Meltdowns, Anxiety, and Tiny Moments of Joy

Sometimes overwhelm consumes me and anxiety ravages my nervous system, like a million bees buzzing inside my body with nowhere to land. I feel raw, like I am walking through the world exposed to the elements without any protection. It is exhausting in a way that settles into my bones.

I am aware of how this can be perceived. I imagine how others might see me as burdensome, annoying, and 'too much'. I can almost hear the narrative: here she goes again, another meltdown, more anxiety, more difficulty existing in a world that seems to come more easily to everyone else. Carrying that perception, whether real or imagined, makes everything feel even heavier.

I have tried so many things. I have sat in therapy rooms and moved through CBT, DBT, IFS, and EMDR. I have practiced yoga and taught yoga. I have taken medications that dulled me to the point where I barely recognized myself. And still, my nervous system struggles to find rest. It lives so often in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, as if it cannot fully trust that it is allowed to settle. Living this way is deeply painful and profoundly tiring.

Today was especially hard. I tried to go out and be in the world. I really tried. And I did it, but regulating myself felt nearly impossible. My system moved between panic and brief moments of settling, never fully arriving anywhere steady. The bright lights, the crowds, the constant movement all felt disorienting. I felt dizzy, overloaded, and exposed, like my nervous system was working overtime just to keep me upright.

Moments like this leave me wondering where to go from here. They leave me feeling defeated, sad, and small. They bring up that familiar ache of feeling like a burden, like I am failing at something that others seem to do without thinking.

But even inside the difficulty, there were small moments of light. There were brief openings where joy existed alongside the overwhelm. I let myself notice them. I let them count. I bought a pretty cool Lego set today, and that simple act felt like a small gesture of care toward myself.

This is messy. This is hard. There are hard days, hard weeks, hard months. This is what living in a sensitive, vigilant nervous system can feel like.

And still, I am here.

And I will try again tomorrow.