Just catching up with this thread and not at my best so can only get to page 6 - apologies i know i very behind in the discussion & things have likely moved on but just wanted to make these points now while i think of them
but also because of all the additional processing my brain will have to do from the extra sights and sounds, even if I'm not actually driving.
I gree. In addition, being driven in a car, even without the sensory processing, is still quite a 'work out' physically - the body has to be making small muscle contractions to keep the body in place when going around corners etc. I once travelled in a racing type car with bucket seats - it was a huge problem getting in & out because it was so low, but the side supports & the way the seat itself held my body in place instead ofmy core/trunk/leg muscles having to do it, when going around corners etc was wonderful & made a major difference to how much it took out of me.
Also the issue with travelling is the vibration, something i never noticed as a healthy person but it's actually a significant sensory input that has to be processed & adapted to. usually throw up on arrival because when the engine turns off the sensation of the movement & vibration continuing gets more intense causing a massive 'head rush' & making me extremely nauseated.
I cannot begin to imagine the horror of what it would be like to have to hold myslef upright on seat on a train being shaken about!
The greatest mental exertion is doing a difficult exam. I very much doubt that uses more physical energy than playing snap with a five year old.
Actually i find the greatest mental exertion to be trying to multitask rather than think hard about 1 thing - so taking an exam while patting my head in a rythm for example while listening to music in a different rythmn for example. Cant spell rythmn.
But i think i know what you mean in principle. Certainly playing that with my neice is as demanding as a tough crossword. More in fact, because the crossword is done in total silence. The issue is that once 'PEM' hits (i talking about the 24-48hrs later malaise that also involves the experience i would describe as 'thinking through treacle' or 'the scrambling of all mental signals/processing), the ability to actually think & even understand the crossword clue, becomes impossible, no matter how hard i try, and the act of recognising the cards in order to play snap, becomes so ridiculously slow as to be comical - like it would take me about 90 seconds to recognise a card match, not 1 or 2.
The analogy was contrasting an activity that could be done without thinking with one that needed great concentration. It was nothing to do with me being old and them being young.
This leads me to think we're on the same page.
The apparent 'lack of energy' of the computer is in fact a measure not of a level but of the ducks being all over the place so that it takes five times as much activity to achieve the same thing.
this resonates very well, thats how it feels to me - like all the signals have been scrambled once i done more than my limit of activity
So here, where you describe brushing teeth
That would be my point. For someone with ME for whom brushing the teeth requires exertion all sight has been lost of an othe automatic routine, so the act of getting up and brushing the teeth is no longer a routine but something that requires exertion. The autopilot isn't operating.
it seems (assuming by exertion you mean 'mental exertion, and by being on 'autopilot' you mean not having to think about/concentrate on something) its an accurate description of what happens to me once i am actually
in PEM - this is what PEM does to me. Which is one of the reasons its different to PEF, which i experienced as a healthy person when recovering from surgery or from a standard viral/infectious recovery, but it never involved autopilot faliure.
But in PEM i lose ability to do all the mental/physical autopilot functions, its like my brain forgets how to do things, including communicate - speak/understand, plus physical things also - like how to walk in a straight line or move my legs/feet appropriately/naturally, resulting in weird gait & having to concentrate really hard on it Needing to use my hands to pull my trousers like sling to lift my legs out of the car because i cant make them move properly. Body just stops following the usual automatic instructions.
BUT the experience
@Trish describes - taking a shower etc, where autopilot is fine but just cant complete the activity that the pilot is steering, due to 'energy' running out and symptoms getting to big to push through,(sorry Trish i paraphrasing your post I forgot to add it to multiquote & now cant find the post)...
That is also my experience but *BEFORE* PEM hits. So pre PEM autopilot works fine, but the plane runs out of gas and the radiator runs out of coolant very fast indeed brining the plane to a halt regardless of autopilot function. But once i go into PEM the sutopilot fails as well as there being little to no fuel in the tank. Degree of failure commensurate with degree of 'overdone it' that triggered the PEM.
To be clear... for me this is what makes delayed PEM different than immediate, or even delayed, PEF (delayed PEF being a thing i experienced when doing exercise i not used to when i was healthy - immediate post exercise endorphin rush & pleasant sense of tiredness, & then day or 2 after feel knackered and aching with DOMS).
When in PEM my autopilot fails, and things that took pretty pretty much no mental or physical exertion (at least to start with) before i'm in PEM, become a massive mental and physical exertion after it. Possibly to use your analogy they are activty pre PEM but exertion once in it? And things i'd have considered mere 'activity' pre developing ME have now become exertion since having it.
For example... Pre PEM I can walk up 2 steps into my house with little issue except I'm a bit slow, need rail for balance & it takes an amount of 'energy' that it wouldnt have as a healthy person so i need to pause to catch my breath before walking forward.
But once PEM hits (which, if i understand your distinction correctly, is post
activity for me - as it can be caused by reading or too mush sensory input eg music, while lying down), once it hits, those same 2 steps feel like the last 6 feet to the summit of everest lol!
my muscles shake like i just run a marathon, i so weak i have to use whole body pulling with arms on rails to heave self up because leg strangth isnt enough alone. Plus that autopilot-controlled coordination has disappeared, so that i aim my foot in one place and step somewhere else - wider or narrower than approapriate, making me stumble, I have to concentrate incredibly hard but still struggle to move legs appropriately. & often simply cannot get up the spets at all, vomit with the effort of trying to go up them on my hands & knees,, , trying to be heaved up by carer.
In addition the cognitive autopilot has failed as well, & i cant explain what i need to my carer what to do or what help i need. Either i cant think of what i need, or i cant make the words go from thought to speech, or i say totally wrong words, or my speech is so unintelligible she cant tell what i saying, or i simply cant speak at all.
I have tried to ring for help while in that state but i cant undestand how to use my phone, & if i do it takes me 10 mins to work it out. 1st to grasp that i can ring someone, then that i need my phone, then that my phone is in my pocket (all that takes several minutes), then work out how to turn it on with several failed attempts, then how to find the contacts, then how to dial or what to press to ring them, who it is i need, & then eventually if i can work it all out & make the call.... i have all the difficulties with communication that i just described.
But when not in PEM i can go up the steps, get phone out, make a call without much issue or even without really thinking about it other than taking the steps slowly & using the rail. and then i can lie down & speak about something quite intellectually sophisticated.... but only for very limited reps of the steps & limited time on the phone before i will trigger PEM & become unable to do any of it. And of course there is the gradation between able & unable its not binary, but rather a decline and then a faster & faster decline, before the falling over the PEM cliff, but i trying not to complicate my description too much.