I'm stuck.
I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck.
Welcome to Shame Sandwich, where Megan Lee is writing her way back to wholeness, one personal overshare at a time. Sometimes deep, sometimes swearily un-hinged. Please enjoy responsibly. 🖤
Authors note: I wrote this last night in one vulnerable oozing stroke. It perfectly encapsulates how I feel about my career and perhaps more broadly, my purpose in life. It’s not how I feel in every second of every day, of course. But it’s exactly how I feel sometimes. More frequently than I’d like.
I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m bloody fucking stuck!!!!!!!!!!
Silence. My mind reaches an uncanny stillness after I pause from my manic mind. Performative. How often am I performative? I can scarcely answer that honestly without performative vitriol hurdling out of my mind in the form of fingers frantically typing. Desperate to keep the mirage up. I’m always fucking performative. Always? Mostly always.
Polish. Blur. Perfect. Erase. Minimize. Condense. Filter.
Each word forms a soothing rhythm like fingers finding their cadence on the keyboard, mirroring the similar cadence of my life.
Polish. Blur. Perfect. Erase. Minimize. Condense. Filter.
God forbid you step out of line and misbehave. Oh, the horror. God forbid you skin your knees while learning how to climb mountains. God forbid you taste your toes while you’re learning how to say what you mean.
I feel stuck. But I already mentioned that. Did you know that while writing those words, my mind was simultaneously a thousand places at once? Is that normal? To think more than one thing at once? It’s what I do. Often. Choking on the incongruence of my own emotions.
I’m so stuck. Stucker than I’ve ever been before. Or maybe that’s not true. When have I never not been this stuck? God I’m such a trainwreck. Crashing into my own mind with lethal velocity. My cortex mangled with my frontal lobes.
Did you know I stared at my screen today, unable to motivate myself to take even one small, indeterminate step towards bettering my future? I’m so fucking stuck. It makes me sick. And yet I don’t change anything.
Why am I like this? What is wrong with me? Am I crazy? Cracked? Broken? I feel like all I do is write around the fact that I feel miserably stuck and yet … I remain the same degree of stuck. Do you know how demoralizing that is? Or is it thrilling? Is toxicity so wired into my nervous system that I’d rather swallow the barrel than release its grip in favor of the unknown?
Oh god. The thoughts and emotions are building again. Like locusts they descend from the heavens, relentlessly swarming around me. Blocking out the sun. And whatever hope I had left.
Opening up this way is deeply disorienting. I’ve spent so many years hiding these “shameful” thoughts. Who would want me when they see what a mess I am? Disgust must surely be the only reaction I’d receive.
Yet here I am, opening up. Nauseated by the stench of my fear. Hurling up shame as I look my long-buried demons in the eye.
If only I had courage, I think. If only I were truly confident — my, how I would change the world. And yet, I can’t even muster up enough willpower to clean the kitchen before bed. Much less approach my career with enough gusto to get a spark of momentum going.
How do you move forward when your limbs won’t move?
The twist in all of this — in admitting these deeply human emotions — is that I’m actually becoming unstuck. I think. My knees are left bruised in my frantic prayers. Please god, please let this emotional release mean I’m moving forward, a little less stuck than I was yesterday. Please. Amen, whispers my wicked heart.
And now I’m going to send this baby out before I lose my nerve. Yikes.
-M
p.s. — have the bestest fucking weekend. You deserve it. 🖤
From the bottom of my tiny tits, thank you for being here. If these words made you feel, it would mean the world if you could tap the lil ‘heart’, leave a comment or share this. 🖤
Your post resonated so so so soooooo much 😭 I constantly feel the same and even had a neurotransmitter test done and sure enough my catecholamines are completely trashed (super low dopamine, nori and epi) which explains my adhd being in overdrive even MORE than normal .. just been so hard like plodding through quicksand every damn day .. been taking Tyrosine to try to help (which it does slightly) but I refuse to take stimulants like adderall anymore, they only tax my already shot adrenals even more than they need to be so .. just. No. Anyway, thank you for making me feel less alone today.
a slight shift in perspective can turn stuckness to stillness.🦄