Progress and Exhaustion

The depth of my exhaustion today was unreal. I came home, crawled into bed, slept but did not sleep, and spent a while sitting on my bed staring into the creaking ceiling fan, no energy to even think or grab my phone. When I looked up it had been three hours I’d been somewhere off this conscious plane. 

I tried to push myself to get out and talk more to people. It’s been a daunting task. But the big kicker was that I finally brought up to my friend something that’s been bothering me for a long time. With this longtime friend, I often will be talking to her, and then when another one of her friends comes along she will turn and, interrupting me, finish a conversation with them then turn back to me. It, among with other habits of hers, feels madly disrespectful. Like I’m the second priority. I’ve been friends with this person for 7 years, since before I started my healing journey, and I have always felt as if our relationship was unbalanced in her favor, whether she realizes it or not. And I may have enabled it in my immaturity. 

I finally pulled her aside today and explained to her that I felt disrespected and deprioritized when she did that. I suggested that she simply tell the person hi or tell them she is busy. Looking back I may have been overly annoyed-sounding/confrontational. She agreed, but she kept interupting me, and I quote said “but I still might do it sometimes”. Not the attitude of someone who cares. She seemed to get rocky and defensive the moment I brought it up. What’s a person to do? I know I did the right thing but my execution needs some work, and I’m so exhausted by it I’m wondering if it was worth it. 

I also had someone who was also trying to make friends approach me in one of my classes. We had a lot in common but I didn’t feel we clicked. I know she’ll probably want to seek me out and talk to me again, which will be bad for my energy level. I’m happy someone seems to like talking to me but I’m also very choosy with my friends, as I’m not a big social person in the first place and as I know they will influence me. So right now I’m a little worried about setting boundaries with her. I haven’t been good at it in previous years. 

Overall I feel like I’ve been successful in pushing myself and getting on the track to goals for my social life and myself, but I’m also so incredibly exhausted+ somewhat depressed/anxious it doesn’t feel like it matters so much. But it’s a vast improvement over previous years, when I was feeling like I was losing myself and couldn’t even make these kinds of decisions, I’d go ahead and let my friend do her bs, I’d go ahead and let someone talk to me for an hour and be tired afterwards, I’d forget about self respect and self love and it’d all be a suspension of stress all over again.