I’m Too Busy: The Shield for Those Who Want Love But Don’t Know What to Do With It

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I’ve decided that “busy” is a trauma response. While some of us just have a personality type prone to multitasking and productivity, constantly juggling the responsibilities in our lives creates quite the shield around us. Some of us are trying to prove our worthiness and earn a sense of love and belonging. Others are simply trying to mask the heavy emotions that would be present if we ever stood still long enough to feel them. Then, there are those doing both.

I was good at doing both. Even as a child, I signed up for one extracurricular after another. I truly had a lot of diverse interests, but part of the appeal was how busy it kept me — too busy to feel all the things I was feeling. Plus, it gave me that sense of earning validation— even if it wasn’t from the people I wanted to earn it from in my life. I collected admiration from teachers and peers and told myself it was enough.

As a single adult who occasionally tiptoes through the world of online dating, it’s easy to see that I’m not the only one who developed this particular survival skill. Many people spell it out in their dating profiles. They’re too busy to date, but they’ll make time for the right person — provided that person never expects to be a priority in their already too-busy life. They’ll pencil us in between tasks, and — trust me when I say this — we’ll come to feel like yet another obligation on their to-do list because they want love, don’t know what to do with it, and thus feel an added pressure to check time with us off their lengthy list of responsibilities.

Busy is a shield.

It’s a protection against vulnerability and intimacy. If we can claim that our busy lives are the reason we stay so stressed out, we’re not fully responsible for that stress — or how we disengage in relationships as a result. Work and family become the scapegoats we appoint to take the heat when we don’t want to put the effort into creating stronger relationships. It’s a good excuse, after all.

I’m not saying that we aren’t all busy. Right now, I’m trying to decide if putting away the laundry is more important than mowing my lawn today. I won’t have time for both. I’m constantly trying to find time for everything that needs to be done, and as a single parent, saying I’m busy isn’t a lie. But sometimes, it is a shield.

Healthy relationships can alleviate some of life’s stressors. Most of us just forget this because we’ve had plenty of unhealthy and outright toxic relationships but few that made us feel like we had someone on our team. We forget that loving someone and being loved in return can lighten the load of our busy lives. Our responsibilities don’t disappear, but we feel strong enough to carry them.

Unhealthy relationships simply deplete us. They add stress to an already overloaded life. When we remember this, it’s easy to invoke the “I’m too busy to date” excuse when we’re afraid the next relationship will be as stressful and draining as the last. It feels self-protective to cloak ourselves in the world’s longest to-do list rather than face the vulnerability of loving again and potentially being disappointed.

We want love, but we don’t know what to do with it.

On an intellectual level, we understand that a good relationship just might make our lives feel easier to manage. It’s the emotional level that trips us up. We have nervous systems eager to remind us of every time a relationship made our lives infinitely more stressful. We’re primed for stress and disappointment, not relief.

As a trauma counselor, I have the theoretical knowledge of how I came to be like this, but I know the solution isn’t in theories or ideas. The solution requires healing from the past to unlearn those trauma responses. The knee-jerk response of wanting to be too busy to even try or too busy to truly invest in our relationships can be changed. We just have to be willing to do the work of changing them.

We like work, right? That’s the conclusion most people would draw after seeing the responsibilities we juggle. But it’s far easier to be overloaded with stress and responsibility than to do the vulnerable inner healing work required to recover from early trauma. It’s also the single most rewarding thing I’ve ever done for myself.

In the reprocessing of my early trauma, I became aware of some of the self-protective habits I developed without even realizing it. As I’ve done my healing work, a lifelong process for many of us, I have learned to embrace rest and peace in the way I once embraced being busy and overwhelmed. It’s still hard for me to think of relationships without some fear of being hurt, but I don’t let that fear define me or hold me back anymore.

Learning to put down the busy persona can be hard.

There’s still that twinge of guilt when I take a rest day to do little more than read and watch television. I feel like I should be rushing around accomplishing things, but I’ve learned that I need the rest a lot more than I need to check off another task on my list.

I’ve also stopped using busyness as an excuse to isolate myself. Sometimes, I get an invitation and feel reluctant to accept it, but I always feel better when I go spend time with friends. I might want to say that I’m too busy and give myself another excuse, but I’ve learned that nurturing those friendships feels far more fulfilling than leaning on a crutch I once needed but no longer do.

Life is busy. That’s just a fact. But inside of all the commotion, we have choices. I’m teaching my children to help out around the house so that I don’t feel like I’m the only one responsible for it. It’s also teaching them to do their part and not become reliant on everyone else to do what they can do for themselves. I hope it makes them more equitable partners in relationships one day.

I’m learning to ask for help when my busy life becomes overwhelming. I reach out and see if anyone can provide support — whether that’s a listening ear, assistance with childcare, or help moving something I cannot move alone. I’m learning that I don’t have to do it all myself, and the work is much easier when we share it.

I’m also tuning into all the ways I’ve used being busy as an excuse not to try. I’m observing my impulses and learning new ways of being. I know that we all want love, and I am no exception. I also know that those of us who have the learned response of “too busy” have to figure out if we want love enough to engage in the work of healing.

Originally published on Medium