A Life in Timelapse

About nervous systems that never get to land, dogs that absorb tension, and years that slowly blur into one long timelapse.

Sometimes I think the hardest part about our situation is not even the stimuli themselves, but the fact that nothing is ever predictable. That your body never knows when it is finally allowed to let go. When it is safe enough to truly rest. When you no longer have to anticipate the next bang, voice, bark, door, footstep, or sudden shift of energy inside the house.

This morning I looked at Fannar while he was trying to rest, and I could literally see a nervous system that could no longer fully switch itself off.

He was not really lying down. He was hanging somewhere between being awake and collapsing from exhaustion. His little eyes kept falling shut while his head jerked back up every single time noise came from downstairs. First my mother stomping through the house and rushing around as if everything was urgent. Then something dropping onto the floor. Then yelling at the dogs downstairs. After that, the neighbor started drilling into an outside wall at nine in the morning, exactly at the moment Fannar had finally just fallen asleep. He startled awake immediately.

And I think that is what people do not understand about chronic overstimulation, both in humans and in dogs. It is not just about loud sounds. It is about constant interruption. About a nervous system that never gets enough uninterrupted rest to truly recover.

I watched it happen in real time while sitting beside him. He drifted off again for a moment. My mother started loudly talking downstairs to the young boarding dog, saying that “she was just going upstairs and didn’t have to be scared.” Fannar lifted his head again. Then somewhere, hammering started. A moment later he had just settled down again when my mother started preparing to walk the dogs, her boyfriend came in, the front door opened and closed, the boarding dog started barking, and yet another boarding dog arrived, which instantly made my mother switch into this overly social, enthusiastic and fake version of herself while talking to the owner.

When eventually four dogs, a dog cart, my mother and her boyfriend all left the house together and the chaos physically moved outside with them, Fannar did not even wake up anymore from the noise that came with it. But even that temporary silence felt fake, because I already knew that shortly afterward we would have to go downstairs again, my mother would come back, and the chaos would simply start all over again. The young boarding dog would start chasing Buddy again from the kitchen all the way to the back of the garden, Buddy would flee upstairs once more, and then he would be told that he needed to calm down.

I already knew exactly how the rest of the day would go. My mother would stay downstairs talking and laughing with her boyfriend while Buddy would repeatedly jump off the bed, run downstairs, then rush back upstairs again. Meanwhile, the neighbor’s children had also come outside, and while the four-year-old talks nonstop, the two-year-old almost constantly whines.

Something inside me broke while I was looking at Fannar. Not just because he is exhausted. But because I suddenly realized once again how fundamentally wrong this entire routine actually is for him. Because even apart from all the tension, he is living in a way that is completely opposite to what his body needs. He gets far less rest than most dogs. Far more stimuli than most dogs. Far less predictability. The wrong walking schedule. The wrong feeding schedule. Constantly different dogs inside the house. Constant tension in the air. Constant noise. Constant human emotions he has to adapt himself to.

We have to go to bed early in the evening just to stay ahead of the morning downstairs. Because of that, Fannar often has to go outside far too early at night. He eats according to the schedule my mother decides on whenever all the dogs are fed together. By the time morning comes around, there is far too much time between his last meal in the late afternoon and the moment he is finally able to go outside again. And almost every night, he ends up with stomach pain. Meanwhile, during the day he is so exhausted that the moment he finally lies down, he instantly starts dreaming or breathing heavily in his sleep.

And that is maybe the part I feel most guilty about, because my own nervous system is completely worn out too. People often romanticize being highly sensitive as something soft or spiritual, but chronic overstimulation feels nothing like that. It feels as if your skin no longer has a filter. As if sounds are no longer just “sounds,” but physical sensations entering your body from the outside.

When Fannar breathes heavily or dreams while I myself have already been overstimulated for hours, I sometimes literally feel irritation or even anger building up because of those repetitive sounds. Of course not because I am angry at him, but because my nervous system starts experiencing every repeating sound as another attack I cannot escape from.

Sometimes I gently pet him awake just to make it stop. And immediately afterward, I feel guilty, because he is the one finally trying to recover.

That is the sickening thing about long-term overstimulation. You do not just lose rest. You also lose space for natural emotional responses.

And yet I think what exhausts me even more than the noise itself is the complete emotional unpredictability inside this house. Because everything changes depending on mood, attention, or audience.

My mother almost always lets boarding dogs walk off leash outside the garden while immediately controlling her own dogs. When someone cycles past and all the dogs start barking, she only angrily calls back her own dogs and yanks on their leashes, even old fourteen-year-old Floor, who was nearly pulled backward onto her back, while the boarding dog was simply allowed to continue.

Then later back inside the garden, her dog Buddy and the young boarding dog were sniffing in the same spot. The young dog was visibly standing in a sort of ambush posture that was clearly making Buddy uncomfortable. He was already showing his teeth. But instead of taking the tension between both dogs seriously, my mother only irritatedly called Buddy inside. Buddy walked slowly because the young dog kept staring him down, which made my mother become even more impatient while the boarding dog had already attacked Buddy by that point.

