The Whys

I woke up feeling empty, wrung out, and depleted. I haven’t been in that space in a very long time. It wasn’t sadness exactly, and it wasn’t even the intense emotional overwhelm that had consumed Thursday. It felt more like the aftermath of it all, numbness, as though every ounce of energy had been drained from me and my body simply hadn’t recovered yet.

Have you ever been so emotionally and mentally exhausted that it starts affecting everything else? Making decisions feels overwhelming, simple tasks feel like chores, and no matter how hard you try to push through it, you just can’t seem to find the energy. That’s where I was. Even walking around the house felt difficult. My legs felt heavy, my body felt heavy, and everything required more effort than it should have. Thursday had taken a lot out of me.

The Body Dysmorphia was still there, quietly reminding me of every insecurity it had dragged to the surface the day before. The RSD was still there too, convincing me to question things that probably didn’t need questioning. By the time I went to bed Thursday night, I felt rejected on every level imaginable. Rejected by my body, rejected by my own thoughts, rejected by the insecurities that had spent the better part of two days reminding me of every flaw, every fear, and every wound I thought I had healed. When I woke up Friday morning, there was nothing left in the tank.

I took the littlest one for her road test, which she absolutely aced, and I was genuinely excited for her. I went to physical therapy and did everything I was supposed to do, but if I’m being honest, I spent most of the day simply existing through the motions. The headache certainly wasn’t helping. It’s currently 1:52 in the morning as I’m writing this and the pain is still intense enough that I can’t seem to close my eyes and rest. I’m exhausted, but my brain and body apparently didn’t get the message.

One of the things I struggle with most when the RSD gets loud is the feeling of being too much. Too emotional. Too intense. Too complicated. Too communicative. Too needy. Too much work. The irony is that in most areas of my life, I am all in or I’m not in at all. Whether it’s projects, relationships, medical issues, friendships, or people I care about, I don’t really know how to do anything halfway. If something has my attention, then it has it fully unless something makes me feel like it isn’t important. Then I find myself standing at an impasse.

Do I keep moving forward, knowing I teeter on RSD and knowing how deeply consistency matters to me? Or do I step back and tuck it into one of my neat little shiny boxes where I compartmentalize everything for a rainy day such as never?

Friday, I decided to pull back and give space because right now the whys of everything are too much. Not even relationship whys or people whys, although those certainly find their way into the mix. I mean all of it. Why something bothered me so much. Why I still feel hurt by things I should have let go of years ago. Why my body feels foreign some days. Why I can brush something off one week and completely unravel over the same thing the next. Why a headache can feel like the final straw when it has absolutely no business carrying that much weight.

The frustrating thing is that when my brain gets into this space, it isn’t usually one thing. It becomes everything and nothing all at once. One trigger pulls on another and suddenly I’m questioning things that have nothing to do with each other. A conversation, a memory, my body, a decision, something from yesterday, something from ten years ago. None of it makes sense when I try to explain it out loud, but somehow it all feels connected when I’m living inside of it.

Confusing? Welcome to a tiny piece of my brain and the hell it can go to for absolutely no reason other than some random trigger deciding to hit the exact right nerve on the exact wrong day.

An interesting dynamic in some relationships is when one person understands exactly where the other is emotionally and quietly takes over for a little while. Not in a controlling way, but in a caring way. They know decision making is hard, so they narrow the options or make them for you. They know your brain is overloaded, so they make the plans. They know you’re struggling to see anything good about yourself, so they remind you of the things they love and appreciate. They understand that sometimes what you’re really asking for isn’t answers at all. It’s safety. It’s consistency. It’s knowing that someone sees you’re struggling and isn’t going to disappear because of it. That’s the big one.

There is something incredibly healing about not having to carry everything by yourself all the time.

By Friday night, I wasn’t looking for answers anymore, not because I had found them and certainly not because the need for connection, consistency, reassurance, or understanding had magically disappeared. If I’m being honest, I still wanted all of those things. I still wanted the comfort that quiets the RSD and reminds me that not every silence means rejection, not every change means abandonment, and not every fear deserves to be believed.

The difference was that I was simply too exhausted to keep chasing them.

The questions were still there. The insecurities were still there. The Body Dysmorphia was still there. The RSD was still there. The headache was definitely still there. None of it had been fixed, solved, healed, or wrapped up neatly.

I was just tired.

Tired of carrying the weight of every thought. Tired of trying to determine what was trauma, what was reality, and what was simply a nervous system that had been pushed beyond its limit. Tired of feeling like I needed to solve everything immediately. Tired of feeling like every question required an answer.

By the time my head finally hit the pillow, I wasn’t feeling better. I wasn’t feeling hopeful. I wasn’t feeling reassured. I was simply empty.

And I think that’s what emotional exhaustion really is. Not sadness. Not anger. Not fear. Just reaching a point where you’ve carried so much for so long that there is nothing left to give that day.

The questions would still be there in the morning. The insecurities would still be there in the morning. The things I was trying so desperately to understand would still be there in the morning.

I just couldn’t carry them anymore tonight night.