Rebuilding Rob

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

When do you feel the most drained?

At the risk of sounding like Bill Clinton, I guess it really depends on what your definition of “drained“ is. For the sake of this conversation, I’ll be speaking about drained in terms of exhaustion.

Rest I need

I think the worst feeling of exhaustion is a lack of sleep. If you can’t sleep, eventually, you can’t do much of anything very effectively. I’ve had a few times in my life where I’ve had some real bouts of insomnia. I remember one time specifically when I was in college, where I don’t think I slept for an entire week. Maybe in short 20 minute intervals, but that was about it. I think at that point my anxiety was so through-the -roof that I didn’t even have perspective enough to realize just how messed up I felt.

Also, I’ve had times where I started hallucinating due to a lack of sleep. And I don’t mean literally seeing things that aren’t there as much as I mean, the idea of my eyes playing tricks on me: seeing an odd reflection in the street and thinking that it was an animal in the road while I was driving at night. I guess technically that’s what hallucinating is – the idea of your eyes playing tricks on you.

Look what I have created! 

Physical exhaustion is not much better. This could come from an intense workout, strenuous labor, or even being outside exposed to the elements when it is extremely hot. Sometimes, you get physical exhaustion from doing strenuous labor, and extreme heat, which ends up resulting in an intense workout – the triple whammy.

But for me, the thing about physical exhaustion is at least I can look at myself at the end of the day and think “look what I accomplished today”. I know this sounds kind of corny, but sometimes I’ll do something like cleaning my garage, spending the entire day or even an entire weekend on such a project and when I’m finished, I will go back and look at the “fruits of my labor“ for days and just be proud of myself.

So well, it sucks to feel physically exhausted, at least you can usually see your if you feel something tangible from the end product.

The treadmill of the mind

But for me, I think the absolute worst feeling in the world is mental exhaustion. This could come from dealing with a stressful situation, one as being very texting either mentally emotionally or psychologically. Mental exhaustion might be the one most difficult too remedy. It takes a great deal of time to rewire your brain or get yourself into a mindset where you’re not so distressed

Dealing with a narcissistic partner, or a narcissistic ex, or a parent who has had anxiety for as long as you can remember, these are all things that are emotionally or psychologically draining 

Honorable mention

The one I’ve been feeling over the last few days is financially drained. I’ve had someone for seeing expenses arise recently with having to make two trips out to see kid one. And I’m not complaining about helping out my son, but having to drop everything for a semi emergency intervention does make for some unforeseen expenses.

When you have no money, or not much money, it feels like an eternity until you get paid again.

Meanwhile

Don’t get me wrong, I know that everything I’m talking about today are “first world problems“ my life could be so much worse. I could be in a war-torn part of the world like Ukraine or Sudan, dealing with much more instinctive, survival type priorities. Or I could be in some Third World country war most of the people live on less than two dollars per day; where the days spent literally getting food.

The stuff I’m talking about here today is not getting enough sleep and working too hard or dealing with too much drama, or even running out of money. These are problems that I know will pass. They’ll come again, but they will also pass again as well.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “And I’m Spent” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob