Exhaustion

Well, I am just so plumb tired that I can barely move. I'm writing from my bed, with no clothes on. They just hit the floor when I came in my bedroom door and I don't plan to move for the next...well, seven hours. I'm taking the GRE early tomorrow morning and that's when I'll have to get up. But for now, I can indulge my tiredness.

It has been an utterly exhausting two weeks. I was thinking about it, going through a tally of what I've been doing, and I have been all over the map emotionally and physically. I think my body might just go on strike. "No more stress, bitch!" Actually, it did give out. I got a migraine last night, a bad one.

Two weeks ago, I spent almost the entire weekend intoxicated in one way or another and hung out with a posse of new friends and had a great time. I tried a hallucinogenic for the first time, and had a wonderful trip outdoors with the grass, clouds, trees, and home made music. It was lovely.

Then that Sunday I had a brief but terrifying moment in which I believed one of my best friends might be killing herself. This took a toll on me, and I went into the week feeling rather down. Once you confront the idea that a loved one might be dead or dying RIGHT THEN, it's kind of hard to take back. (If she's reading this, I reiterate that I'd rather take on a little emotional toll and have her still be alive than not be available to talk to her. Really. I promise.)

I love being a confidante to my friends; it's really important to me that I'm available to be supportive. I consider it a huge part of my identity and value it above most other parts of myself. Last week it didn't just rain, though, it poured. Many of my friends came to me at one point or another with issues they wanted to talk through.

Normally, too, I can sustain this kind of thing because I try to set up my own emotional support systems so that I'm safe and sane and in a good place to help people. Now, though, my best friend has graduated, and my boyfriend dropped out, and I'm too far from my (very supportive) parents, so I just don't have the emotional shoring-up that I need. I was emotionally drained.

Then I went to the memorial service for my friend, which I already wrote about. As you can probably tell from my post about it, it was extremely hard. I didn't bounce back from it as quickly as I'd expected. I am probably still not dealing with the whole situation as much as I should be. In any case, I was very low by the end of last week.

So I went away for the weekend. I stayed with a friend who knew Scott, went to her music show, and generally took it easy for two days. I was hoping it would help to be away from my school and friends for a few days and to support and maybe even be supported by my friend. It did help some, I think, but being gone for the weekend definitely threw me off. I had school and work things to do over the weekend that I just didn't do because I was spending time on myself emotionally.

So then this week I was a bit reclusive for a couple days, but started to feel better on Tuesday and got to hang out with my new friends for a while. Of course, while I was hanging out with them, I had a worrisome encounter with a homophobic, verbally-abusive asshole. This wasn't exactly restful, but was also interesting and gave me food for thought to kick me out of lethargy. Assholes=anger=motivation.

And then last night I got the migraine. While I was supposed to be finishing a lab report, which I have now not turned in. And which prevented me from sleeping last night. Which also made me so tired that I am flaking on two things I was supposed to do tonight, but which I just don't think my body will let me do.

Not to mention the GRE tomorrow.

On the plus side, I had a meeting today which was very successful and has brought into fruition a project I've been working on for months. I had to be all charming and convincing during the meeting, and I think I pulled it off using the last reserves of my energy. I also started an amazing new sex advice gig, which has been taking up a lot of my brain but which I'm really excited about.

All this is on top of my usual responsibilities.

So I guess I'm stressed. I'm pretty sure this post is excessively long and rambles too much, but I'm too tired to deal with editing it down. Maybe I will later. I hope you, dear readers, will forgive me for one rambling, personal post when I'm barely awake enough to type.

Note: One thing I got done this week was to make an appointment for therapy, which will ostensibly help with some of this. We shall see.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completly understand how you feel, its so rewarding being the rock that other people have to lean on, but it can be very difficult. I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you take the time to creat such an amazing space online. Thank you.

Alyssa said...

Thank you, for reading. Even just online, your support helps. :-)

On living, loving, learning, and fucking with the materials I've got at hand.

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