I teeter on the edge of "I need to stop saying I'm fine 'cause I'm not" and "It could be worst so I'm fine and if I keep saying it one day it'll be true." It's tiresome, I'm not fine. I'm not dying, but I'm not okay. I want help but I don't know what I should ask for. Most days I don't believe I should get help. Some days I gaslight myself into thinking I need to be worst to deserve it.
It's a cycle of "I'm okay because I'm not doing the worst so I'm not gonna say anything" and "I'm not okay but I'm not gonna say anything because others have it worst, I don't deserve it, muscle up you coward what's wrong with you, etc."
I have been led to believe that burnout is the only acceptable work ethic and that doesn't exactly help. Burn myself out = not feeling guilty for not working hard enough. Do what's healthy and don't burn myself out = feeling guilty for being "lazy." And the fact that I'm already perpetually burnt out makes the latter feel even worst because the burnout has lowered my energy level to the point where a healthy work ethic seems unsustainable due to the seeming lack of work that gets done.
I need to get shit done, I don't want to burn out. I need the get shit done, I'm so fucking tired. I need to get shit done, the world is on fire, I'm anxious, I'm tired, I'm scared, I'm procrastinating by writing this stupid thing in my notes app while simultaneously internally beating the shit out of myself for procrastinating and also telling myself that it's okay to put my feelings down cause we'd rather have it in Notes than swirling around my brain that's already full to bursting with all the things that are necessary and unnecessary and important and distracting and terrifying and funny and stupid and embarrassing—
Oh here comes the intrusive thoughts that have gotten too loud.
I try to silence them but they just continue to shout. I try to walk away, don't give them the attention they crave. They don't belong to me but it's lonely by myself. And the loneliness lets them scream louder, I need help, need people to help drown them out. To remind me I'm still good. They do not belong to me. It's so lonely with all these voices, they all come from me. From the deepest depths of my troubled mind or the desperate fight I fight to become better. To become kinder, to become wiser and more educated, to heal myself. But it's hard. It's hard to heal when you keep getting hurt, it's hard to heal when your best efforts get ignored. It hard to heal when your tools are Stone Age and others are modern. It's hard not to get jealous when you see their pristine lab coats, their phDs and fancy tools. You know it's not perfect, the doctors can't always help them either. You just wish for something, something you can't name. I wish I was different? Normal? Maybe I wish things were different so the greener pastures weren't just an outdated metaphor. How can someone in a green pasture look at my brown and wilted grass and tell me I'm not trying hard enough, tell me I shouldn't want for more. No I don't want for more, I just need better. I need help and protection I need a little stability. I'm allowed to want for better, I'm allowed to have rights, I deserve better.
We deserve better.
But I'm just one of a thousand voices screaming into the empty void of a Notes app.
