SENTIMENTS OF A BRUISED PSYCHE

I used to measure my worth in group chats by how many plans I could say “yes” to.

Yes, I can make your birthday. Yes, I’ll come to that family gathering. Yes, let’s do drinks this weekend even though I have two hospital appointments that week. I treated my energy like an overdraft account: as long as I could pay it back later with a weekend in bed, it was fine.

The problem with overdrafts is that eventually, the bank calls in the debt.

For me, that call didn’t come as one dramatic collapse. It arrived as a slow, quiet accumulation of “I’m so tired” that stopped sounding like an excuse and started feeling like my whole personality. It got to a point where I didn’t even realise I was saying it half the time, it was just an automatic response to living in my body.

~

There is a particular and pervasive shame in becoming the “tired friend.”

You know the one: the person who cancels at the last minute. The person everyone starts joking about in a loving-but-not-that-loving way: We’ll see if you actually make it this time. The emoji reactions that are 50% “we miss you!” and 50% “of course you’re not coming.”

On the surface, it’s all affection. Underneath, it’s a constant reminder that the version of you that people like best is the one who shows up, doesn’t complain, and can stay out late.

The version who struggles to do those things is an inconvenience that they’re still trying to tolerate.

~

For a long time, I didn’t have the language for what my body and brain were doing.

I just knew that I couldn’t keep up. That a single social event could knock me sideways for days. That I’d get home from something “fun” and spend the rest of the night crying in the shower because I’d used energy I didn’t have and now everything hurt.

When I finally started naming things – chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, disability – it helped in some ways and complicated others. Suddenly there was a script I was supposed to follow: disclose, educate, reassure. Every “no” had to come with an explanation detailed enough to be convincing, but gentle enough not to make anyone feel guilty.

It was exhausting, on top of the usual exhaustion I already had.

~

What made it worse was the kind of queer community I’d always idealised: busy, loud, endlessly active and FUN.

There’s a version of queer culture that’s all nightlife and protests and visible togetherness. I love that version in theory. I love that it exists. But it’s not the only way to be in community, and it’s not always accessible if your body or mind (or society) won’t cooperate.

I remember one Pride month scrolling through photos of online friends at events I couldn’t manage to attend. Rainbows everywhere, pink glitter, signs with slogans I wholeheartedly agreed with. I wanted to be there more than anything, but my joints were on fire and my brain felt like wet concrete.

Not to mention the general lack of accessibility at most Pride events. Would I be able to enter certain bars to compete in events and games? Are there wheelchair accessible toilets along the parade route? Are there cobbled streets that my wheels could potentially get caught in? All these questions plus one hundred more would swirl through my brain and only served to make me feel more exhausted, more isolated, and more like a burden. Why are we so easily forgotten?

Instead of thinking, I’m doing what I need to survive, I thought, I’m a bad queer. I’m a bad friend. I’m not trying hard enough.

It took a long time for me to realize that this was not a moral failing. It was a total mismatch between what my life and health actually required and what the world (oftentimes including my own communities) was set up to value.

~

These days, my social life looks different.

I say “no” more often and with fewer footnotes. I say “I can’t do that, but I’d love to call you for twenty minutes instead.” I invite people into my actual capacity rather than the imaginary one I keep in my head “just in case.”

Some friendships haven’t survived that shift. It’s hard to watch people’s interest fade when you stop painfully contorting yourself into their idea of “fun.” It’s also clarifying. The relationships that remain feel quieter, but more honest: people who come over for tea and leave when you say you’re tired; people who send voice notes instead of insisting on a night out; people who don’t need you to be a high-energy version of yourself to believe you’re still worthy of love.

~

I’m still unlearning the idea that exhaustion makes me less interesting.

I still catch myself apologising three or four times in the same message or conversation for needing to reschedule. I still worry that people will get tired of my tiredness. To be honest, I’m tired of my tiredness too.

But I’m starting to understand that the “tired friend” isn’t a downgrade from some mythical better self. They’re just the self who finally admitted what was true all along: that there are limits, and those limits are not character flaws.

If anything, they’re invitations; to build friendships that can survive honesty, to find or create queer spaces that don’t require constant performance, to believe that we’re still worth knowing when we’re not fun, not productive, not “on.”

If you’ve been the tired friend lately, you’re not alone. You’re not failing. You’re just a person whose body and mind are asking for care in a world that doesn’t know how to sit still with that.

The people who can meet you there, the ones who don’t make you feel like a broken promise, are the ones you deserve to keep.

– E.C.R