And afterward I suddenly heard her talking sweetly to that same dog.

“Yes, you’re such a handsome boy.”

Moments like that affect me psychologically almost more than the chaos itself, because they make the randomness of everything so painfully visible.

The same goes for barking. Normally my mother becomes instantly furious whenever dogs bark in the garden because another dog walks past. Meanwhile, we usually let Fannar react for a moment because dogs are simply dogs, and because constantly suppressing behavior only creates more tension. But as soon as a boarding dog does the exact same thing, the story suddenly changes completely.

“That’s just part of the breed.”

Last night something happened that may have been even more absurd. The boarding dog had not even arrived yet, but my mother let her own dogs and Fannar storm into the garden barking three times in a row. Why? Because she was enthusiastically exchanging WhatsApp messages with another boarding dog owner.

So apparently the noise only matters when it suits her.

And honestly, I think dogs feel that kind of inconsistency perfectly. People often think dogs mainly need clear rules, but what they may need even more is predictability. An emotionally stable environment where not every situation depends on mood, attention, or social performance.

Everything here constantly changes. Which dog is loved. Which dog is annoying. Which behavior is considered “cute.” Which behavior is considered “antisocial” for the neighborhood. Which dog gets corrected. Which dog gets pitied.

And I can literally see what it is doing to Buddy. He has started peeing over shoes more and more often. And the more often he does it, the angrier my mother becomes. But honestly, it does not feel like “dirty” or “bad” behavior to me at all. It feels like a dog that has been carrying tension for a very long time and no longer knows where to put it.

Because dogs communicate subtly first.

By slowing down.
By avoiding.
By staring.
By licking.
By sleeping badly.
By marking.
By carrying tension in their body.
By startling more easily.
By restlessly pacing around.

But people usually only start listening once behavior becomes inconvenient for themselves.

And somewhere, I think my sadness about Fannar is ultimately much bigger than sadness about a dog. It is also about our life. About what we promised him.

When we adopted him, we were still partly living in our previous campervan. We had nature. Quiet. Freedom. Silence. New places. Fresh air. The feeling that days truly existed. Everything felt slow back then. As if we were filming our lives in slow motion. Every walk had detail. Every morning felt different. Even simple moments carried depth because our nervous systems still had enough space to actually be present in them.

Now everything feels like a timelapse. As if the days repeat themselves at high speed until months suddenly turn into years. As if I can literally see the weeks tearing away like pages from a tear-off calendar and being carried away by the wind before I ever truly got the chance to consciously live them.

While writing this, my eyes sting from exhaustion. This morning the alarm went off at 4:30 again after yet another restless night, and I told Mart that I simply cannot do this anymore. That feeling of having to live according to schedules every single day. Having to be early every day before the house wakes up. Having to anticipate everything from the moment morning starts while your body really only wants to lie down.

The limit has been reached.

Not yesterday. Not last month. Probably a very long time ago already.

I think chronic overload is deceptive because you do not collapse from it all at once. It happens slowly. Year after year. You keep adapting yourself further and further until you barely notice how much of yourself you have lost along the way.

I notice it in everything. That I can handle less. Think less clearly. Feel less creative. Have less energy to search for solutions or even keep any overview at all. It feels as if my head is constantly switched “on” while simultaneously being completely exhausted.

And exactly the same thing is happening to Mart.

And maybe that is the most frightening part of all, because it is also exactly why we remain stuck here longer and longer. The longer a nervous system has to survive, the less capacity remains to escape from survival mode. So you remain trapped inside the same routines that slowly exhaust you further, which makes everything even harder, which leaves even less room to move forward.

And so it continues.

And every year, it feels as if it is not only becoming heavier, but more intense too.

And maybe that is the most painful realization of all. That chronic stress does not just take away energy, but also time. When a nervous system spends years living in survival mode, days become flatter. Memories less distinct. Everything revolves around getting through the day. Anticipating. Recovering from the previous stimulus before the next one already begins.

That is why freedom used to feel so intense. New impressions, autonomy, nature and safety slow time down. Overstimulation and chronic repetition accelerate it instead.

And sometimes I look at Fannar while he is finally resting after his body simply cannot continue anymore, and I feel an almost nauseating sense of guilt because he depends on us while we ourselves have been trapped for years inside an environment that fundamentally does not fit who we are.

Not me.
Not Mart.
And not him.

He was not made for a life filled with shouting, stomping, constant boarding dogs, tension and chaos. But at the same time, I also know that despite everything, he is seen. That we notice every small signal. That we take him seriously. That he is loved.

And maybe that is exactly why it hurts so much. Because you only truly break under a situation once you fully see what is being lost while being unable to immediately change it.