Chronic Fatigue

I have it.

So uni is really hard at the moment. Impossibly hard. The new semester has just started, and it's looking a lot like I'll be dropping out at this point, again. I'm not sure though. It looks like it might vaguely be possible to push through, but I really don't know. It's confusing, it's stressful.

I managed to struggle through last semester somehow, but I only really started getting bad in the last few weeks. Now I'm starting the semester out of juice. I was getting a bit better after my doctor gave me the entire first week back off, but now I feel like I'm going down hill again.

Music performance is a pretty physically demanding course. There are 4 hours of ensemble rehearsals every week. There are a few hours of classes, plus an hour 1:1 practical lesson. Then there's the practice - at least 2 hours a day, but as many as 4 if you really want to do well. You can never get ahead, you really have to do that much every day. As it stands I can barely play for 5 minutes at a time, and only a few times a day. It wipes me out. Makes me dizzy, makes me lightheaded, gives me hot flushes. It makes me feel so exhausted and heavy, sometimes even light and sound become too much and I just go to sleep.

I need to have some stuff together by next week basically, or my year is over. It's looking pretty grim, and I feel like being back at uni the minimal amount I have been (it's week 3 and I've done less than half of the classes so far) I already feel like I'm going back down hill.

And in a way, I'm ready to be done for this year. I've spent so much time stressing and uncertain that I'm just fucking ready to make a definite decision.

If I drop out this year, then next year I'll still have 3 years to go. That means the last 2 years will basically have been for nothing. I think I'm at the point where I have to say "I have health problems that are making music impractical" and give up. I tried, and I tried hard. I've dragged everything out for as long as I can, but it doesn't look like it's going to work. I'm feeling surprisingly good about the idea - I've still leaned a lot, and I'll always be a musician even if it's not my day job.

I think I'd like to take the rest of the year to focus on my health. Go for some walks, and runs. Help dad build some shit for his latest crazy project. Do odd jobs, finally clean out my computer room and get a proper office-like setup with draws and space to put things. But most importantly work on my fitness. It's something I've needed to do for a while, in the face of fatigue, but it just hasn't been feasible with uni and school. Last year I stayed on half time in the second half of the year, and that meant that I was able to get some topics done but at the cost of having no energy for my physical well-being or social life. My health actually needs some attention right now.

I'm thinking next year I might transform into a CompSci major. I'm not sure yet. It's all just ideas at this point. But music is really obviously not working.

Oh also I came off of the antidepressants, because of the onset of this latest bout of fatigue. We wanted to rule out that it was nothing to do with them. It's been 2 months out of my system now and I'm feeling really great. I'm facing a stressful time where I have really limited social interaction and I'm coping really well. I feel calm, and I'm still able to make time to do things that make me happy. I'm conscious that things might get worse again though, but I know where I can go for help now, and I'd actually feel comfortable talking things through with my parents now after the initial hurdle a few months back.

This is a weird time for me. My future is really uncertain, my dream of the last few years is lying in ruins and my health is in the pits. But I actually feel excited about whatever future I make from here, and that there will be better times ahead. I think I'm learning to be optimistic.