The Courage to Be Vulnerable, Part 2

I'm humbled by the feedback that I'm an inspiration, but to be honest, I'm not quite sure what people mean by that. I can understand how people could read my blog and think, wow! I'm not so crazy after all! But I don't see how it can be an inspiration. Unless it inspires people to be honest about the stuff they are afraid to share with other people.

In one scene in the book A Fault in Our Stars, (which I love!), Hazel and Augustus are in the Anne Frank House watching a video of Otto Frank. After reading Anne's diary, he concludes that parents don't really know their children.  I would venture to say that we never really know anyone unless we have the opportunity to read their diary--or blog.

Our inquiries about people's lives are fairly superficial. We ask people how they're doing when we greet them, but any response beyond "I'm fine" would be TMI for most. Recently I asked a friend how her husband was doing because I heard he had been sick. She said he has his good and bad days. I'm sure some people don't want to go into more detail, but maybe some people do. Maybe they feel like the person is just asking to be nice. To let them know they care without really wanting to hear the details.

I am one of those rare individuals who likes to tell people everything that's going on in my life when I greet them. Well, not everyone. Just the ones who will tolerate it. I'll even do it before they have a chance to ask me how I'm doing.  I'll just bombard them with the minutiae of my day the moment I see them. Because I spend most of my time alone with no one to talk to, I am willing to break protocol. Admittedly, this stuff isn't particularly inspirational, but at least I'm consistent in my self-disclosure.

I do think the world would a better place if we could all risk being a little more vulnerable. If we could all admit that we are human, I think people would feel a lot better about themselves. It does take courage to put yourself out there, but taking that risk also requires good listeners. People who are willing to be present and bear witness to our humanity without judgment.

So I am thankful to all of the readers out there who are willing to bear witness to my humanity. You are the ones who make courage possible.

Fatigue

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I have a tendency to be a little hard on myself at times.

Yesterday I had another one of those days where I slept 14 hours and didn't get up until 4 p.m. And then I still went to bed at my normal bedtime (1 a.m.) and didn't get up until 9:30. So as punishment for my excessive sleeping, I decided that I didn't deserve a cappuccino today. My colleague thought that seemed a little harsh, but it makes perfect sense to me. 

But in an effort to be kinder to myself, I'm trying to come up with alternative explanations for why I have been so tired, other than that I am weak, crazy, a bad person, etc. Here's what I've come up with:

1.  I'm depressed. But other than the fatigue and excessive sleeping, I don't really feel depressed. And even if it is depression, I'm already doing everything I can to treat it.

2.  I have some physical illness like chronic fatigue syndrome. This is possible, given that I didn't know I had asthma for a long time, and it accounted for what I perceived as a lack of mental toughness on the tennis court. On the one hand, it would be a relief to have a valid excuse. On the other hand, there would probably be some medication that I would have to take for that condition, too, which would be annoying. 

3.  I'm tired because it's the end of the semester, and I'm always tired at the end of the semester. This would make the most sense, but it still bothers me because my colleagues don't collapse from exhaustion at the end of the term, so that still makes me feel weak.

4.  I'm tired because I'm captaining and playing on 2 tennis teams and playing 4-5 times a week. This also makes sense. Until recently, I was only captaining 1 team and playing 2-3 times a week. But how lame is that to be exhausted from too much recreation? Boo hoo!

5.  My anxiety is leading to mental and physical exhaustion. This is also possible. But then I start beating myself up about not having a reason for feeling anxious. And I'm not really sure what I can do about that other than to take the Ativan sooner when I'm having an anxiety attack rather than suffering for several hours. But the Ativan might make me sleepy.

6.  Blogging is mentally exhausting. All this honesty and self-disclosure is pretty draining. And I hardly ever used social media before. Now I have to use it all the time as part of my blogger duties, which kind of feels like homework. Still, I've never heard of anyone needing more sleep from intensive blogging.

7.  I don't need to know the reason why. My feelings are always legitimate. It doesn't matter what other people are or are not able to do; I have to honor my own needs. I may really need more than 8 hours of sleep, and most of the time I don't even get that.

If this were a multiple choice question where I had to pick the best answer, I guess I'd have to go with #7, because this is what I tell my clients, over and over again, until they believe it. And I don't want to be a hypocrite. Because my inner critic would give me a hard time about that, too.