I’m so tired.

I woke up six hours ago and I’m already exhausted. There’s a heavy weight behind my eyes, over my shoulders. Sitting deep in my chest so I can’t take a full breath. I haven’t been not tired in years.

I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of people telling me that, with the right outlook, I can just stop being tired, or depressed, or have PTSD or myriad other issues.

I’m so f****** tired, until I try to lay down for the night. Then the insomnia kicks in, and I am forced to lay awake while my brain screams at me.

When I describe my intrusive thoughts like that, people get confused. I don’t mean that I am hearing anything, I am not experiencing auditory hallucinations, it’s simply that the foreign thoughts are so loud and so much that I can’t really focus on anything else. It’s just the sirens of self-hatred, drowning out rational thought.

Am I aware that most of it is irrational? Absolutely. Unless, of course, that’s what I tell myself to avoid facing the truth that I am a monster undeserving of love or even tolerance, and the only thing I do deserve is a knife in the back and a hole in the ground.

Even though I probably deserve to die, I’m glad I’m too much of a coward to take any steps toward it.

But hey, there’s always next year.