When Monday Feels Like Drowning
It’s 7:15 AM and I’m standing at the subway entrance waiting for the third bus. Not regular Monday morning. Monday morning Monday morning. The kind where the air smells like wet trash and someone’s leaking coffee from a paper cup and I can hear my own pulse in my ears.
I missed the first one because my alarm didn’t go off. Missed the second because some lady with three suitcases decided the doorway was her personal runway. Now I’m here, twenty-three minutes late to a job I’ve been late to seven times this quarter, watching the arrival board flip numbers like it’s mocking me.
My manager texted. I haven’t opened it.
I told my roommate last night — Sunday, around 11pm, both of us on the couch pretending we weren’t already dreading it — I said “you know what, I think I just need to quit and become a lighthouse keeper.” She laughed. I didn’t. I was half serious and that scared me more than the alarm clock.
Lighthouse keeper. Like that’s a real job people just apply for on Mondays.
The thing is I don’t even hate my job. That’s the messed up part. I just hate Monday. I hate the way my body feels at 7am on a Monday — like someone replaced my bones with wet sand overnight. I hate how I have to talk to people before I’ve had enough silence. I hate how the weekend evaporates and suddenly I’m counting hours until Friday again.
Last Wednesday I had a breakdown in a Trader Joe’s parking lot. Not even a real breakdown. Just sitting in my car with the engine off, both hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 like I was about to drive somewhere. But I wasn’t driving anywhere. I was just sitting there, watching people walk in with reusable bags, and I couldn’t move.
I think I sat there for twenty minutes. Could’ve been ten. Could’ve been forty.
My phone buzzed twice — Slack, probably, someone asking where the file is — and I just let it buzz. I knew I’d pay for it later. Knew I’d apologize, write a whole paragraph in that fake-professional voice I hate, “Apologies for the delayed response, thank you for your patience.” That sentence has haunted more of my Mondays than I can count.
But here’s what I really want to talk about.
It’s not the alarm. It’s not the commute. It’s not even the job. It’s this thing that hits me every Sunday night around 9pm — this slow drowning feeling, like the week is a pool and the water is rising inch by inch and I’m just standing at the shallow end pretending I can swim.
I open my laptop to “get ahead” and end up doomscrolling for two hours. I make a to-do list and immediately feel exhausted by it. I lie in bed and calculate how many hours of sleep I’ll get if I fall asleep right now (4.5) vs in 30 minutes (4) and somehow that math makes me more awake.
By the time my alarm goes off I feel like I never slept. Like I was just lying there with my eyes closed, performing rest.
My mom calls me every Sunday. She means well. Last week she was like “you sound tired, are you eating enough?” And I wanted to scream. Not at her. At the question. Because eating enough isn’t the problem. Sleeping enough isn’t the problem. The problem is that Monday exists and I have to show up to it.
She said “why don’t you just wake up earlier?” Like that would fix it. Like the issue is I love sleep. The issue is everything.
I went to a doctor once. Told her I feel like I’m drowning on Mondays. She smiled — that polite doctor smile — and asked if I’d tried meditation. Meditation. Like I haven’t already tried to be calm about a system designed to drain me.
She gave me a pamphlet. I used it as a coaster for two weeks.
My coworker Jenny seems fine on Mondays. Comes in at 8:55 with a smoothie, asks “how was your weekend?” like it’s a real question, laughs at the morning meeting jokes. I’ve been watching her for three years trying to figure out what she knows that I don’t. Does she sleep better? Is she secretly rich? Does she just not care? What’s the trick?
I asked her once. “Jenny, how do you do Mondays?” She looked at me like I’d asked her how to breathe. She said “I just do them?” And walked away.
Helpful. Thanks Jenny.
There’s this moment — I don’t know if anyone else has this — right when I open my laptop on Monday morning. The screen lights up. The icons glow. And there’s this physical sensation in my chest, like a hand pressing down, like I’m at the bottom of a pool and someone just sat on my sternum. I can breathe but I can’t breathe right.
My hands get cold. My stomach tightens. Sometimes I have to go to the bathroom just to splash water on my face and stare at myself in the mirror for a minute.
That’s not normal, right? Or is it? I don’t know anymore.
I tried a lot of things. Bullet journals. Stoic philosophy. That one breathing app with the blue circle. Bought a $39 sunrise alarm clock from Amazon in March. The light does wake me up but the light doesn’t fix the feeling.
I tried going to bed at 9pm on Sundays. Made me MORE anxious because then I’d lie there calculating. I tried staying up late so I’d be too tired to feel anything. Made the Monday worse.
I tried quitting caffeine. Lasted six days. Got a headache so bad I cried in a CVS.
I tried telling myself “every day is a fresh start.” Felt like a lie in a greeting card.
I think the worst part — and I want to say this without sounding dramatic, but I don’t know how else to say it — the worst part is that I’ve stopped telling people. Because every time I do, they give me a fix. Wake up earlier. Drink water. Exercise. Get a hobby. Take a vacation. Quit your job. Find God.
I don’t want a fix. I want to be allowed to feel like I’m drowning without someone handing me a pamphlet.
So I’m writing this instead. For the person who’s reading this on a Monday morning, hiding in the bathroom stall, scrolling on their phone, trying to remember why they got out of bed. Hi. I see you.
I’m writing this for the person who’s about to call in sick again because they can’t face it. For the person who’s been “fine” all weekend and is now sitting in the parking lot at 8:45 watching the minutes tick by because walking through the door feels impossible.
I’m writing this for me. Because if I don’t say it somewhere, I’ll keep swallowing it. And I’ve been swallowing it for seven years.
It’s 8:47 AM now. I’ve been sitting in the parking lot of my office building for nineteen minutes. Engine off. Slack has 14 unread messages. My manager texted twice. I can see my coworker through the glass door, sipping her smoothie, laughing at something.
I’m going to walk in. I’m going to say “sorry, traffic” even though there’s no traffic. I’m going to smile at the morning meeting and pretend I’m okay.
But I wanted to write this first. So somewhere, on the internet, there’s a record of what Monday actually feels like. Not the inspirational quote version. Not the “you got this” version. The real one. The drowning one.
I think I might be okay. I think I might also not be. I think both things are true at the same time and I’m tired of pretending they’re not.
Tags: [“Monday Anxiety”, “Work-Life Balance”, “Mental Health”, “Burnout Recovery”, “Gen-Z Office”]