I Am the Kind of Tired Sleep Can’t Fix

I am the kind of tired sleep can’t fix.

There are no words to describe the weight I carry, but I will try. Because even though I feel like I am disappearing, I want someone to understand—just a little, just enough—to know that I am here, even if I feel like a ghost in my own life.

This isn’t about the kind of tired that a full night’s rest can wash away. No, this is something deeper. Something that seeps into my bones, something that lingers in my chest like an ache I cannot name. I could sleep for days, weeks, a lifetime, and still, I would wake up with this heaviness pressed against my ribs.

It is the exhaustion of carrying things no one sees. The silent battles. The quiet breakdowns. The weight of a hundred unspoken words lodged in my throat. It is the kind of tired that comes from pretending—from holding myself together when I feel like I am falling apart. From being the strong one, the reliable one, the one who always finds a way even when she is lost herself.

I am tired of feeling everything so deeply. Of loving people who don’t know how to love me back. Of breaking my own heart just to keep others whole. Of giving too much and being left empty. I am tired of searching for home in people who are only temporary. Of carrying disappointments like old scars. Of trying to convince myself that I am okay when I am not.

There are days when I feel like I am screaming in a room full of people, but no one hears me. Days when I want to curl up into myself, disappear into the silence, let the world forget me for a while. But I can’t. Because life does not pause for the exhausted. The world keeps spinning, responsibilities pile up, and people expect me to show up, to function, to smile.

And so, I do.

I get up. I push through. I go about my day like I am not unravelling at the edges. I laugh at the right moments, say the right things, pretend that I am fine. And maybe that is the cruelest part—how good I have become at acting like I am okay. Because no one asks. No one sees. And even if they did, what would I say? That I am tired? That I am drowning? That some days, even breathing feels like work?

The truth is, I don’t need sleep. I need peace. I need rest that goes beyond closing my eyes. I need silence that isn’t filled with anxious thoughts. I need someone to tell me that it is okay to stop, to slow down, to let go of the things that are breaking me. I need to feel like I am allowed to be human, to not have all the answers, to not be strong all the time.

I don’t know how to fix this kind of tired. I don’t know how to let go of the things that weigh me down. But I do know that I am not alone. That somewhere out there, someone else feels this too. And maybe, just maybe, that is enough for now.

With whatever strength I have left, 

Neta