Am I thyroid tired, baby tired, or just knackered?

The absolute pits of this condition is how bloody tired it makes you. At least, i think it's the thyroid. Let's think back.



At 29, I was up at 6am, teaching by 8.30 classes of 35 teenagers in East London, barely sitting down all day, coming home by 6pm, marking, prepping, then probably going out a couple of times in the week, bed by 11ish. At weekends, I'd be out all weekend and up past the witching hour. Yes, sometimes i'd be tired. If there'd been a parents evening, a stressful time and so on, i'd LIE IN at the weekends. But I was fine.



Was it because I was younger? Or well? Let's take a look at now.



Up at 5.30am with energy baby. Probably been up at 1am too. He's a bundle of hilarity at night. Make breakfast, shower, try to make baby nap, fail. Generally go out to baby group/ music group/ shops / library and so on. Make lunch. Attempt to make energy baby nap. If he does, nap with him. He usually only goes down for an hour, so i'll get maybe twenty mins in. Then to the park , make tea. Spend all day cooking, washing up, cleaning, amusing energy baby with flinging him about. Teaching 35 recalcitrant teenagers was easier. Put him to bed at 7pm. Tidy up bomb site house. Finally make cup of tea and drink it while hot. Then make dinner for DP, who gets back at 8pm. Attempt conversation, but as I am barely conscious, and have done nothing to talk about (the routine never varies, and how intesrting is a playgroup unless you're there? How interesting is it when you ARE there?), fail. Go to bed at 9.30pm having failed to see any news, again. Wake at 1am, if not before, and begin again.



Hmm, not much rest and sitting down there, and now i'm 35. But should i be this tired? How tired? This tired.



I dream, if i ever get enough REM sleep, of sleep. I year for 4 hours on the trot. I long for two broken legs so that I can lay in a hopspital bed for weeks. I ache for sleep. My brain is furred. I can't hold a conversation by 3pm. By 4pm, i'm desperate. I repeat myself. I can't be bothered to do anything, and onyl the fact that a baby is clinging to me makes me move at all. The effort of will required to get through a day is huge. At weekends, I don't want to go out, i want to sit. I am no fun anymore, at all. and don't even get me started on libido. I feel dead.



But this is how all mums feel, isn't it? That's what the doctors say. Well no, it isn't. I see mums with two, three kids and yes, they're all tired, but i don't see them having elaborate fantasies of how they can break their legs so they can lie down. They seem knackered, but normal knackered. I seem M.E. knackered, ill knackered. My sleep doesn't work, it doesn't refresh. I want it to be mended.



Should i accustom myself to this? Accept it? Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's the baby. Maybe. Or maybe it's a symptom that isn't taken seriously and nobody does anything about it. I appreciate that thyroxine takes time to work, and i'm not up to par yet. But why am I just being left to muddle through in the meantime? Why has no-one offered advice, help? I've asked, and asked again, and been told repeatedly that it will pass, when i'm "normal". But what do i do in the meantime? Live a half life is what. With a DP who barely sees me and a baby who wants me to play. I'm meant to just get on with it, and my diminished personality.



I can see the attraction of uppers. then at least I might have the energy to push energy baby on the swing for the required 2 hours.



I'm not sure where this was going. It's a plea, a hout out there, because everyone i know is sick of me saying i'm tired. I'm sick of it too.