I’m exhausted

I saw my new counsellor tonight. The moment I met her I liked her, and felt totally at ease with her. She complimented me on my cat socks. I think she’s going to be great for me.

We talked through the whole sorry story. I cried. As I do these days. And at one point she just looked at me, sympathetically but not in a patronising way, and said, “You’re completely exhausted.”

That set off the tears again.

I am so tired.

It’s not just the not sleeping, or the stress of the new job, or constantly trying to think of things to be happy about, or the hours lost to crying. It’s not flying up to Scotland to lie in bed for a week, then back to London, then Scotland for a hen party, then London, then France for a ‘feel better holiday’, then London, then Scotland for Sarah’s wedding, then London.

These things are tiring, yes. But my poor brain is still trying to compute what has actually happened. I’m still going over and over and over and over the same conversations, eight weeks on. Even when I sleep, I have nightmares about it. It’s no wonder I can’t concentrate on anything. My mind is absolutely frazzled.

Much as I’d like to not think about my ex for an hour, or even a half hour, I need to let my brain keep going because we need to work through this together. And sooner or later, we will make sense of it all. This brain came top in its class, got through law school, and has won awards for some pretty great creative work in its time. I trust it. I know we’ll get there.

In the meantime, we’ll keep getting up every morning and dragging ourselves to work. We’ll try to focus, and play around with decidedly mediocre creative ideas. And we’ll go over and over the same things we’ve gone over and over for the past eight weeks.

I thought the worst thing my brain would ever have to go through was my second-year commercial law exam. At least it only lasted three hours.

Tags: break up, breakup, exboyfriend, exhaustion, insomnia, mental health, relationships, stress