Mentally exhausted

There are so many words to describe how I feel, sitting in front of this laptop and typing away. I've thought about the words tired, stressed, unmotivated, sleepy, and even the words angry, but none of them come close to how I feel exactly.

Source
It's like beating around the bush when you have a main point you're yet to make.

When the word “overwhelmed” came into my mind as I sent a message this morning, I bobbed my head up and down because the nail had finally been struck on the head. That was the word, I was feeling overwhelmed.

Never had I been in a situation where I had to engage my brain for every work I had to do during a particular period. I usually always had my body stressed, not my brain. At first, I thought it was relieving that I just had to sit on my plastic chair, supporting my back with a pillow so I didn't develop an ache, and either type heartily or scroll through the 700-page material our lecturer handed to us a few weeks before the exam date.

There was nothing to stress me, I had to work and read alone without the stress of hurrying to meet up with classes or deadlines during practicals. I started that routine since Monday, thinking I would be able to meet up with all the deadlines I had for the week but the beginning of my problems was during the revision class we had with that lecturer.

He said, “This course is a theoretical course that deals with the history of Asian Theatre, so you have to read up the correct dates, and spellings of names and cover the seminar paper I asked you to present last week”

I shifted in my seat as murmurs began echoing throughout the classroom. I turned to look at my reading partner, Glory and she shook her head at me.

“Ensure to read up on every topic we have touched this semester, I have submitted my questions already”

We all knew who that man was. He was keen about details and he liked students to prove to him that they knew exactly what they were writing.

So I returned home to dig into his notes and material. By the third day, my brain was already feeling like it was a burden to me. The funniest part was that as I kept concentrating on only this course, I kept remembering that other courses were waiting for me that same week as well.

That week alone, we had 3 major papers to write and those papers were fixed for 3 straight days.

Then the aches began to set in in other parts of my body, my shoulders, my head, my stomach. I was gradually developing a fever and I was sleep drunk.

By the 5th day, which was Friday, I had completely lost my appetite. I had about 20 pages to cover in the material I was reading and I had not glanced at my note once. My job was there to deliver on every single day as well as chores and my personal life.

I almost screamed in anger at my younger brother when he called me to say he wanted to come to spend some time in my house as his holiday for that month.

He had the habit of moving from house to house every month, if he was not with my mom or my older siblings, he was at mine or his best friend's. I didn't have a problem with him coming to my house, the problem was that he called at the wrong time when I was having problems assimilating the material I had been staring at for over an hour.

Yesterday that was Sunday, I abandoned every single thing I had to do, laid down under my sheets, and slept the longest I had that entire week, from 11 pm to 5 am.

I woke up this morning to regret that decision because even after sleeping for about 7 hours, I was still sleep-drunk, as if I didn't get to sleep for most of the night and the amount of stuff I needed to read was still staring me in the face.

I decided to work during my exams for the first time simply because I wanted to achieve my financial goal for the year, and now, I'm starting to regret that decision.

I should have rejected all jobs coming in during this period, or maybe settled for just one and concentrated on reading my books. If I successfully go through this phase of my life without breaking down, I'll make a mental note never to attempt such a thing again.

Whether I have to achieve a goal or not, I will not set overwhelming deadlines for myself, especially when I am still a student. It's only a pity that I have had to learn this lesson by running the gauntlet.