Survival Mode

Is it ok to be raw and vulnerable for a moment? Because I need to be. I’m carrying so much weight and have for so long and I’m tired. Tired of trying to be positive about good things coming my way, but knowing that being negative isn’t the right way either. I have no choice to be positive. I have no choice to be encouraging and uplifting toward others because that’s naturally who I am. I could think about the things I’m not forced to deal with and that others have it worse than me, but we all have different sizes and different shaped plates. And guess what? They are all full in their own way. I’m not looking for pity or anything, I’m just tired. And I need to try and lift this weight off my shoulders some way. Please don’t judge me, please don’t feel sorry for me, just know I am trying my best with all I have. So if I don’t show up for you the way you’d hope I would sometimes, you know why. It’s not that I don’t want to, because I do. It’s because sometimes, I don’t have it in me.

I’m so sick of survival mode.

Several years of feeling like I’m just scraping by, holding it all together with tired hands, hoping for the day when I can finally breathe without wondering if something will collapse around me.

It’s exhausting to live like this — constantly calculating, constantly stretching, constantly feeling guilty if I let myself do something as simple as enjoy time with friends. I want to pay my bills without panic, put food on the table without questioning what else I’ll have to sacrifice, and go out for a night of fun without the heavy voice in my head whispering that I shouldn’t be spending.

I don’t understand how the harder I work, the less I seem to have. I’m working my butt off 12 long hours a day — for what? To still feel broke? To still feel behind? To still feel like I’m running in circles with no finish line in sight? Survival mode is a thief like that. It steals your energy, your joy, and your sense of forward motion.

And on top of all of this, I’ve got my exam in 7 weeks — my third attempt. I’m hoping, praying, believing that this will be the time that changes my life around. That all of these sacrifices will finally start to make sense.

Seven years. It feels like forever. I’m tired of being strong. I’m tired of being resourceful. I’m tired of always “making it work.” I want more than survival. I want peace, freedom, stability. I want to live.

And if I’m being honest, it’s even harder doing all of this without someone by my side. Yes, I have my friends, family and my kids, and I’m beyond grateful for them. But I wish I had a significant other to hold my hand through all of this. Someone to remind me that it’s going to be okay. Someone who sees how hard I’m fighting and tells me I don’t have to do it all alone.

Sometimes I wonder if people even want to know the real answer when they ask, “Are you okay?” or “How was your day?” Do they really want to know — or are they just asking out of habit? Because I don’t really want to say. I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want to be a charity case. I don’t want anyone’s pity. But what am I supposed to do with all of this weight? Will they really care? Is there something they can do about it? Or are they just going to say what everyone else says — “pray about it, everything will be okay, I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

The truth is, no one really knows what to say. People want to be your friend or stick close when things are good. But what about when things aren’t so good? Then what? Then they leave you alone because they don’t really want to carry that weight with you — and honestly, they shouldn’t have to. In fact, I don’t want them to. But it’s still a lonely place to be.

I’m also embarrassed to tell anyone how bad it really is — how much I’m struggling, how lonely it feels to be in this place. It’s hard to watch everyone around me, including my friends and family, have fun, buy this and that, go here and go there. I’m genuinely excited for them, truly happy when good things come their way. But at the same time, I can’t help but wonder when it will finally be my turn — when I’ll be able to buy even the bare essentials without stress, or replace the things that are running low or wearing out without it feeling like an impossible choice.

When I encourage others who are going through hardships, I want them to know I understand. I truly do. I don’t speak from a place of theory — I speak from a place of living it. But even writing this is hard, because I don’t want to feel like a lesser person for sharing my reality.

And maybe you’ll read this and think I’m looking for attention, or trying to make people feel sorry for me. But the truth is, that’s not it. I just need to let it out somewhere, because carrying it all inside is too heavy.

To answer all your questions: no. I’m not okay.

I’m tired — not in the sleepy sense, but in the sense where every bone, thought, and emotion in my body is just worn out.

Yet even in this place, something inside me still believes this won’t be my story forever. That these years of scraping and fighting and pushing through will not be wasted. That God has more for me than survival mode.

So I keep showing up. I keep studying. I keep working. I keep holding on.

Because as much as I’m sick of survival mode, I’m even more determined not to stay here.