Self-gaslighting and fatigue
I had an “aha” moment this morning, sitting on the couch, reading my book-du-jour, Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star. OK, so maybe it wasn’t really an “aha.” Maybe it was more like a…”well, fuck.”
I’ve been doubting myself a lot lately. Not trusting my intuition, or my thoughts. Second guessing whether the emotions I’ve been feeling are real or exaggerated. Cognitively I know that all emotions are real—if you feel them, they exist. But I’ve just been feeling them SO much. And they’re so heavy.
On one hand it’s like…this makes sense. I’ve been dealing with a lot of external pressures and upheaval and relational instability. On the other hand, there’s the culturally-engrained voice of repression saying “you’re blowing all of this out of proportion, it’s not that bad.”
I think I’m gaslighting myself.
It feels like my head is stuck in a vice. I’ve been waking up exhausted every morning with a headache (except for Sunday morning, when miraculously I felt like a new human), and going to bed, still exhausted, hoping that tomorrow will be lighter, freer, easier. That I’ll have some greater sense of clarity around what’s real and what’s “all in my head.”
I’ve been in these situations before. And the common denominator, 99% of the time, is an overwhelming sense of fatigue. When I am worn-out, worn-down, tired, done, over-emoted, drained, and depleted…I lose the ability to listen to myself. It’s not disconnection, per-se, but more like distrust.
When I’m exhausted, I don’t trust how I’m perceiving or processing the world.
I know that the answer is rest. I’ve tried to acknowledge and honor the biological patterns that Kate Northrup so amazingly talks about in Do Less—how especially, as women, we’re not meant to be “on” all the time. Our bodies operate on roughly 28-day cycles, and right now, I’m just coming out of the “rest, reflection, and evaluation stage,” and moving into the “planning, brainstorming, and new beginnings phase.”
Except…I didn’t rest. I dealt with pressure at work, and tension at home, and managed everyone’s emotions except my own. (The PMDD was an added bonus.) And since I didn’t really move through that part of the cycle, I’m not able to move into the next one, either.
Sooooooo, yeah.
I know I need rest. Everyone needs rest. Constantly doing and never just being isn’t only bad for our physical health, but it also takes a massive toll on our emotions and our spirit and our ability to be present.
But there’s so much I still need to work on. I don’t know how to rest when everything feels so unsettled.
That’s the biggest paradox of it all, really. Because if I could, somehow, figure out how to turn off for a while, everything might not feel so unsettled. Or maybe it still would, but I’d trust myself a little bit more about what’s true and what’s not.
Maybe I need someone to help carry all unsettledness of this with me? (Not maybe. Definitely.)
I’m working with my coach today. We’re going to go deep into all of this. And I know the drill: it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
See you on the other side.
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UPDATE: I cried for a hour on the call with my coach. I need a nap.