No respite for the restless...

I wonder if it's just me that's constantly struggling to find some peace.

My mind seems to always be halfway off,

but trapped in a purgatory between

exhaustion and some sort of insanity.

Seriously though, I can't sleep. I have to cloud my mind with a million different distractions so that I finally feel the exhaustion that escapes me most of the time. The strange thing is, I am always tired. I know in this instance that tired is actually just code for depressed, but the fatigue feels the same.

It confuses and infuriates me that as soon as I get close to the moment when I should be really letting myself rest, my body rejects that feeling that I battle the whole day long.

I spend each day wavering between being unmotivated and defeated by the way the world is. More than that, I have this aching feeling that I don't really have anything to offer the world.

The people around me say that it's just in my head, just imposter syndrome and that I am a worthy and capable member of society. They don't see how much of a struggle every day is. They don't see me running from all of the ways I know I'm not good enough.

It's the same way my mind instinctively runs from sleep, from rest of any kind.

It's simple really, the only reasoning I can think of is that my body knows what it is that I dread about sleep. It's dreams.

Ever since the start of this whole pandemic, my dreams have been more vivid than I am really comfortable with. Usually, this only happens when my inhibitions are down... or it's some precognition sneaking through, but these dreams have just been painful.

Yesterday I woke up from seeing my ex, a man who broke my heart so completely that I still haven't fully healed, and it felt like I was right back in the thick of it. I saw his face, his eyes, I swear I could have reached out and touched his hair... and I opened my eyes to have it all crash down on me again.

They're all different versions of that.

I see my failures, regrets, heartbreaks.

I saw my estranged mother a few weeks ago. She wasn't as clear, though it's been ten years since I saw her face, so the details are fuzzier. Dream her had to work a little harder than my dream ex to wake me up in tears. She tore me down with the same skill and precision she always had. I would have appreciated feeling 10 years younger if it didn't come with that too familiar torture.

These dreams are drumming up traumas that I've tried to shove down my whole adult life, and they're forcing me to deal with it all... or buckle under the pressure.

I keep wondering, what gives 2020 the right to force untold change on us while we're grappling with more pain and isolation than any one person should have to endure?

Why is it all just happening at once?

I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to take on the healing I know my subconscious is calling me to while the world descends into chaos and flames.

But I have to sleep,

Lest I risk the insanity creeping in further.

My body and mind may resist the pull of peace and quiet, but my soul cannot survive without it.

Something has to give, and I have to give something to myself before I go internally bankrupt and find myself with nothing to offer at all.

I have to choose the hell I know, waiting for me in those dreams.

So I can avoid the hell I don't.

At least for a while.

At least until I have something more to give.