Why am I dropping things, running late, and feel like such a mess?

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "Good grief, I'm a hot mess — what can I use as an excuse?"

Maybe the thought wasn't even that fully formed. Maybe it was more of a feeling — that low hum of how do I justify my flaky behavior? Your energy is low, your brain is foggy, you're dropping balls and forgetting things.

But nothing concrete has really happened, so you feel like you're making up excuses.

I had that exact thought recently.

I was running late to teach one of my classes, and I knew I was going to be a few minutes behind. I'm the teacher; I'm supposed to be the professional. And somewhere in my head, I was already rehearsing how to explain myself — what I could say to justify being late.

And then, mid-thought, I realized something.

Wait. This is real. What I'm going through is real. This isn't an excuse. It's an actual thing.

My Life Behind the Scenes

I've been dealing with a medical situation (not fibromyalgia) that has a lot of unknowns. I won't go into the details here — they're not the point — but I do share some of it in Episode 185 on the Fibromyalgia Podcast^®, if you're curious.

For weeks, I've been carrying around unanswered questions. What's going to happen next? When? How much will it affect my schedule, my energy, my life?

And the whole time, I was proceeding like everything was normal. Working, teaching, showing up — business as usual. I also wasn't that worried about the situation or stressed about what might happen.

One of my mentors called this “open loops.”
I didn’t fully understand it when she said it years ago — but now I do.

And because nothing has technically happened yet, you don't give it credit. You just wonder why you're so tired, so foggy, so scattered — and you start blaming yourself. "Why am I such a hot mess right now?"

Here's the thing:

Something maybe happening is almost worse than something actually happening.

Because your body is still responding to it — whether you account for it or not.

By the time something happens, you respond. You have a plan. You take action.

But when something only might happen?

You're stuck in the middle. You can't solve it, you can't move on from it, and your body and brain are burning energy on it anyway.

Why 2020 Affected You More Than You Realized

This isn't just stress or you being a flake.

The first time I really understood this was during the pandemic. To be completely honest, my day-to-day life hadn't changed all that much. I work from home. My friends are online. I teach class on Zoom. None of that changed.

For my life, the biggest change was having groceries delivered, not being able to get a massage for a while, and having my husband at home all day.

One of my clients said it perfectly: "It's like the world slowed down to our speed." 

And in many ways, that was true — a lot of people with fibromyalgia actually felt better at first because the pressure to go out and do everything eased up.

But people didn't account for the mental and physical drain of all the unknowns.

My clients kept saying to me:
"I don't know why I'm so tired. I'm actually doing less right now. Why can't my brain work? There's less going on."

And I'd say:
Yes, there might be less on your calendar, but there is not less going on in the world.

Your body, your brain, your emotions, your spirit — all of you is responding to things that have already happened, and the ones that haven't yet.

That lesson stayed with me — and it's exactly where I found myself again recently.

Living with fibromyalgia, this effect is amplified. 

Your nervous system is already more reactive. Your energy reserves are already smaller. Your margin for "extra" is already thinner than most people can imagine.

When you have question marks in your life — even the low-grade, background-noise kind — it can really take a chunk out of your ability to function.

There's more fog, more fatigue, more pain, more wondering what you did this time to feel so bad — and because the source is invisible, it's easy to turn the blame inward. You tell yourself you're not trying hard enough, not disciplined enough, not handling things well enough. Or simply that you "overdid it again."

But this isn't a failure of willpower.
It's not a lack of discipline.

It’s your body responding to something real — even if you can’t point to a single, concrete event. Your brain is working overtime on something it can’t resolve, and your body is paying the price for it.

That's not weakness. That's normal human biology.

And then I finally found a word for it.

The Real Reason You Feel Drained: Uncertainty

Right around the time I started realizing why I was so tapped out and started making adjustments, one of our coaches — Dr. Robin Pfaff — wrote her article "Creating Steadiness in Times of Uncertainty."

Reading her article gave me the word I'd been missing: uncertainty.

I'd been thinking of it as "this thing in my life that's taking up brain space — but also not really happening... yet."

But the thing that was really the problem — the thing underneath all of it — was the uncertainty.

It wasn't the situation itself — which explained why I wasn't all that worried or stressed — it was the not knowing. The open questions. The unknown schedule. Those were what was draining me.

