tired and afraid
notes from my therapist's office
Yesterday morning I got home from yoga, parked, and sat in silence, staring dead-eyed at my windshield. I’d already conquered the most difficult part – making it to, through, and home from class, but as I turned off my car and unbuckled, the thought of doing anything more became too much to bear. I normally wouldn’t bother you with such things but when I finally dragged myself into my house to sit at my computer and tell my therapist about it, she said that she and her colleagues have noticed an upward trend with these types of feelings in the last week and I so thought you might be feeling the same.
In truth, I searched for something else to write about. I glanced through the frenzied note I keep in my phone containing fragmented ideas for this newsletter and found choruses of fear and exhaustion. Each hastily jotted idea echoed the last, finding new ways to rephrase that I am tired and afraid. Too afraid of failure to let myself rest, too tired to do anything sufficiently.
Things are going well right now, I insisted throughout my therapy session. Relative to other points of my life, I have fewer responsibilities and less stress at and about work, which should point to a happier, more capable version of myself, I argued. Without the major pressures that used to pin me down, I should feel weightless, or at least a little freer. Instead, I feel encumbered by the few tiny responsibilities I do retain. I ask my therapist if it is possible to build a tolerance to responsibilities the way we do with alcohol, and she assures me that it is. My tolerance for doing hard things, like my tolerance for red wine, seems to be slowly but steadily dwindling, until the point that I am no longer able to pull myself from my car or indulge in a second glass.
She asks me why I don’t rest and I tell her I can’t. I haven’t earned the right to and I wouldn’t know how to even if I had. I don’t suppose I’ve done enough to merit the exhaustion I feel. None of the things that should be restful seem to have the desired effect. I get coffee with friends and am grateful for the time we have together, but return home feeling drained, despite the caffeine and the company. I send a single email and reward myself by scrolling endlessly through pictures and videos of strangers doing things that don’t interest me. I go for a walk that turns into a run and I return home more anxious than I left, courtesy of an old man and an unwelcome comment. The last restful prospect I can come up with is sitting alone in a dark room and even that would allow my restless mind to wander too far from its rightful place.
The tired, I eventually realize, lies not within my physical body, or even my mental body, but within my emotional body. I don’t know exactly what that means, but as soon as I say it, I know it is true. My lowered tolerance for stress means that every molehill has suddenly become a mountain and I am spending each day trying to summit Mt Everest when all I want to do is tuck and roll down it. The only relief will come from reaching one extreme, either the top or the bottom, and yet I refuse to let myself move from my place halfway up the mountain — too tired to keep climbing, too afraid to roll down.
Instead of growing frustrated with myself for being unable to climb or descend the mountain fully, I am trying to give myself permission to search for a pillow upon which I might rest my head. Self-compassion acts as a nap when I need a full night’s rest, but the chance that it could give me enough stamina to summit one more peak before the sun goes down is one I can no longer refuse. My therapist reminds me that it is okay to pause until I regain my energy. She assures me that the hike will get more manageable the more I trek; the only way to make hard things easier is to continue doing them, over and over and over again. And I will, but not right now.
An unexpected change in the weather canceled the plans I had for after therapy, leaving me with a few hours in which I might practice returning my emotional body to my physical one. I turned on my new favorite playlist for getting things done and sent the emails I had been avoiding before the motivation from my appointment had a chance to wear off. I took my blankets from storage and listened to a story my therapist had suggested while I folded the laundry. I washed the dishes and brushed crumbs from the counter, removed the labels from empty bottles I’d been hanging onto for weeks. I texted my friends and forgot to check for their replies. I finally watered my wilting plants and remembered to make myself a cup of tea too. I found the pillow I needed in household chores, allowing my emotional body a chance to rest so that it might once again rejoin the rest of me.
I don’t have the energy today to make it to the top of Mt Everest and that’s okay. I can at least begin my ascent, which is more than I could say yesterday.
PS - if you are a paid subscriber, you might notice that the list of things I did after therapy yesterday looks remarkably similar to the list of things I said I would do on Wednesday but (spoiler alert) didn’t. My therapist and I also discussed that I often know what I need, but refuse to do it. She called it self-sabotage just like I hypothesized. So if there’s something you think you should do, that probably means you should. The poems will be here waiting when you get back.
I told you I would cut that paragraph into a poem so here it is
the truth is that I’m tired and I keep telling myself I don’t deserve to be but I am. my plants need water and I have not been a good mother to them. I’m out of room and out of energy and can’t shake the feeling that I’ll soon be out of time. to do what, I’m not sure. I can’t tell if I need a return to or a departure from myself. I need so desperately to be alone and to be surrounded by people being loud enough that they drown out the sounds of my thoughts. I want to vacation as much as I want to hibernate inside my home until the peonies make their reappearance outside my windows. I suppose both are means to the same end. hiding myself from the real world, or keeping it from me.
something to lighten the mood
vulnerability doesn’t come easily
to me so I deflect with humor
I’m so sick of my own jokes
thank god for the signs in homegoods
reminding me to be me
because everyone else is taken :))))))))
bathtime warning
they emptied the pool for the summer
and I’m lying in it face down
as the rainwater and dead leaves
collect at the bottom
when my grandma told me I could drown
in two inches of water I didn’t think
this was what she meant
I am in a MOOD today, huh? I promise I’m really fine.
I hope you’re able to find a moment of rest in the next week, whatever that might look like for you. Maybe by next Friday I’ll be able to report that I’ve made it up the mountain, but I’m trying to be okay with it even if I can’t. Either way, I’ll see you then.
you’re a beautiful star, even when you need a nap or a break ofc ofc. I identify with a lot of the mindset around rest that you have here and I always find it so interesting that I can be like “oh well obviously you need a nap” but for me, I could never find that solution for myself. or at least not without feeling inadequate. but your intrinsic value shines through to my brain, where it’s obvious that when you’re tired and afraid, rest is a must. I know i’m late to this but still lots of love to you!!! I think it’s worth something that you recognize these things and process them through writing! worth quite a lot i’d say, actually :) yay a star. 5/5 stars for u