Do you ever just feel consistently...broken?

You try and try and try to make things work, to do your best, to work hard, to love hard, to exist and try to find the bright side of things, to fight, to rest, to give...
And yet you fail.
Every time.
It never seems good enough.
You feel like you can always do better.
But you never match up to your standards.

So you wonder if there's something wrong with you.
Wonder if you're the fluke, the fake, the glitch in the system of the rest of society.
Mimicking what everyone else around you is doing, what everyone else is feeling, but inside you know that it's not real and everything is just an act.

Because that's what mental illness does.

Depression mutes.
It dims.
It muffles the vibrant colours of life and suffocates any kind of semblance of real emotion.

And then add to it the stress of sensory overload and never getting enough rest or time away from people, and it's a whole hurricane of chaos.

When you're on your own, it's fine.
When you're responsible for you and you alone, you can handle it.

But when you add other people to the mix?

It's one big clusterfuck.

On your own you can make plans ahead of time with people, not see them until said plans are executed, and you follow through.
You have time to mentally prepare yourself for going out, for interacting with other humans.
You store enough energy aside for the day that you made plans for.

With someone else, it's exact opposite.
You make plans, but having that person be a priority in your life - which means seeing them all the time - sometimes any little thing can set you off.
You can have plans, but you didn't get enough sleep, and work drains you, and by the end of the day, you know following through on those plans can only cause harm, and not good.
So you cancel.
Over and over and over again.
And you break your word.
And you break yourself.

Because you can make plans, but you are entitled to changing your mind.
You have the right to cancel, because you know what's best for you.
And what is best for you is what you need to do.
Even though it harms things in the moment.
Because if you don't cancel, it will cause greater harm overall.
For everyone.

Struggling to find a balance.
Of wanting to be around the person you love, but also needing to know when to say no.
Where to set the boundaries.
And hoping to not come across as the bad guy for holding to your decisions and putting a stop to things because it's what you need to cater to your mental health.

Where on earth is the balance?

Fighting, clawing, struggling to make sense of your own world is hard enough.
Struggling to make sense of it when your world becomes intertwined with someone else's?

That feels damn near impossible.

You take mental energy you don't have to try to remedy things.
To talk them out.
And it wears you down even more.
And you question - as you seem to question every day - when this will all end.
When you will finally feel rested.
For days.
And have energy again.
And feel again.
And not just go through the motions that have become so familiar because you've been going through them all your life, so while now it's just an act, before it used to mean something because you had zeal for life.

Now you have nothing.

Questions and questions and questions, and no answers, and no clarity, and never amounting up to the expectations you set for yourself.
And constantly being aware of your shortcomings, of your failures - and even more fun - being told by others of your failures, where you fall short.


Life used to be good.
Not good in the sense of easy, in the sense of everything going right.
But good in the sense that despite struggles, despite hardships, despite doubts and worries and fears, that you knew you were taken care of.
You knew that your future was in good Hands.
And while worrying was a habit that you cultivated, you were able to curb it to some extent, because you had confidence in the One who formed you in your mother's womb.
The One whose thoughts of you number more than the grains of sand.
The One who takes your cares, takes your burdens, and sustains you and cares for you.

When will I get back to that?
When will I set aside my selfish ways, my stubbornness to do life my way, my iron grip on my past, my hurts, my wounds...and give them up for Life and the fullness of Joy?
When will I surrender everything in my life so that I can learn to trust Jesus completely?
(Especially the things that I'm clinging so hard to because I'm afraid to let go?)

My heart has felt weary for so long.
And I am tired of feeling broken.
I am tired of not knowing, of being hurt, of trusting in fallible things, in people who will always fail (because that's what we as humans do), of trying to shoulder and carry my burdens on my own.

Love conquered death.
Truth will always prevail.
And God is faithful to the end.

How easy it is to forget lessons we have learned.

Perhaps it is time to begin to seek out grace once more...