Basic Everyday Things Too Tiring

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I feel like I'm in some long monotonous dream where all the days merge together and I can't keep up. Eating at certain intervals, cleaning up after myself, replying to some message, trying to sit upright at my desk without instantly feeling like I'm tired again... it all feels like too much. Bills and deadlines seem to arrive at the speed of light, my food has grown mould before I get around to eating it... where is the pause button???

It's so hard to cope with basic household existence, it seems impossible to have plans and dreams. I don't know what to do, I'm unmotivated and tired always!!

I don't know if I'm depressed or if it's medication or something else, because I don't exactly "feel depressed ".

Are you more "unmotivated" than "exhausted" or vice versa - the exhaustion is the root cause of little motivation?

In terms of the exhaustion, would you say hanging out your washing, or making your bed is enough activity to exhaust your energy? (I am asking a serious question, not being a smart....!)

And have you had any viral illnesses in the past 6 months?

I don't think I've had any viral illnesses. I moved town a little over a month ago, That's the only thing I can link it to. It's hard to tell with comes first.. when I do feel like doing something I quickly get exhausted and that discourages me, I can't really discern whether cause is psychological or physical

They tend to inter-act through the cytokine part of the immune system anyway, so it isn't a clear division between physical and psychological. Whichever one comes first will impact on the other. Though from what you said in your opening post, it sounds like your fatigue arose from a physical cause. What kinds of medical conditions run in your mother and father's families? Especially any chronic conditions they have had from childhood?

I've been told the same cliche "everyone feels like that but we just have to do these things". It's so annoying when I get told this when I'm having a bad day or feeling really anxious about something. Being told that doesn't really make my stress go away. I have a higher level of stress than most people, so things are going to be a little harder for me, especially at work. People throw that cliche at me just so they can lumber me with grotty jobs what stress me out, which I find is highly unnecessary when we aren't short-staffed and there are important jobs I like to do that are more laid back for me and I can quite happily get on with without no aggravation.

I went through a period of extreme fatigue some years ago after moving into a new place, and it took quite a while to track the cause to (in my case) the environment - black mould concealed in some of the walls and relatively new polyurethane varnish on the floor which was "off-gassing" - giving off toxic fumes. I do get asthma and for the first time could not cope without steroids to help me breathe. This was the clue that finally helped me join the dots...

Once I moved away from that I recovered. However before I discovered the cause I went the whole hog of the usual medical tests -thyroid, blood count, etc - and since they were relatively normal- the doctor just assumed the cause of my extreme fatigue was depression. In fact it was the other way around - being exhausted all the time was the cause and depression was simply one of the side effects. Anti-depressants made me feel even worse.

You have to be quite a sleuth to get to the bottom of extreme fatigue sometimes as the causes are so varied - I looked at orthomolecular medicine (which did help) when it was clear that doctors were of little help and it was also clear that they thought in very narrow ways about women and fatigue - the idea of environmental factors was completely ignored.