Nothing's Wrong — So Why Can't I Get Anything Done?

I bite my nails. Twist the ends of my hair. Pace. Leave little trails of myself everywhere I go. A jacket here, a coffee cup there, a drawer full of things I'll deal with later. My husband calls it "my piles." I call it my “confetti.” We were both, for a long time, being generous.

Because the thing about being someone who prides themselves on holding it together is that you get very good at explaining away behaviors that might actually be symptoms. You dismiss the nail biting as a harmless habit. Constant pacing is just how you think. Doesn’t every busy person have chairs heaped with unwashed clothes?

Until one day, the “confetti” stopped seeming so quirky. All those things left scattered or unfinished had begun to take on weight.

The fridge stayed empty not because I was busy, but because going to the grocery store felt overwhelming. The returns stacked by the door that I would typically take back within weeks, had been there for over a month. I wasn't running too fast to mind the small things anymore. I was barely moving, and everything felt uphill.

But I didn't go to therapy. Because I told myself I didn't have a “real reason.”

I wasn't in a crisis. Nobody had died. My relationships were good, my job was good, my life was, objectively, great! So what exactly was I going to say? That my chair had too much stuff on it? That I was tired in a way that sleep wasn't fixing? That I'd forgotten what flat ground felt like?

I cycled through every unflattering explanation instead. Lazy. Ungrateful. Dramatic. Crazy. Broken. Surely one of those fit better than the alternative, which was admitting that my mental health was suffering.

At some point I realized that avoiding therapy had become heavier than the effort of actually starting it. I was spending more energy trying to hold myself together on my own than it would ever take to just ask for help. So I met with a therapist. And what I found on the other side of that first session wasn't what I expected. It wasn't an excavation of decades-old problems I didn't know I had. It was just… relief. Like something I'd been carrying for so long got a little lighter.

And then my therapist said something I'll never forget: "You're not crazy. You're textbook."

Every symptom I had filed under personal failure, the restlessness, the piles, the exhaustion that had no good explanation, was related to something real. Something that other people struggled with too, and that someone with the right expertise could actually help with.

My only regret is that I waited so long to start.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, I think about all the people doing exactly what I did, ignoring their symptoms. The daily friction of a life that feels harder than it should. None of it has to become a crisis before it “counts.” Don’t wait until the weight becomes too much to hold.

Feeling like daily life is overwhelming is enough. Always feeling drained is enough. You are enough of a reason. And with Alma, today can be the day you start.