Asthenia, the world, and me

When you feel sick but nobody believes you (even doctors and family), what do you do?

I am always tired. And by "tired" I mean the "my eyes close, my back hurts, my head pounds and my legs won't hold me" kind of thing at 11am, just because I've already exhausted the energy allotted for that day. There's days when I lay down in bed a few hours before I can actually go to sleep and cry silently because of how worn out I am.

I am that tired.

Sadly, I can't tell people. At best, they'll look at me with pity and stay silent, and I'll see clearly in that gaze what they think. At worst, they say clearly what they think, with a slightly shocked and disgusted voice and a headshake.

"That's bullshit, nobody feels like that. You are just lazy." which basically translates to "I don't believe you, and, anyway if it was true, it'd just mean you are unfit for life. Stop whining and try harder."

Do you know what's worse than feeling like a car trying to run on an empty tank? Feeling just like that all while hearing people say you are either a liar or meant for the scrapyard. It's particularly hurtful when it's professionals or family. By now, after nearly three decades of feeling like that, I should be used to my relatives and closest friends making comments like "Yeah, we know, you were born tired" or "Good grief, OM, you're aaaaaalways exhaaaaausted" with an eye-roll and a sigh. I am not. And I am certainly not used to doctors giving me that look, that sigh, that "Just be more active".

Add depression and anxiety to the mix, and you've got one particular kind of hell.

So I try to do more, to fulfill other people's expectations of how I should be and do... and it backfires in the most horrendous way. I've spent days in bed, nauseated and with a fever, all my body hurting, because of over-exhaustion. 

But I'm not going to do it any more.

I know my limits, small as they are. I know my pain, my sadness, my strength. If they think I am a bore, so be it. If they want to leave me because of how I don't conform to their ideas of me and my abilities, so be it. But I am not going to get sicker because they want me to pretend I am not sick to begin with.

My body has a different battery life than others', so what? I am not going to apologize for it. That would be like apologizing for being born a brunette. I am much more than the energy I am allotted each day, I am tons more than the labels they want to stick to me (whether they are "lazy" or "liar" or "weak" or "whiny" or "broken").

I am me and I am tired, and the world can deal with it. 

Oath's mom

Finding the center

Pretending you are a functional member of society when you're really just stumbling along in the darkness is exhausting. Admitting I can't do it (at least not now), though, is much harder, and so I keep putting that facade on and making believe I are actually fine and dandy. "No, really, it's all going okay!" *twitch* *twitch* *shiver*

Because of that, and plenty of other reasons, I've always been a very introverted person: you don't need to pretend or explain yourself when there's no other people around. Sadly, it's got to a point where not even that works, because I've started to ask myself for explanations. This has led to a deeper search, the search of a place where I can be me without pretending, not in front of others and not in front of myself, but how do you get away from yourself? Is there even a way?

The answer came to me often, but I wasn't brave enough to pursue it: meditation. How do you meditate? Will I meditate right? How embarrassing if it turns out I can't do it! I'd better not try, just in case...

Finally, though, I found a way. It was just a matter of realizing that you can meditate, search for your center, in multiple ways, and that I was lucky enough to know one where I was good: drawing. I am not a genius, mind you, but I know my way around with a pencil in my hand, and that gave me a very needed first push.

The notebook. Some say shabby, I say hand-made.

Now, every day, I take some time to sit down with my free-time notebook (which I made myself just to make it a little bit more special and a little bit less perfect) and try to find my center with each stroke of the pen, each circle, each dot.

Centers blooming into star-shaped flowers....

Most of the time, I find it, and I stay there long enough to feel the weight of the world, of my anxiety, of my imperfections, lifted off my shoulders.

 

 

...or just shapes, becoming something bigger.

Sometimes, Oath joins me and the result is brighter and quite more unexpected.

 

Love,

Oath's mom

Coming back

There's this weight in my chest that says I've been away too long.

The years have gone by, and things haven't gotten better. In fact, they got quite worse, so there's this need to get out of my mind just so I can see clearly what's happening inside it. Does it makes sense?

Long story short, life came over me like a bulldozer with the worst intentions, and without really noticing the exact moment where it all started to go downhill, I found myself buried deep in a depression that seemed too heavy to ever lift. It still feels like that: heavy, dark, sticky, like molasses. It doesn't want to let me breathe, move, or even think.
I am fighting, though. I am fighting for me, for Oath, for Partner, for all the good things that I once knew were out there (even if now I can't see them). I fight because I am stubborn. Letting go would be giving up, and the last part of me that is still me clings to the idea that I can't do that. Giving up is loosing, and the perfectionist in me doesn't want to hear about it, even when she's too ready to throw her hands on the air and admit defeat.

It's a blessing and a curse, having that Inner Perfectionist. She's keeping here all while drowning me in the molasses of depression.

I hope I will start writing again, probably in a much different tone than last time, because the things I need to tell now are wildly different. And I hope, too, that it will help me regain perspective, and see further than I am seeing now.

Love,
O.M.