Dr. Robin's article talks about what's actually happening in your body during times of uncertainty, and she offers some really excellent tools you can use during those times. Honestly, it's the other half of what I'm sharing now, so please go read her article here.

How Your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ Shapes This

If you know your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠, this is another level to consider. This is exactly why I created the Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ quiz. To help you understand how you’re wired — and what actually works for you.
If you don’t know yours yet, you can take the free quiz here.

As a Playmaker, I don't really worry a whole lot. That's just not part of who I am. If you're a Playmaker or a Prevailer, you probably don't worry that much either.

What to Do When Uncertainty Is Draining You

1. Don't underestimate how much uncertainty is affecting you.

If you're more tired than you think you should be or if your brain isn't working the way it usually does, don't just look at what is happening in your life — look at what might happen. The unknowns. The questions you're carrying. The tabs that are still open.

Honestly, right now in the world, there is no shortage of uncertainty. Depending on who you are and where you live, there may be even more reasons for it than usual.

Plus, fibromyalgia itself is uncertain. You wake up not knowing if it's going to be a good day or a bad day. You can't make plans because you don't know how you're going to feel next week. Even if your fibromyalgia is under control, something like an illness, a car accident, or extra stress could change the whole picture instantly.

That baseline uncertainty is always running in the background — and that may be sapping your energy more than you realize.

2. Give yourself grace. Adjust your expectations. Create some calm inside yourself when there's chaos outside.

That's what I finally did — I slept as much as I wanted to. I canceled a bunch of plans. I changed the expectations I had for myself to better match someone who was actually, truly, dealing with something big. I even rescheduled a simple haircut so that I could do nothing and just take care of myself.

In her article, Dr. Robin talks about "over-functioning" — that thing where we try to control everything by doing even more than normal. Over-functioning is particularly tempting for our Perfectionists, but all of us do it. I was doing it. Keeping my normal schedule, holding all my classes, pretending everything was fine.

What I really needed was to stop and rest.

If you're in the middle of something uncertain right now, here's what you need to know:

Adjust your expectations before you crash, not after. 

If there's something unresolved in your life — medical, financial, relational, anything — acknowledge that it's taking energy, even just to yourself. Stop waiting for "proof" that you're allowed to feel drained; if your body is telling you it needs something, believe it. Reduce your commitments before you hit the wall. Give yourself space to be in the middle of something — and let's pinky-swear that we won't punish ourselves for not figuring out what was happening sooner.

What creates that inner calm for you depends on who you are — your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ shapes how you respond to uncertainty, and what works for a Playmaker may not work for a Perfectionist — or the other styles.

This is one of the most common patterns I see in my work. People are trying really hard — but they haven’t been shown how to approach this in a way that actually works for their own brains and bodies.

Uncertainty is one of those invisible factors that can throw everything off — even when you’re doing everything you can to take care of yourself. If you don't account for it, you'll end up thinking the problem is you. It's not.

The right approach, at the right time — one that actually meets you where you truly are — can change everything.

If you need permission — here it is

If you're someone who needs permission, I'm giving it to you right now.

You have my permission to cancel plans. To sleep in. To go to bed early. To take a nap. To say "not this week."

You even have my permission to say, "My coach, Tami, said I needed to slow down."

Treat yourself as if you broke your foot and need to stay off it. Or as if you just had your appendix removed and you're supposed to lay low. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself the way your body is asking you to.

This is not the time to do more. This is the time to give your body what it needs — and trust that the rest can wait.

You're not failing. 
You're not a hot mess. 
You're not flaky.

There's something going on beyond your control, and it's taking more than you expected. That's real — and you're not alone in it. I'm right here too.

Action Steps: Where To Start

If uncertainty has been taking more out of you than you realized, you're not imagining it. Even when nothing has actually happened yet, your body can still be responding to all the unknowns.

If you’re not sure what to focus on next, check out the Fibro Hierarchy of Needs℠ . This article explains how to approach fibromyalgia in a way that actually works — and will help you look at where you are right now and what may need attention first. It also includes a free guide to help you find your next steps.

If you want to understand how your personality, strengths, and challenges affect your fibromyalgia symptoms and flares, take the Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠ quiz. Afterward, you can sign up for a free email series with more information about your unique style.

For more practical tools on building steadiness when things feel uncertain, read Dr. Robin's excellent article, Creating Steadiness in Times of Uncertainty.