:: Quick little post here. It's been a while since I've written much. It appears I've fallen into the deepest pits of fatigue over the last few months. More below ⤵️ ::
2025 started well - resolutions, energy, motivation! My health was pretty good and we enjoyed a long, hot Aussie school holidays summer.
Then a few months back I unwittingly bought a discount ticket to my ‘existence-movie’ and have been forced to sit slightly back and off to the side, watching the film of my life slide past, more witness than active agent.
When you're really busy, you get tired. Makes sense. We’ve had a stupidly busy 1st term of school - our youngest started prep and our eldest hit year 5.
Much of adult life seems to be deciding where and how to deploy our limited resources - physical energy, mental focus, finger presses on the TV remote or the smartphone.
We are Energy Deployment Machines (EDM).
This task of ‘deployment’ is all the more challenging for folks with chronic health probs, which includes me. I have an adrenal system problem - my body doesn’t make any cortisol. Zero. Cortisol is super important to bodily functioning, so I have to take it each day, but still battle fatigue and energy problems.
Other than that, my life is ‘normal’ - as in, it’s insanely complex and bonkers-ly busy - running a business, being a parent, trying to exercise and eat well, keep the lawns mowed, the bills paid, the existential dread at bay. The vast majority of my life is far from glamorous - it’s admin, and kidmin (a word I created to explain the berserk amount of planning that goes into parenting) followed by long periods of self-accusatory semi-depression (Philip K Dick), and, fortunately, other moments of immense gratitude and awe!
For example, in one of the weeks during the term my wife was away for work for a few nights, we had NAPLAN tests, sex ed and a new soccer team for the 10 yr old, new soccer team for the 5 yr old, school excursions for both boys then the final cricket game of the season for the u11s, with 5 soccer sessions total throughout the week.
I can't remember what happened on Sunday, probably lost in a blur of bins, washing, gardening and a low-cortisol slumping in front of Kayo watching sport.
But there was more.
We navigated some separation anxiety, teacher parent interviews, and a huge excitement over doing maths problems (our preppy taught himself the times tables in a few weeks by watching a show called number blocks). I booked a weekend away with friends, but it got cancelled due to a family emergency. I went to dinner with mates I hadn't seen yet this year, and we laughed out asses off about AI and Elon Musk.
And, there was a bloody cyclone which took 2 weeks!!
Also, group chats. I have 11 extra group chats this year alone. Sports, school, kids, family etc. I don't mind the chats, but I do mind looking at my phone all day. So, during that week, and every other week, I clocked up hours of ‘phone staring’. (it’s not so much the ‘staring’, it’s the ‘deciding’. I have a message, I have to stop what I’m doing, think, decide what I’m going to message back, and then determine if my decision has any real world implications like a birthday party commitment that I’ll need to remember in the ever arriving future).
You get the idea.
Life. Admin. Kidmin. Decisions. Reactions. Repercussions.
Energy Deployment.
I genuinely don't understand how people do this - modern life.
What's wrong?
I'm just busy, a bit overwhelmed, and fucking tired.
….if I saw you at the local shops and vaguely waved and shuffled on past unable to engage in meaningful discourse recently, the above absolves me of any social norms I betrayed. It absolves you of them too…
I'm writing this sitting in my van outside the local soccer club where I volunteer, waiting for poisonous asbestos to be removed from the ceiling in our house. It's school holidays, and the boys are at holiday care across the oval from where I'm sitting - I can see the oval where they're playing. I can't see them. I forgot my glasses.
Also, I can't move. I can’t get up. My limbs are leaden. I’m actually stuck.
If you’ve never felt immense fatigue yourself, imagine how you’d feel after running a marathon - but all you did was walk to the car.
Normal people would call this ‘post exercise fatigue’. I call it ‘life’.
Fortunately there is coffee nearby. I tried to quit recently. It made me feel like absolute dog shit.
So with immense effort I drag my carcass up and order one. It tastes like enlightenment energy in a cup.
What's wrong?
I'm off coffee, having serious withdrawals and questioning all my beliefs.
I've spent large parts of my life trying to figure out, 'what's wrong?'. This is where chronic and incurable / unsolvable health issues lands you. Asking the question. Searching for an answer.
