If you're living with a mental illness, you're already aware of how exhausting it is to navigate daily life while handling your mental health. Even the most mundane tasks take twice the effort, and you're often doing it on little sleep to boot.

Still, this extra layer of exhaustion can be confounding to friends and family who don't truly understand what it's like to deal with mental illness.

When the art director and mental health advocate PJ Palits shared an illuminating thread explaining why people with mental illness often say they're tired, it immediately went viral.

Allow me to explain Why Mental Illnesses Can Make People So Tired.

Chances are, if you know someone with a mental disorder or disability, you might have asked them or thought, “Why are you tired?” pic.twitter.com/1U9vFJfC4M
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

She kicked it off by clarifying that saying she's tired is often a two-fold response. One one hand, she truly is deeply tired all the time. On the other hand, it's a far more concise response than explaining all of the complicated whirling thoughts in your head.

Not many people ask me if I’m OK, but when they do my answer is always the same “I’m fine, just tired” — and people seem to accept that reply.
For me, “I’m tired” is not a complaint or pessimistic. It’s merely a fact of life.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Allow me to explain why a person who is constantly battling their own brain and societal expectations may feel so drained.
These are ppl whose brains are stuck in overdrive and have a great amount of difficulty unwinding to fall asleep at night.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Constant sleep deprivation is one of the most consistent factors playing into this exhaustion.

For the “average” person, it takes seven minutes to fall asleep.
Imagine crawling into bed exhausted and it takes the average of an hour to fall asleep, instead of seven minutes. Every nap and bathroom break and the brain relaxation delay begins again.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people whose sleep is frequently disturbed and who spend their nights tossing and turning instead of resting. Sometimes they’re awoken by noises, pain, an inability to keep body parts still, by loud noises inside of their heads, vivid dreams and many other reasons.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people who wake up feeling, at best, slightly more rested than they were when they crawled into bed in the first place — like a battery that has been damaged that never seems to recharge properly.

These are people who for decades don’t feel rested after their slumber.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people who put an immense amount of effort into focusing on the task they’re supposed to do or perform, while their minds are trying to carry them down other paths or while they are struggling to remember just what those tasks are.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are are people with working memory issues who — from school age on into adulthood — lack the skill to remember multi-step instructions in a world where they’re just expected to know how to do it.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

The constant and unrelenting battle with your own brain is one of the biggest factors that makes the struggle with mental illness so deeply draining.

These are ppl who are in a constant war w/their own brain, ppl who are battling their own thoughts & fears; hearing every day from their brains they arent good enough,strong enough,skinny enough,that ppl dont like them or that they should hav done better just to list a few things
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

The stigma and misunderstanding surround mental health also takes a huge toll on people who feel they constantly have to explain themselves.

These are people who are in a constant war with other people’s judgment and lack of understanding.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Who are often asked questions or who hear comments like, “Why are you always tired?” “Just suck it up deal with it,” “It’s just a lack of discipline,” “It’s all in your head,” “Stop being so pessimistic” and “Stop being so lazy.”
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are ppl who experience sensory overload that mentally exhausts them. From the clothing they are expected to wear, the food they are expected to eat, the noise around them, the sights engulfing them & the odors surrounding them, these ppl’s senses are constantly under attack
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people who are exhausted from self-advocating to people who don’t understand and don’t care to understand.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people who spend most of every day dealing with fears that others sometimes find silly and irrational.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

It’s like living on a rope bridge swaying in the wind over a canyon while you’re afraid of heights, and hearing, “I don’t understand what you’re complaining about, the bridge is secure. Suck it up and deal with it. I can do it, so you can too.”
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are ppl who are struggling to communicate their experiences bcoz communication is a skill that needs to be taught and exercised.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

She laid out the ways in which communicating your feelings is hard when you're grappling with mental illness.

It’s like those who don’t have a strong artistic talent being instructed to create a sculpture using the items around you to present how they currently feel within the next five minutes.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Oftentimes, medication itself adds a whole different slew of side effects wearing down the body.

These are people who are tired from the side-effects of medication, or self-medicating to cope with the symptoms of their diagnosis and the expectations of society.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are ppl who are struggling w/their brains to differentiate whats real and whats not, bcoz their brains present everything to them as reality.
These are ppl who hav physical manifestations from their mental struggles bcoz being on high alert takes a physical toll on a person
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

These are people whose muscles ache constantly or whose muscles are tired from being tense too often, who get frequent headaches or migraines, whose appetite is affected and whose immune system becomes impaired… just to name a few things.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Also, many times expressions of tiredness are also indicators that someone needs the emotional support of a friend.

When someone tells you they’re tired, sometimes you need to look beyond their answer. Are they tired? Are they physically tired and need some sleep? Or do they in fact need you.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Do they need somebody to look them in the eyes and tell them they’re not fine but that you’re there for them? Do they need someone to realize they’re not OK and to offer them a hug? Because I know when I say I’m tired, that’s what I need.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

So please, the next time someone with an invisible disability says that they’re tired, please don’t treat them as if they’re lazy or irrational.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

Instead, imagine living your life on a rope bridge over a canyon, or imagine how you would feel if someone jabbed you and woke you up several times a night for just one year, and the physical and mental impact it would have on you.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

She ended the thread with a call to arms for empathy, both towards yourself and towards others dealing with mental illness.

I beg of you, on behalf of all of us fighting our own silent battles, please be patient and empathetic. Just because you don’t experience it doesn’t mean that it’s not a reality for someone else.
— ραℓιτѕ (@PJ_Palits) January 20, 2018

In the past few decades, the stigma around mental illness has greatly decreased. But we still have leaps and bounds to go. Threads like this help bridge the gap between ignorance and understanding in a much needed way.

Woman perfectly breaks down what people with mental illness mean when they say ‘i’m tired.’