I didn’t realise how tired I was. Not physically. That kind of tired is easy to explain. This is different. It’s the kind where you stop, you finally have a moment to rest…and your mind doesn’t. It keeps going. Replaying things. Thinking about what you should have said. What you should have done differently. Even things that don’t matter anymore.

And it doesn’t feel like thinking. It feels like something you can’t switch off. Like your body is still, but your mind hasn’t caught up. I’ve tried to rest. Tried to sit in the quiet. Tried to slow everything down. But instead of feeling better…it just makes everything louder. And that’s the part that’s hard to explain. Because when you say you’re tired, people assume you need sleep. But sleep doesn’t fix this.

You wake up, and it’s still there. That same low-level exhaustion that sits underneath everything. And I think it’s because it’s not just tiredness. It’s everything that hasn’t been processed. Everything that’s been pushed down. Everything you didn’t have time to feel in the moment. And now that things are quieter…it’s all still there.

Waiting. I don’t think I’ve learned how to rest yet. Not properly. Because rest isn’t just stopping. It’s letting your mind stop as well. And I’m still figuring out how to do that without feeling like I need to keep going.