I didn’t realize how much I was struggling emotionally until it leaked out sideways.
I have been dealing with the ongoing madness of CPPS and IBS, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds. Pain, discomfort, uncertainty, bathroom math, body monitoring, frustration, and that low-level hum of “what fresh nonsense is this?” that starts to follow you around after a while. It wears on a person. Not just physically, either. That is the part I keep forgetting. When the body is in distress long enough, the rest of me does not get to float above it untouched.
I can still trick myself into thinking it is only physical. I can tell myself I am just tired. Just sore. Just uncomfortable. Just having a rough stretch. Meanwhile, the emotional strain is building quietly in the background, and because I have not named it, it starts looking for another way out.
That is what I mean by leaking out sideways.
It comes out as defensiveness when Megan asks me a simple question. It comes out as snapping when the situation does not actually call for snapping. It comes out as disappearing into screens, food, or whatever else can give me a little distance from being in my body for a while. Mostly it comes out as overworking, because being useful feels safer than being still.
That one is sneaky, because overworking can look responsible from the outside. People do not usually pull you aside and say, “Mike, I’m worried about how productive you’re being.” They are more likely to thank you, depend on you, or tell you they do not know how you do it all. And if you are a man who learned early that being useful was a safe identity, that praise can feel like oxygen. It can also keep you from noticing that you are running on fumes.
Withdrawing is another one. I can call it needing space, and sometimes that is true. Space can be healthy. Quiet can be necessary. But there is a difference between taking space and disappearing emotionally. There is a difference between saying, “I need a bit of time to regulate myself,” and silently retreating behind a wall while the people who care about me are left guessing what happened.
That is where this stuff gets messy. The people closest to us often get the worst version of what we have not admitted to ourselves yet. Not because we do not love them. Not because they did anything wrong. But because they are close enough to be standing near the outburst.
Megan asking a simple question should not feel like an attack. Someone needing something from me should not automatically feel like too much. A minor inconvenience should not feel like one more brick being tossed onto an already overloaded wagon. Yet when I am worn down, when my body hurts, when my nervous system is tired, and when I have been pretending I am managing better than I am, that is exactly how it can feel.
And then I do the thing many of us do. I explain the reaction instead of examining it. I justify the tone. I defend the defensiveness. I tell myself I had a point, which may even be true, but having a point does not mean I handled it well. That is an annoying little truth I keep having to relearn. Being right is not the same as being regulated.
I do not say that to beat myself up. There is no healing in using my own awareness as a stick. Shame does not make me more honest. It usually just makes me more defensive, which is not exactly a breakthrough when defensiveness is already on the list.
What I am trying to practice now is noticing sooner. Not perfectly. Not with some glowing monk-like calm. Just sooner. When I get sharp, can I pause long enough to ask what is actually hurting? When I want to numb out, can I ask what I am trying not to feel? When I bury myself in work, can I ask whether I am being responsible or avoiding stillness? When I withdraw, can I ask whether I need rest or whether I am shutting down?
Physical struggle is still struggle. Chronic discomfort does not stay neatly contained in the part of the body where it started. It spills into mood. It affects patience. It changes how much emotional bandwidth I have. It makes ordinary life feel heavier than it looks from the outside.
That matters, because men are often very good at looking functional while quietly coming apart. We can keep the lights on, answer the emails, make the appointments, show up for other people, crack the joke, and still be struggling. Sometimes functioning is not a sign that everything is okay. Sometimes functioning is just the last system still online.
I do not love realizing this in real time. I would prefer to write from the wise, polished distance of someone who has already learned the lesson and now simply offers it to others from a place of serene maturity. Unfortunately, that is not how this seems to work. Sometimes I learn by noticing the mess while I am still standing in it.
So here I am, noticing.
I am struggling more than I wanted to admit. It has been leaking out sideways. Not because I am broken. Not because I am bad. Not because I have failed at healing. Because I am human, my body is tired, my patience is thinner than usual, and pretending otherwise has not been working.
That does not excuse the leaks. But it does explain them. And sometimes explanation is the beginning of responsibility.
The next right thing is not to shame myself into being better. The next right thing is to tell the truth sooner. To Megan. To myself. Maybe to anyone close enough to get splashed when I have been carrying too much for too long.
Because sometimes the first sign that something is wrong is not a feeling we can name. Sometimes it is a reaction we regret. Sometimes it is another hour lost to numbing. Sometimes it is a simple question landing like criticism because we are already raw underneath.
And sometimes the most honest thing we can say is, “I think I’m struggling. I didn’t see it at first, but I see it now.”