Some days, my mind wakes up before I do.
Before my feet touch the floor, there is already a list.
I should get up.
I should clean.
I should answer that message.
I should finish what I started.
I should be more productive.
I should exercise.
I should stop wasting time.
I should be doing something.
And the strange thing is—I want to.
That is perhaps one of the hardest things to explain about anxiety and depression. It isn't always that I don't care. It isn't always that I don't want to participate in my own life.
Sometimes, I want to very badly.
I can see everything that needs to be done. I can mentally organize it, rearrange it, prioritize it and imagine the relief I will feel when it is finished.
But somewhere between thinking and doing, something disconnects.
So I sit.
And then comes the criticism.
Why are you still sitting here?
You've wasted half the day.
Other people manage to do these things.
Just get up.
Just start.
Such a small word.
Just.
As though there isn't an entire invisible battle happening between wanting to move and feeling completely incapable of movement.
The longer I sit, the louder my mind becomes.
The louder my mind becomes, the more overwhelmed I feel.
The more overwhelmed I feel, the harder it becomes to choose where to begin.
Eventually, even small decisions feel enormous.
Do the laundry or answer the email?
Make something to eat or finish the thing I promised myself I would finish yesterday?
Rest because I'm exhausted or push myself because resting feels suspiciously like failing?
Every choice seems to come attached to another obligation.
And eventually my brain does the only thing it seems capable of doing.
Nothing.
I freeze.
Physically, I am still.
Mentally, I am running a marathon.
Emotionally, I am falling apart.
From the outside, it might look like procrastination. Laziness, even.
Inside, it feels like standing in the middle of a room while a hundred alarms are going off and being unable to figure out which one I am supposed to silence first.
Then comes the guilt.
Because I should be able to handle this.
There is that word again.
Should.
I'm learning that perhaps some days aren't meant to be measured by how much I accomplished.
Perhaps there are days when getting through the noise is the accomplishment.
Days when one answered email counts.
When getting out of bed counts.
When making something to eat counts.
When recognizing that my mind is struggling—and choosing not to punish myself for struggling—counts.
I don't always manage that kindness.
Some days the “shoulds” still win.
But I'm beginning to understand that being frozen doesn't mean I don't care about my life.
Sometimes it means I care about so many things, feel so many things, and am trying to carry so many things at once that my mind simply doesn't know where to put them all.
So, for today, maybe the question doesn't have to be:
What should I be doing?
Maybe it can simply be:
What is one thing I can gently do from here?
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