Emotionally Drained

What do I do when it's all just too much? This is the question I ask myself at least once a day, if not many times over, like today. What do I do when it's all just too much? Such an ominous question with some very dark answers that I refuse to accept as possibilities. My worry, though, is that one day those dark answers will sometime become the only answers I hear.

I don't dare say that I've had it harder than anyone else out there. I think we all have our bumps along this road we travel on our journey in life. I do, however, know how I feel about my life better than anyone out there—I would hope so, at least. I mean I started in a good family, moved on to a split family, a challenged life, and then good again, followed by challenges, and now I seem to be spiraling...in what direction I do not know.

You see, I've made some decisions in my life which some of my family and friends have seen as against what decisions I should be making. The problem there is that the decisions I have made are in an effort to straighten out things in my life that were going down a dark path that I might have never returned from. The problem now is that I feel I am going down a dark tunnel, a light at the other end, and yet the light seems only to get further away, never closer no matter how I reach out for it.

I won't dare say that my entire network of family and friends have forsaken me. Only a few have really turned against me, knowingly or not. My problem is that if I reach out to the rest or my network, leaving out the aggravators, eventually it will cause more pain and stress than simply just peeling myself away from most everyone I have known all my life. How do I know this? Because I've tried on a small scale to test my theory and found it no longer a theory, but fact.

So what do I do when it all is just too much? I don't know. I have an amazing partner who is there for me in every way. She has been amazing, and I don't know that I'd be around if it weren't for her love and support in my life. My problem is that I feel so overwhelmed at times that I don't know if she will always be enough, and that scares the hell out of me.

I know she tries, and she does so well and it means so very much to me, but every time I feel like I'm getting myself together and ready to be better emotionally and mentally, I get struck down. What strikes the hardest are those times when I am hit so hard by those I wished would simply love and support me. I'll be cliché for a second; you see, my mother raised me to be as non-judgmental as she was taught in the Christian faith, and yet I was always aware of just how extremely judgmental she was. If something wasn't the way she thought it should be, then unless you had a clash of the titans to change her mind, you were always going to be wrong. Remember that description...a clash.

It was these clashes that have worn me down more and more over the years. Not just with my mother, but with those I care about and those I work with, those I lead and those I come in contact with. I hate confrontation because I always think you should be able to talk things out without talking over each other, or without belittling each other. The truth of it is that this is seldom the case, and it wears on your soul.

It is this wearing on my soul that keeps breaking me down. Bit by bit, pieces of who I am feel like they are being picked away, never to heal. I feel like I'm swimming in an ocean of the darkest water and the skies above are growing darker, threatening a storm to whip the seas to life, and me to the depths. I just don't know what I'll do when it's all just too much.

This mental, soul-sapping fatigue drains my desire to do anything, drains away my strength to push myself. I find it difficult to not only find the willpower to go out and work out, hike, or simply walk around the fields, and all that multiplies into me physically being drained. I find myself having less strength to do the things I know would help me focus. I find the lack of strength leading to painful joints, old injuries becoming aggravated, and a general feeling of always being in pain, not just mentally, but emotionally and physically.

My partner, my other half, my soul mate, she is my life preserver in this ocean of pain. She does all she can and she keeps me afloat, but only just. I know it's partially me holding back, not always talking when maybe I should. I just find it difficult to talk about anything unless it's over a keyboard either to no one in particular, or to her.

This is the part where I wish I had a bright ending to write. Some glimmering piece of advice that can bring even the darkest of times out into the bright blinding light. The truth is, I haven't a clue what to do. I don't know if I'll always be able to tread water in this ocean. I don't know if I'll ever make it out into the light from the dark tunnel I seem to always be in on this journey. I always seem to feel the warmth of the love and happiness in that light, but I never seem to stay there long, for one reason or another.

Regardless, I'll give an answer to my question...what will I do when it's all just too much? I hope that I'll do what I have always done...I think about the answers of all kinds, both light and dark, and I'll choose to simply keep moving forward. Stupid answer...right? Maybe not...it comes down to the fact that I'm not ready to see if I'm right or wrong about what there is after all this. I'm not ready to see because I figure there must be something better just around the corner in this life. I may not see it, I may not see it for a very long time, but there are minuscule glimpses now and then.

I may not like what pain I deal with on a daily basis, but I do know the things that feel good. The slightest happiness I feel from a hug, a kiss, or simply the comforting feel of a snuggle on the couch. It might not overwhelm the darkness I feel with the blinding light I keep looking for, but it does feel better than the darkness on its own, and that helps—even if just a bit, it helps.

So for now, I say to simply keep moving forward. Find those things which help bring some happiness to your life and cling onto them for dear life. It might be talking to someone, it might be hugging someone you love tight. It could be writing a letter only to set it on fire and burn away your frustrations. Or it could be typing away to the faceless computer realm to put your soul out there for all to see, no matter who may or may not read it, and regardless of what responses may come, if they do at all.

What do you do when it all is just too much? You find a way to keep moving on.

--Donnie