There are days when you are tired because you didn’t sleep well or it has been a busy day. Everyone has those days of course. Do you ever get those days that you feel like every atom that makes up your body is tired? Or that your very soul in your body is just too tired to feel? I have had a day or two like this lately. Is it because I am pregnant? Obviously. Is it because I am some days only getting a few hours of sleep and then dragging myself to work all day? Yes probably. Or is it something else? Is it more than just being physically tired? When your muscles feel tired, your head is moving slowly and you are yawning; that is tired, exhausted even. . But what about when you just feel like your whole being, the very essence of what it is that keeps you moving and feeling and being an alive and functioning human being is tired?
I find these days are coming on a little more often these days. When I am feeling just so overwhelmed with every little thought that is passing through my mind and every feeling that is passing through my heart. I want to be a good wife, a good mother to be, good at my job, a nice person to those around me. I want to get chores and errands done, I want to be a productive member of my team, hell, I want to be a productive member of society. But what if I can’t? What if it is all too much? What if I am really no good at this? What if I am just too tired?
I have been open in talking about my anxiety before and what that can look like for me and how that affects me and this could partly all be because of the increase of anxiety inducing situations I am in. Perhaps it is coupled with hormones or maybe even with that dreaded D word: depression. When I was diagnosed with my anxiety disorder I was told that I didn’t have the markers of depression which was good because when they are coupled together they become so much harder to treat. I was told by my midwife however, that because of my anxiety that I am at a higher risk of developing both pre and post natal depression. So there’s that. Anxiety makes you feel like you want to (or have to) control things. It makes you feel like there is a frayed electrical wire in your body making you unable to focus or relax. Depression makes you feel like everything is uncontrollable. It makes you feel like you are empty and have nothing to give. Anxiety makes you feel like you just need to do but depression gives you the feeling that you can’t.
There is a part of me that doesn’t want to believe (or perhaps admit) that that is what these feelings might be, but between you and me, I think it might just be. I am still working hard, I am still getting out of bed every day and I am still happy and excited to be a mother and to be me. But there are just those days, those moments, those feelings where I start to feel like I just… am. I am just a physical person moving through the motions but I am not myself. Like I am a husk of a body with a mind full of fog who is putting on the brave face and just getting through the day.. And in an effort to be completely honest and raw I have to say I don’t really know what to do about any of it. In this moment where I feel confident enough to speak about it and have at least a fuzzy amount of clarity about it I could spout off some positive messages about how I am strong and I know I can do it. I can name any number of strategies that I know and teach other people about that can and probably will help me too. But when you are walking through the cloud all those things can be hard to find.
I hate to leave it at that. At an unfinished, well, depressing note like this but the truth is at this point in time I am not sure what else to say. I am finding I am unable to admit it to myself or to get myself to talk to anyone about it at this time. Perhaps because I don’t know how I can really make anyone understand or maybe because I am too afraid to admit that I am not always happy and excited about everything in my life and everything that is happening at every moment of the day. Perhaps it makes me feel like I am a horrible person. Or perhaps it is just too fresh to talk about as it is happening and I need more than just a fuzzy clarity about it first. In the end right now I find solace in reading about and learning that others have felt and do feel this way too and that I am not alone. While it is not “normal” it is also not necessarily uncommon.
Someone shared this picture and it appeared on my Facebook wall a while ago. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find who it was or where it came from or else I would like to give credit to where is due. I find it helpful to think of it all this way sometimes. That while we may feel down and tired right now we are still ourselves and we have still made it this far, and that really is very brave. I will try and remember that.
