I Wasn’t Lazy—My Soul Was Tired

I Wasn’t Lazy—My Soul Was Tired

When I was seventeen, I slept through most of my days. Not in the poetic, dreamy way you might imagine—but in the way where brushing my teeth felt like climbing Everest. I wasn’t tired from sports or school or even staying up late watching TV. I was tired in a way that coffee couldn’t cure, that sleep couldn’t fix, and that words couldn’t explain.

People around me—friends, family, even teachers—started calling me lazy.

“You’ve got so much potential,” they’d say.
“If you’d just apply yourself…”
“You’re wasting your life.”
“Snap out of it.”

I wanted to scream, Do you think I want to be like this?

But the truth is, I didn’t even know what “this” was. I didn’t have a name for it. I thought I was broken.


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At first, I believed them. That I was just lazy.

So I tried harder.

I wrote detailed to-do lists, set alarms for 6 AM, signed up for early gym sessions, and promised myself I’d turn everything around on Monday. Always Monday. Monday came and went. Again and again. Every “fresh start” ended the same way: exhaustion, guilt, shame.

I’d wake up with the best intentions and go to bed feeling like a failure.

My room became a war zone of laundry piles and half-drunk coffee cups. My inbox filled with unopened emails. My friends stopped inviting me out. I didn’t blame them. I had turned into a ghost.

But inside, I wasn’t careless—I was in pain. I wasn’t lazy—I was drowning.


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It wasn’t until I was in college, sitting in the back of a psychology lecture, that I heard the term “high-functioning depression.” The professor described someone who could show up to class, smile at people, and even get decent grades—but who inside felt numb, exhausted, and detached from everything.

I felt seen. For the first time, I thought: Maybe I’m not lazy. Maybe I’m sick.

Later that night, I Googled the symptoms of depression. Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy. Fatigue. Trouble concentrating. Feelings of worthlessness. Social withdrawal. A constant sense of heaviness.

It was like reading my own diary.


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It still took me months to say the word “depression” out loud. Not because I didn’t believe it—but because I didn’t think I deserved help.

I thought depression looked like crying all the time, being visibly broken. But I wasn’t crying. I was just… empty. I still went to class. I still smiled at my roommate. I still functioned—on the outside.

It wasn’t until I skipped an entire week of classes, not because I had a fever or the flu, but because I physically couldn’t move, that I knew I needed help.

I called the campus counseling center and whispered the words: “I think something’s wrong with me.”


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That was the beginning of a long, hard road. Therapy wasn’t a magical fix. Antidepressants didn’t transform me overnight. But for the first time, I had language for what I was feeling. I had a name. I had support. I had hope.

More importantly, I had permission—to rest, to heal, to forgive myself.

I started realizing how deeply the myth of laziness had wounded me. We live in a world that worships productivity. If you’re not doing, you’re failing. If you’re resting, you’re lazy.

But rest is not laziness. Struggling is not weakness. And being depressed is not a character flaw.


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Now, years later, I can look back with compassion at the version of me that used to lie in bed for hours, hating herself for not being able to get up. I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t broken. I was in pain. And I was surviving the only way I knew how.

I still have hard days. Depression doesn’t disappear; it quiets. Some mornings are slow. Some to-do lists stay unchecked. But now I don’t label myself lazy. I ask myself what I need. I listen to my body. I nurture my mind.

And I speak loudly about mental health—not because I’m brave, but because I remember what it felt like to be silently screaming for help and getting silence in return.


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If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt the same, please know this:

You are not lazy. You are not weak. You are not a failure.

You are human.

You are doing your best.

And that is more than enough.