, though the resemblance pretty much ends there.

And they're english! And men!

Yeah, maybe not. I see a lot of spurious resemblances. (Thanks for the handy reference shot by the way)

Yay John Simm!

*crushes*

I love Meeting People Is Easy. :)

It's certainly more interesting than all the stuff on the biography channel :D