ME and phones

Im discovering something new every day and the more i find out the better i seem to feel.

On Tuesday i went to the ME support group. (The group meet at The Spyglass in Weymouth on the first Tuesday of the month between 1.30 and 3pm). Whilst there I took a phone number and an email address from one of the group members and, because I’ve decided to be honest about what i can and cant do, i confessed that i probably wouldn’t use the phone number because even the thought of picking up the phone exhausts me. I have to be feeling really well to ring anyone or to answer my phone. Thinking id get a wry look or a querying comment i was very surprised, and extremely happy, to hear from another member of the group that they knew why i felt like that. They had been to an ME conference and during it someone had talked about the same thing. Its so obvious when you know the theory i cant believe i didn’t cotton on before. When you have a conversation face to face with someone the important elements of communication are facial expressions, body language, voice intonations as well as the words. It is said that only 7% of communication is made up of words, while 38% is voice intonation and a massive 55%  is body language. The reason you may find phone conversations so draining is that your brain has to use massive amounts of energy to work out what is being said because 55% is missing from the content. You do all this subconsciously but your brain is working overtime to make sure that you get the correct meaning from any conversation you have over the phone.

So there i was thinking it was all part of my personal crazyness and once again its not me its my ME ….. hurray!! Its such a relief to find out that there is a reason for most of my querkiness, that i am just suffering from ME and im not odd just ill.