“Rotting in bed.” The phrase sounds dramatic, almost poetic, doesn’t it? Like a haunting line from a Sylvia Plath poem. But this isn’t about despair—this is about survival. It’s a quiet rebellion against a world that demands too much and gives too little, where the hamster wheel of overproductivity spins so fast it threatens to fling us all off.
We live in a society obsessed with doing. Every second must be filled with motion, even if it’s the mindless twitch of your thumb scrolling through an endless feed of ads, memes, and posts you don’t even care about. Overproductivity is the new religion, and the price of heresy is guilt. If you’re not working, hustling, or self-improving, you’re failing—or so the world would have you believe.
The Insanity of Overproductivity
Think about it: we’re addicted to productivity, but not the kind that brings satisfaction or joy. No, we’re hooked on the empty kind—the performative kind. We stay late at jobs we hate, answer emails at midnight, and spend our precious free hours doomscrolling or consuming content we’ll forget five minutes later. Why? Because we’re terrified of stopping. Of sitting still. Of doing nothing.
It’s an addiction, plain and simple. Our fingers need to move. Our brains need just enough stimulation to stay distracted but not enough to actually engage. This isn’t renewal; it’s depletion. We’re perpetually exhausted, burned out, and stuck in a cycle of overwork and overstimulation that leaves no room for actual rest.
And the worst part? We’re paying for it. Working jobs we hate to afford a tiny slice of time in a room we call our own, just so we can collapse into bed and stop. Not live—stop. Because that’s what overproductivity has done to us: it’s made rest feel like a luxury rather than a basic human need.
The Respite of Bed Rotting
This is where bed rotting comes in. It’s not just an act of rest—it’s an act of rebellion. It’s saying, “No, I will not squeeze another ounce of energy from my already depleted self just to prove I’m worthy.” It’s taking back the one thing we truly need: stillness.
When you’re rotting in bed, you’re not performing. You’re not scrolling through posts you hate just to keep your brain busy. You’re not pretending to be okay or trying to convince yourself that “you’ve got this.” You’re just there, letting the exhaustion wash over you, letting yourself be. It’s the closest thing to freedom many of us feel.
For autistic people, this respite is even more crucial. Our energy gets drained faster, our recovery takes longer, and our threshold for overwhelm is much lower. Bed rotting isn’t just a trend for us—it’s a lifeline. It’s the only way to recover from a world that feels like it’s constantly too much.
A Room of One’s Own (And a Bed to Rot In)
Virginia Woolf famously said that every woman needs “a room of one’s own.” I’d argue that in today’s world, every person—autistic or otherwise—needs a bed of one’s own. A place to retreat, to hide, to rot. Not in the morbid sense, but in the way fallen leaves rot into rich, nourishing soil. It’s not decay—it’s transformation.
Because let’s be real: the world outside that room is bleak. We’re working ourselves to death for jobs that barely pay enough to survive. We’re bombarded with ads convincing us to buy things we don’t need, all while feeling guilty for not being more productive. It’s an exhausting, soul-sucking loop, and bed rotting is the escape hatch.
The Radical Power of Doing Nothing
Overproductivity tells us that our worth is tied to what we do. Bed rotting says: No, your worth is inherent. You don’t need to produce, achieve, or prove anything. You’re allowed to stop. You’re allowed to rest.
There’s a reason so many of us look forward to rotting in bed—it’s the only time we feel free. Free from the constant demands of work, relationships, social media, and society’s impossible expectations. It’s the one place where we can stop moving, stop thinking, and stop pretending. And in that stillness, something magical happens: we start to heal.
Final Thoughts: The Beauty of Rest
Maybe the phrase “rotting in bed” sounds ugly to some. But to me, it’s beautiful. It’s defiant. It’s the sound of people reclaiming their time, their energy, their humanity. It’s a reminder that we don’t exist to work, scroll, or perform. We exist to live—and sometimes, living means doing absolutely nothing.
So, the next time you feel the urge to lie in bed all day, don’t fight it. Don’t let guilt creep in and tell you you’re wasting time. You’re not wasting anything—you’re replenishing. And in a world that never stops demanding, that’s the most radical thing you can do.
