These days mental health is talked about much more frequently. One of the good things, I think, that came out of Covid was how much more openly we all speak about mental health. And to call that a good thing probably seems a bit odd. When you consider the fact that why we talk about it more is because SO many more people than average were experiencing mental health issues. So I don’t mean it to say that I’m glad people are experiencing it, I’m just glad we as a society moved more towards being able to speak about it openly. I spent a good portion of my life trying like hell to shove down my mental health issues because I very much thought I was the only person who ever experienced anything like that. Which sounds silly in retrospect but when you exist in a small town with not a whole lot of outside influence, it’s easy to think you’re the only one.

One of the issues I’ve seen discussed much more frequently is burnout. We use the phrase in smaller terms when we just really a need a day to ourselves. Or perhaps even that week vacation. I had no idea what a true and total burnout was- until I experienced it. Burnout will shake your entire sense of your life and who you are. I definitely speak of my life in terms of before burnout and after. Looking back on how I lived my life is baffling to me now. I had lost almost all sense of who I was. And getting her back, has been a process.

I’m absolutely blessed that I have a family and a partner that completely supports me trying like hell to bring her back. When I quit my job, I had no idea what the future held. I just knew I needed something different and my health had to be the first priority. While my procedure was cancelled due to all electives being rescheduled, I have taken this time to really try and get myself healthy. Am I doing a great job? I have NO idea. PCOS is wreaking havoc on my body in ways I didn’t even know it could. So I don’t feel healthier than I did but I know I’m taking steps in the right direction.

Let me tell you, taking care of yourself at a basic level can be TOUGH. And I used to feel really ashamed about that but I’m just over that. Taking care of myself at a basic level and relearning how to do that consistently has basically been my full time job these past months. I was so focused on trying to exist while burning out that I had lost sight of the most basic human needs. I would go 14 hour days of work without eating or drinking anything. The only movement I got was while working because by the time I got home I would just collapse into a heap who couldn’t move or talk or process anything. And that’s no way to live. So I’m trying my best to relearn how to take care of myself. I try to get a decent amount of sleep (but not be in bed all day), drink 100 ounces of water a day, eat consistently, yoga, work on things for my job but also my own goals, and be a better wife, daughter, sister, friend, etc.

Trying out an entirely new career path on top of that is slightly nerve-wracking. I worked in customer service from the start of my working life until last September. I loved it and I thought I would miss it terribly, instead I feel guilt for not missing it at all. Which is insane, I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for wanting to move on to something else. People pleasing can lead us down the road of forgetting to please ourselves. Being able to circle back into working on things that I spent my entire life wanting to do, has been a blessing in and of itself. I’m grateful to have people in my life that were willing to take chances on me.

I was going to say that burnout taught me so much about who I am but I don’t think that’s quite accurate. I think it’s more like burnout made it impossible to be anyone but who I am. When you can no longer exist on the plane of people pleasing and matching yourself to expectations, you get that freedom. Rediscovering passions is absolutely one of the most healing things you can do for yourself. I’ve done more art and writing in the past six months than I did in the six years before that.

I’m a huge advocate now for taking care of yourself in all these ways long before you burnout. As thankful as I am for this experience, it’s also been one of the hardest and taxing lessons to learn. Find a work-life balance, take care of your basic needs first, and don’t lose yourself. That list in and of itself can seem overwhelming but I’ve learned that starting small still gets you to those goals. And find a struggle buddy! Whether it’s your partner, friend, family member- find a buddy! Everyone needs someone to vent about the struggle with. I can’t thank my husband enough for always being my struggle buddy. I will continue speaking about burnout now so that hopefully someone can catch it long before I did.

I hear it said often that healing isn’t linear and I think we try our best to internalize it when we hear it. I don’t think you can really internalize it until that line isn’t where you want it to be. It’s an easy concept to understand when that line is high or even level. When that line is going downhill faster than an Olympic skier- that’s when you have to make peace with it. It’s hard to make peace when you’re fighting an internal war.

One of the many characteristics of my disorders is black and white thinking. I think that’s what makes accepting this even harder. It’s such a dichotomy and there’s no room for dichotomies in black and white terms. I have worked for years at maintaining many shades of gray. There are times when I can’t maintain and the shader dials turn one way or the other. Sometimes I hate being so self aware. They always tell you that being able to admit problems are the first steps… but I’m not sure that works the same way when the chemicals in your brain are this screwed up.

