Stress - anecdote

[Guest guest]

I now recognize a probable flare of my probable proto-illness that

arose whilst hiking 20 miles /d for 2 weeks, alone, 2 full years

before I started slowly going down. Twenty miles /d may seem alot,

but I was an ultra-lite backpacker - my pack was under 10 lbs, and I

wore running shoes (these save vast energy vs boots).

In the flare I had somewhat hyperactive and poorly controlled

mentation, and a moderate but very insistant and enervating

dysphoria, a feeling like I just wanted to stop walking and sit

down, and do what, well I didnt know, just nothing or anything

effortlessly adsorbing, just sit and try for analgesias sake to be

as little conscious as possible - a feeling whose signature remains

constant thru the 100 subtle variations I now know it in. I had at

least one dream from the far outre. No physical fatigue was involved

at all. By the end I felt pretty freakin batty, no kidding, like how

am I ever gonna get to the next town and out of these mountains

which I need to, didnt think I could deal with 2 more days, woulda

just backtracked to the last town but by the time I gave in to the

idea it was equidistant. I terminated the trip and returned to

normal. The next two years were awesome (tho extensive use of

certain nonmedical drugs may have been disastrously

immunosupressive).

Generally my probable proto-illness was mild, seasonally-fluctuant,

on-and-off dysthymia (abnormal poor mood), sometimes with a trace of

headache, etc; had it since always. But it was very very mild and I

got to have a totally rad life till 2003.

> I think quite a few of us suspect we had the bacteria in our

bodies,

> under control, but then finally fell to it when under stress. I

see

> that in my case for sure. But I'll bet I eventually would have

fallen

> anyway.

>

> - Kate D.