No, taking a nap won't help!

So often as women with endometriosis we hear complaints about us being tired all the time.  Geez, I wish I could lay around all day.  Maybe if you got up and did something you would have more energy.  You should try drinking some coffee, that always wakes me up.  If you think positive thoughts it will make everything better.  I'm too busy to rest like you do.  So many people, in my opinion, have no clue that this is part of having endo. 

No one knows if it is the imbalance of hormones, or chronic pain that play a part in this fatigue but let me tell you it is very real.  Other reasons this occures may be the constant inflammation in the body, excessive stress or possibly when having chronic pain one sleeps less soundly.  One Internet source describes endo fatigue as a "grinding fatigue as severe as that experienced with advanced cancer is present in most cases." 

Many different sites describe it like this:
     -heaviness of the body, feeling weighed down
     -depression like symptoms, heaviness of the mind and body, mentally overwhelmed
     -simple activities like showering and getting dressed takes effort and planning
     -irritability, short term memory loss and emotional outbursts/breakdowns
      -sleep, coffee, resting, meditation etc don't help
      -loss of joy in favorite activities and hobbies

Believe me when I speak for other women, this isn't what we want to feel like.  It has cost us relationships, isolated us, left us feeling alone and misunderstood and sometimes makes us feel like we don't even know who we are.  I have a horrid fear of tomorrow.  I have no clue what I will wake up feeling like.  Is tomorrow going to be a day I can't get off the couch all day or a day I actually get to vacuum?  I hate not knowing how I can plan for a day from now let alone in three months.  The disease takes away so many things in my life.  I have dealt with it severely for the last 4 years, off and on for 22 years and every single minute for the last year.  It is miserable.  There is nothing fun about it.  There is no for sure treatment.  My best option was the surgery I had 4 months ago, guess what, I still have pain.  I am tired of being tired.  I am tired of the battle inside my body and with the doctors and people around me to understand this disease.  I am tired of telling my kiddos and husband no.  Endo fatigue has stripped me of who I am and who I aspire to be.  Now I am left with just trying to make it thru this day sometimes even just this minute.