We’re riding more on the black spectrum right about now. It tends to happen. I’m fighting with not only wonky chemicals in my brain but hormones that just can’t get their shit together. I’m trying my best to keep both sides in check. And sometimes that’s about all I can manage for the day. So anything beyond baseline existing may not happen. Mostly everyone would tell you that’s okay. Except me. If I were someone else talking to me, I’d tell me to give myself grace. Easier said to someone else than to self-practice.

That’s a bit of a theme. I’m always much more willing to give everyone else more grace than I do myself. I’m trying to work on that and view myself much more objectively. Self hatred is that childhood blanket I haven’t quite been able to throw out yet. I’ve made progress, I don’t sleep with it every night or carry it around all the time. It’s tucked in a box in a closet. Always close enough to reach for though.

I’m trying to remember who I am behind the issues and the self imposed sentence of working life away. Keeping myself so busy I didn’t have time to think gave me a purpose. It also gave me a death sentence. Art has come back to a point. And it feels a little bit more like home in my own head. This is the first step toward writing more consistently. I think that was the most at home I ever felt in my own head was when I could cough everything up onto digital pages. I want to have the energy to get up, do my makeup, and get onstream. I’m working my way there. It’s hard to be on camera when I’m having trouble looking in mirrors. It’s hard to speak into a microphone when the sound of my own voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I’m realizing however the chalkboard is just my own self doubt. If I take that away, it’s just sound in air.

I have not written anything with the intention of posting it this way in… years. And who knows maybe this will never even get posted. There are just some days when everything feels a bit overwhelming inside of my head. I am the least comfortable in seasons of change and life seemed to laugh at me for it. “You gonna learn today” seems to be the theme of life in the past year.

Being so happy but conversely so unsure of myself is one of the hardest things to come to terms with. I’ve often been told I’m good in high pressure situations or great in crisis. I’m concerned that’s all I’m good at. Has trauma warped my brain to the point where crisis feels normal and calm is what causes anxiety? If that’s true, how do you rewire your brain?

I left my job that I was so comfortable with because comfort became unbearable. Although I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. I was comfortable in the job because of that constant feel of being in crisis. That’s perhaps why I was able to thrive in that environment. And I burned out. In epic fashion. That’s the thing about setting yourself on fire for the warmth of others, there WILL come a point where you are no longer capable of producing flames.

Life is quiet once the flames are gone. So quiet. Too quiet. For anxious people, this is a new kind of hell because your brain seeks to fill the silence. And the supplied playlist isn’t as innocuous as elevator music. There’s no easy listening version of your self hatred. There’s no waiting room-worthy smooth jazz rendition of your intrusive thoughts. There is no fancy sound design to smooth out the uneven tones and added effects to make it more pleasant on your ears. You are the worst producer in the world who just keeps churning out the same content. And that constant sound you keep producing will drown out everything else.

Music metaphors are thick on the mind lately. I blame the company I keep and the new job. Everybody always tells you to find people to keep in your life who inspire you, make you want to be better. They leave out the part that at first, those inspiring people make you uncomfortable. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Growth is not the most comfortable thing in the world. Those people who bring out the best parts of you may also make you feel like the most incompetent person. Although, it’s not really them making you feel that way. That is your own thoughts of yourself. Outgrowing who you were is the uncomfortable part.

Nobody tells you that burnout affects your health. You think the mental side and the exhaustion is it. They don’t tell you that eventually your body gets pissed off and decides it will throw you a curveball to slow you down. I had that. And it’s terrifying. I do find a sick sense of humor in the fact that I spent the last 20 years hellbent on self destruction and when I finally quit trying to do that, my health goes down the drain. I’m lucky it wasn’t as bad as originally thought but it was one of those warnings that if I don’t change things, this redemption arc might get cut short. My husband often tells me I am not machine, I need rest and to take care of myself. So now I’m a complicated houseplant that you’re never sure if it’s got the right amount of sunlight and water. Also, you’re pretty sure you live in the wrong sort of climate for the plant but to hell with nature, you’re going to make it thrive.

My definition of thriving has changed immensely in the past year. Last year at this time I would have said that thriving is being so busy I don’t have time to think. It’s the same train running the same route every day but running a little bit faster each day. Everything is running at such a speed I’m just holding on for dear life. These days thriving looks like a clean kitchen after cooking a decent meal. It’s a productive Zoom meeting and algorithms working in my favor. It’s bills being paid but not a whole lot left to blow on stupid shit. It’s being thrown into situations where I constantly have to adapt and learn new skills. It’s unpredictability of what I’ll be doing.