The feeling of wrong-ness, physically, the chronic and confusing nature of auto immune disorders that wreak havoc on my systems, tips me into searching. The search is often as exhausting as the chronic ailments.
I’ve had periods of my life where things felt amazing of course. It's these times where I felt incredible - turns out I probably just felt normal but to me it felt like a hyper-ecstatic bliss of glory - that haunt me when I go down into the pit of chronic illness once again.
I have tasted the ‘bliss’ of normality, however briefly. And now it's gone. *Again*.
It's no secret (if you've read my writing or listened to my podcast) that I've chased extra-ordinary states of consciousness over the last few years to try to evoke that feeling of wonder and awe into my life that feeling 'normal' has sometimes delivered.
Your results may vary. As they do for me.
The search goes on.
Something incredible happened yesterday.
A good friend in my community said that he might have this very unusual autoimmune disease that is impacting his ability to produce the ‘stress hormone’ - also known as cortisol.
"It's called Addison's disease" he said.
"Oh wow. I have that", I remarked.
What's wrong?
My body isn't producing enough cortisol and it's making me fucking fucking tired. (2 fuckings for emphasis)
Addison’s effects about 100 people in a million - so, if you know anything about probabilities, this was a pretty eye-opening conversation! Addison’s can be very rough, yet is generally manageable with medication.
Yet, the reason I'm stuck in my van, unable to find the energy to move (aside from the Addisons thing and the ‘need coffee now’ thing), is there’s another problem. Blood tests recently showed extremely low iron (which is unusual for men), so I'm off to hospital later this week for an endoscopy (tube down throat to look for bleeding).
Fun!
What's wrong?
I have no iron so I can't oxygenate my blood and power my bod (also called anemia)
The sort of fatigue I've been navigating for the last few weeks and months means not just that my body doesn't work normally - can't pick up the guitar, nor strum. Neither does my brain. Focus is almost impossible.
Sure, you can't get up off the bed. But you're not resting either. And you can't watch a movie. You don't have the energy to watch a movie. The energy does not exist inside you. You aren't functioning normally.
You're existing. That's about it.
So, I’m happy that I have a reason I’ve been extra-exhaustingly wading through the thick, heavy, gluggy glue of reality with a body that simply doesn’t work these last few months (blood oxygen crashing faster than Trump-tariff economy), even if I don’t yet have a reason for the reason.
What's wrong?
I have existential questions about my purpose and how to live a valuable life, but that’s mainly because I can’t get up.
I’ve spoken/written about how physical health and mental health are linked inexorably. Auto immune stuff and chronic illness and fatigue is the ultimate FOMO stoker. You cannot deploy your energy, and as an Energy Deployment Machine, this makes you feel mentally like crap. You are literally missing out, because you cannot partake. In life.
I have a very basic list of the things that I try to do each day to feel good. They’re purposely broad, just gentle reminders based on years of experience of what is best for me, and what is not:
⤵️ Try to
Eat well / diet awareness
Parent the boys consciously
Do some work (money and all that)
Do some exercise / stretches
Do some chores / admin
Do some Passion Project / Writing / Reading / Podcast
Play some Music
⤵️ Limit where possible
Social Media
Intake of sugar, shit food,
Limit procrastination (rage, rage against the dying of the light....)
See, it's not judgemental. It's not forceful. Just do 'some' of something. And limit some shit things.
Yet things get incredibly mentally tough when I can’t do these basic things. They are not glamorous as I said, but they constitute the bulk of my every day, the admin, and when their possibility seeps away, my value gets questioned - by me! And by others in the world.
What’s Wrong?
I can’t make it soccer training.
Why not?
Does 'My metabolism doesn't really work at the moment' satisfy the need for an answer?
Probably not. But it'll have to do.
Ok, it’s time to get out of this van and be in the world.
Mind over matter.
The asbestos is gone.
The kids need to be picked up.
I'll get to hear about their adventures playing handball and chasey and there'll be jokes about bum-cracks and then Mummy will come home and we'll have dinner together. And there might be nude dancing, laughing and board games.
The kids may join in too. ;-)
What's wrong?
Nothing.
Life is (also) amazing.
.
Yours in fatigue, Nick x