I imagine it’s a perfectly normal feeling, but my (albeit short) life experience is telling me I am anything but normal. I mean what kind of normal person tries to lull themselves 3 times? I even had a surefire plan for the 4th and final attempt. Yet, I guess it wasn’t so surefire since, well, here I am. The feeling I’m talking about is feeling burnt out, fried, fizzeled out. Now, hear me out…yes this is a completely normal thing, and nearly everyone experiences it at least once, most almost every week. But, now I’m not implying I’m special or anything, I feel like the “burnt out mental illness special edition” is well, a bit different than the norm. At least from my perspective, the everyday kinda burnt out is something that most people can push through, so long as they get their weekends, holidays, and some paid time off. Me? Yeah, nah. I can’t suffice with just that. It’s like putting your phone on the charger for 5 minutes and then expecting to last the whole day. I get a tiny recharge every night, a slightly bigger recharge on the weekends, but it’s never enough. I feel like I’m constantly near empty. The closer I get the more cranky I get (cranky is a “gentle” way of putting it). I’m hanging on to that rope as much as I can, but I keep getting pushed towards the end of it. I’ve almost lost my temper at work a few times now, and I know if I did, well I wouldn’t have a job anymore. I’ve experienced several occasions where I lost my cool and completely flipped out on my family. Psycho would be an understatement and a half. See, im the type of person who just lets things roll off my back, like water off a frog. At least that’s what I like to think. Truth is I internalize every. single. damn. thing. And it’s like water in a pot over a low flame. Eventually the water will overflow if I keep putting more in. After that it might begin to boil. And well, after that…it’s not pretty. I think I got my temper from my dad, I mean he’s an asshole, and I try my best to be nothing like him. But there’s always that trail of gunpowder leading to a pile of TNT. It just takes the right spark to set it all off. I mean I always try to apologize afterwords, and that might work with family, definetly not in the workplace. “I’m sorry I called you an useless asshat that makes my life a living hell.” Yep, next thing I’d see is the outside of the front door.

Basically all of this stress (sorry to be taking it out on all you) leads me to having nothing left in the tank, not even the reserves. I, like a lot of people, get to a point where we just shrug and say f**k it. We almost become numb, but with a rather large hint of hostility. We don’t care anymore, we are just sooo tired, and we want nothing to do with anything. This is a pretty precarious place to be. I mean, yeah, it’s really helpful for blowing off some steam. But at the same time it’s laying a field of land mines, and just sprinting through. You could make it to the end unscathed, but it’ll take a bit more than luck to do that. Yet even that drains more energy! Like I’m already on E, and now I have to restrain myself from calling my boss a total mess of a human being. It’s like holding yourself back from a plate of your favorite food, and you haven’t eaten in a month. More plainly, it’s hard as hell (for those of you who are tired of all of my analogies). The biggest problem here is that if I’m constantly burning out, how the hell am I supposed to function like this? I grit my teeth and push through, but what’ll I do when that’s no longer enough? Will I go back to drinking myself silly every day off I get? Will I start taking out that frustration on those dearest to me? It’s something I’d rather not think about, but have to almost every day. This is not sustainable. Period. Eventually I’ll burn out so bad that I’ll be, rather go back to being a useless, depressed, alcoholic, waste of space. That’s the last thing that I want. I’ve come so far, yet still have so far to go. Now that feeling right there, that is something that I think we all feel. Maybe a bit too much. Let me tone it down a bit, I’m getting rather wound up over this.

Anyways, so now that you understand (a little too well) what I’m talking about, the question becomes: What do I do about it? Maybe “What can I do about it?” Unfortunately, I still don’t have the answer to that question. I’m sleeping worse and worse, getting more stressed over work and home. I’m a bomb just waiting to go off. That is something that I definetly cannot afford, mentally, physically, or financially. So, again, “What can I do about it?” Well let’s list what I do know. First, what I’m doing right now, isn’t working. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Well, it may not be broken, but it definetly isn’t working, so I need to try something different. Second, things aren’t necessarily going to get any easier at work, or at home. At least not on a timeline that will help my current predicament. If I’m a ticking time bomb, time isn’t my ally here. Long term, yes it will ultimately help me, but the short term is more problematic right now. I can isolate. Yeah it’ll work, but it also has a pretty high cost. Plus I’ve been doing too much of that lately, I don’t want to rely on it like I did in the past. Going back to drinking is out of the equation right off the bat. I could start smoking cigarettes again, but that’s just borrowing time from the future. I could try smoking again, but I haven’t had the best track record with that. I mean I already play video games, watch my favorite shows, lay in bed to decompress (though that one might be as much a negative as it is a positive). I could write more? I really only can write when I feel the inspiration to, so forcing it would do more harm than good…sorry guys… I really have never been one for hobbies, as I never had the time to develop any promising ones, cus most of my time was spent trying to stay alive. But I certainly could look into it. I like camping, stargazing and sculpting. That’s certainly a few options to try. Third, like I said, this is not sustainable. I will, eventually, reach the end of my rope and lose grip entirely. Recovering from that, may need another round of ECT treatment, as I’ve discovered I’m a bit on the resistant side to medication treatments. I really just don’t know. And I don’t want to sit here laying out all my crap on you guys. That’s not my desire, nor my intention. I think I just need a vacation. Somewhere far away, with a nice view and a hot tub. Where drinking my days away wouldn’t be seen as a trashy thing to do, because I’m on Vacation! Yeah that’s some serious mental gymnastics, but I’ll let myself get away with it at this point. I just need one of those life preserver rings, because I’ve been treading water for far too long. But it’s also my fault for not doing anything helpful to, well, help myself. I mean, I’d have to clean up my living space, but maybe I’ll look into crafts of some kind. I’ve always been good with my hands. And I think that creating something from a bunch of raw materials would really boost my confidence too.

Moral of the story, I may be lost, not knowing what to do to stave off the coming mental breakdown. BUT! I’m not wondering aimlessly. I am constantly thinking about preventative and reparative measures. How can I let out this stress and frustration in a “healthy”-ish way. So my word of advice to you, is even when you feel you’re lost with nowhere to go, don’t just stand there feeling sorry for yourself. Nothing is going to change if you stay stationary. Sure you might not know which way is the right way, but you have to go somewhere. Nothing will get done if you stay sulking in your current prediciment. And yes, this is waaaay easier said than done. But I mean, what have we got to lose at this point?