What’s thriving look like to you these days?

Today is a good day.  It’s noon and I’ve got a clean house.  Not just one room was an accomplishment today before I was worn out.  I mean it’s one of those dishwasher is running, laundry is going, bed is actually made and there aren’t clothes scattered everywhere in varying levels of cleanliness.  I even had coffee and been singing along to a rather bipolar playlist of music the entire time.  Right now I’m trying to decide which crock pot recipe to make for dinner.  This is not something that happens normally on a day off.  Days off lately have been the desperate attempt to recharge a battery that seems to die quicker than an old iPhone.

I know that for most people this doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment.  Yes, I was a functional human being today.  I have a brain that is thinking about only one thing at a time and I’m accomplishing tasks one at a time as well.  I’m not scattered all over and leaving a trail of half finished tasks behind me.  It seems like such trivial things to be excited for.  But I am.  Without shame or judgement.

I have varying levels of functionality when it comes to my mental health.  For days, weeks, even months at a time I can be at the highest level.  On the flip side, I can also be a disaster for that amount of time.  Or what feels like a disaster to me.  On the outside it may look like I’m still completely functional.  But I know that there’s dishes in the sink that have been there for a week or a pile of clothes that I can’t seem to ever get put away. Or there’s just opened junk mail and randomness scattered around.  And on a day off, there’s me curled up in bed overthinking every moment of the past days.  Wondering if I could have handled that customer interaction in a different way, thinking that somehow I didn’t validate my partner this week, guilty that I don’t have the energy to go visit my family or friends, etc.

It’s ok to be either of those sometimes.  Or anything in between.  Even if sometimes you have to bribe yourself with lazy time if you can just function long enough to get one task done.  I struggled so long with thinking that I had to constantly “level up”.  I had to constantly be making some aspect of my life better, every single day.  That’s exhausting.  I’m currently learning to just be content.  Content in my home, myself, my job, my life, and my relationship.

I treated life like a side scroller video game with one life left for a long time.  That every day was a level and I had to find something useful out of it for the next ones.  And that my score damned well better be higher than when I started.  And often times I moved through those days with the same monotony in it.  Accomplish goals as quick as possible with the highest score possible and be done.  My life was as two dimensional as that side scroller as well.

These days I try to think of it more like a new gen open world adventure.  I’ve got missions I have to complete but I can get around to it when I want.  There’s tons of side quests that might not help move the story along but they can be fun and give you cool stuff.  And sometimes you just wander through and appreciate the environment around you.

And in that spirit, I’m gonna go enjoy our new living room for a while.  Whether you’re just surviving through the days or you’re at a high level functioning state….. Take care of yourself.  And just be a little kinder to yourself today, in even the smallest of ways.

It’s been two years that these flowers have been mine.  They were given to me by the same man that put a ring on my finger.  Except it wasn’t the same man.  I know that sounds confusing.  Two years ago he and I both were very different people.  We were both in a rough patch of our lives.  And mostly, we were unhappy.  Looking back on those times is always a bittersweet thought.  I’m a very sentimental person so looking back is something that happens a lot.  Maybe it’s because I need those reminders of how much things have changed.

I keep these flowers in our bathroom, in a place I see every single day.  It’s a reminder for me to never accept to be treated as less than.  That’s a lot for some silly halloween decorations to say, isn’t it?  And maybe no one else will ever understand that.  However, those are going to stay there and remind me.  Remind me what it’s like to be valued by the people you have around you.  And also, how absolutely romantic and silly my other half is.

He almost didn’t give them to me because he was worried I would think it was stupid.  He didn’t know at the time that I have a rather large black and purple rose tattooed on my shoulder.  He just saw them and thought I would like them.  He thought that because he had paid attention to the conversations we had and what I seemed drawn to.  At the time, that seemed so absolutely unbelievable to me.  I was not used to someone actually paying attention to the trivial things about me.  I had gotten so comfortable behind my walls.  Walls like that are a funny thing because while you think that they are keeping you safe, all they really do is block your view of anything else.  It’s easy to treat yourself terribly when you think that no one cares.  It’s easy to think that no cares when you or your situation has blocked that view.

Two years since those silly flowers knocked out a brick in that wall.  One crack in that wall that let me start to see how things really were in the world.  Connection is the most powerful thing in the world.  The connection that was made that night paved the way for us to change our entire lives.  One of the ways I keep myself grounded and in the moment is these connections.

Two years down and forever to go with my other half.