Running on empty
In the first year of learning French I came across the word 'fatiguee' and was told it meant tired. The teacher gave the English word fatigue as part of the explanation. But fatigue, I have learnt is no synonym for tired. Fatigue is much, much more. It slithers through your bones like a snake, it seeps through your already fogged brain, it wrings out those last few drops of energy from your aching muscles. And it makes you feel like an expired battery that has excreted its corrosive acid, resulting in an explosion of bitterness. Liver damage gives you fatigue, real fatigue, on a par with a nasty virus. Yet to all intents and purposes you are your normal self. You brim with frustration at not being able to do what you want to do, at not being able to hold down a full time job, not being the parent or partner you wish to be, not be able to get the exercise your consultant says you need. Because with frustration, fatigue brings 'f*ck it' as everything becomes al