I wish I was tired

The body never really slows down.

I’ve been recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and PCOS, and I’ve struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. But it’s not just insomnia. It’s like my body doesn’t know how to rest. I don’t feel tired the way people talk about being tired. I don’t feel that type of fatigue that comes after a long day, the kind that lets you melt into sleep.

I wish I did.

Instead, I live in a state of constant alertness. Like I’m bracing for something, being upset over how a colleague has acted. My nervous system that’s stuck in survival mode, probably ever since I was born.

This weeky I shared this is therapy the diagnoses, the sleep issues, the flare-ups. And she said something that stayed with me:
“I wonder how much of this is still your body responding to everything you’ve been through.”

That sentence has been ringing in my head.

I’ve been watching TikToks by someone who talks about regulated nervous systems, and how so many of us are unknowingly living in a state of hyperarousal — constantly running on adrenaline, mistaking it for energy. It hit me: I don’t feel fatigue because I’ve never feel safe enough to feel it.

I don’t think these conditions I live with are random. I think they’re my body telling a story that hasn’t been fully heard yet.

It makes me wonde, if I keep doing the work in therapy, if I keep going — how much of this pain, this disconnection, might start to ease? What would my body feel like if it finally got the message that it’s safe.

I’ve never known that version of myself. The exhausted self I’d like to meet her one day.