I’m exhausted from dealing with me!

I’m tired of being triggered so easily. For example, a virtual conference meditation activity asked us to imagine walking to our future selves – 20 years into the future. The purpose was looking to that future self as a mentor, asking yourself what you need to know now. My only thought was IF I’m actually going to make it 20 years, do I have a future self to ask? Instead of being relaxed and using this as positive motivation, I ended up in tears.

I can get triggered by daily things like music. My husband has music playing almost all the time in our house. Most of his eclectic mix I enjoy, sometimes I just tolerate it and every so often I ask him to change it or use headphones. Lots of the music triggers memories of the past – where were we in our lives when this song or band was popular? Now I get in my head – think back to those times about how much less I had to worry about, how comparably easy life seemed then… tears again. Even the random mood music he finds – I’ve never heard it before, no memories to go back to. But it frequently triggers sadness instead of the calming effect it has on him. Songs that used to inspire me during workouts have become harder to use for that purpose – they are from a BC (before cancer) time.

I am surrounded by my wonderful family & good friends. I have many people reaching out asking me how I’m doing & if they can do anything. Despite this I feel very lonely most of the time. Just having someone around or making plans to go do something together would be fantastic. But based on my own exhaustion from dealing with me and my triggers, I can’t imagine my company is pleasant for anyone else.

Everyone is super busy with their lives – life is busy. It’s hard to coordinate schedules, to find a mutual time when both sides have a free minute or evening. And I hesitate to be the one who reaches out to see if anyone wants to do something. I can’t guarantee I’ll be the best company at the agreed upon time. I don’t want to put anyone through the experience of me randomly breaking down yet again.

I started writing this post back in April, and sat on it because I thought I wanted to list more of the trigger examples. I just read it again and decided writing that list would take forever. The triggers still come and go, sometimes frequently, sometimes there are longer times in between. I’m learning to recognize them sooner and working on ways to lessen their effect. Sometimes deep breathing helps but if it gets to far to fast my go-to move is to hide & cry. I am still exhausted.