Exhausted

[Exiled]

I don't really know how to start this without minimizing it or making it sound more composed than it is. The truth is, I'm not okay. I'm dealing with a lot of grief from my past — things that most people can't see when they look at me. I'm "functional," sure. I go to work. I smile when I need to. I say the right things. But inside, I'm drowning.


The weight of everything I've been through — the trauma, the way I've learned to present as "fine" while crumbling internally — it's starting to swallow me. I feel sick all the time. Exhausted. Like I'm carrying something too heavy for one person to hold. I hate how well I can mask it, because it makes it easier for people to assume I'm fine.


I have a therapist. And I know some of you might say to find a new one, but please know that leaving him is not something I can consider right now. That relationship is… complicated. He's been there through a lot. But lately, he's also been a source of immense pain. Still, I can't imagine letting go of him. I don't want to. I just wish it didn't hurt like this.


I can barely function outside of work — and even that feels like I'm dragging my body across broken glass every day. I don't cook. I barely clean. I isolate. I'm ashamed of how low I've sunk. And worse, I hate myself for not being stronger.


Sometimes I think about just not being here anymore. I'm not making a plan — but the thoughts are persistent, and I'm scared of how much I relate to them lately. I'm trying to hold on. I want to believe there's something on the other side of this that makes enduring it all worth it.


I guess I'm writing here because I just need someone to see me. To believe me. To remind me I'm not insane or weak or too broken. I want to feel like it's okay to not be okay, and that I'm not alone in this space of quiet suffering.


If you've been here — if you are here now — I'd love to hear how you survived the hours when everything felt like too much. I'm just looking for connection in this fog. I'm trying.

 

[evanescent_eva]

I believe you, and I don't think you're insane, or weak, or too broken.

As someone who is currently crumbling under the weight of their past trauma, I don't really know, exactly, how I survived the hours when everything felt like too much. It honestly feels that way all of the time, these days. I guess I kind of just think that FuneralCry is right - the human body possesses a near-endless capacity to experience suffering over time, and so I just kind of...survive, almost as if the suffering I'm experiencing is tangential to that survival? I do try to distract myself and dissociate from myself a lot, and that helps time feel like it's moving faster. Video games, tv shows, movies, music, podcasts....I can't do most of those things anymore, but they probably account for at least an additional year of me surviving. But the not cooking, not cleaning, the isolating, the shame, the self-loathing, the internal crumbling, it's all painfully relatable, and I'm so sorry you have to experience it all.

And ugh, complicated therapist relationships....I had one of those for almost ten years. No matter how many times I was hurt by that therapist, I still kept coming back. They had also been with me through a lot, and I felt like they could think in ways that I couldn't. And I had also had a bunch of very, very bad therapist relationships, so I felt that I was lucky to have found a complicated one instead, even if that one hurt so badly, so frequently. And then I had to leave to a place where they weren't licensed to treat me, and it was genuinely a freeing experience. I won't tell you to leave, especially when I don't know all the reasons why you're staying. But I wouldn't be opposed to you going to an online directory and just...reading a few profiles of other therapists, just to see what's out there. Might give you thoughts on conversations to have with your current therapist regarding what you'd like him to do differently, if nothing else.

Sending you as much care as I can through the ether. And I see you trying, and it means a lot.

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

Oh yeah, I hear you. I'm almost 60 and I have no idea how I made it this far. Partly because I was too stupid to realize how bad it was when I was younger... kept trying to hope. I tried and tried but the evidence piled up too high that it's just not going to work out, and it actually doesn't matter. I feel bad saying this to younger people, I hope you do better than I did. I'm just glad it's mostly over for me.

 

[Raindancer]

You are definitely not too weak, insane or too broken. Although it kind of amazes me we all made it this far without literally crumbling into thousands of pieces. In the physical realm I look solid and in one piece, but in the spiritual one, I am lucky if it's just 1000 pieces. I am sorry you are not OK. But know you do not have to be. It's OK to be exactly how you are in this moment. If I had a dollar for every time someone said "but you don't look sick". As another piece of me slowly dies.

I know it's hard not to beat ourselves up for what we don't get done. I have a small business and I have fallen behind in everything. I just couldn't do it all anymore. Everyday I stand and stare at what needs to get done and I am paralyzed. I used to be that person who got everything done early. I look for anything that can distract me from my thoughts, although it's getting harder. A good book or movie used to do it but I can't find much I enjoy watching and reading seems to be a torture as I need to go back time again to reread what I just read. I used to walk when my thoughts got the best of me and my anxiety rose, but physically that has even gotten difficult.

It's easier said than done but it is OK not to be OK. If you can't give yourself permission to not be OK, I give you permission Be gentle to yourself and allow yourself the time you need to do whatever you need to.