Parsing Out the Struggle

 At present, I find myself in a place that feels very, very empty.

It is also a place that is at the same time, very full. Full of frustration. Full of longing. Full of self-doubt and an abundant lack of hope. 

I am not at all right now where I want to be, and worse, there is absolutely nothing that I can do in order to make myself get to where I want to go. 

I can only wait. Practice patience. Strengthen my faith. Feel my feelings. And trust that God is going to do what He has always done: come through for me. 

The fact that I had a meltdown a few days ago that sent me right back into burnout when I tried to put myself back in the same teaching situation that caused the burnout in the first place is still something that is very much with me. 

There's a difference between becoming angry or upset and experiencing a meltdown, especially one strong enough to thrust me back into a state of burnout. The former emotional states may come on strongly, but they pass with relative quickness and within a day at most, I'm back to normal. The latter states? Not so much.

When I experience a burnout, the healing takes days if not weeks. 

The first presentation is completely falling apart psychologically. My mental and emotional states unravel and I feel like I've been launched into the abyss of outer space, panicking and plunging into a perpetual unknown with no gravity to hold me, a million miles away from safety and everything that sustains life. All there is to be had is a heightened anxiety more aptly described as terror. I feel like I am trapped in a confined space with the thing that has set me off, and all I want is to get away, but I can't get away, for I'm imprisoned. If this goes on long enough, I will begin to have frightening ideations that suggest to me that there is only one way that I can get away. And the longer this goes on, the more the ideations began to become three-dimensional. If I get to this point, then this is when I will have to go to in-patient psych. 

The first order of business is to remove myself from whatever it is that's set me off. For whatever this is, no matter what it is, it is more than I can handle and I can't be coerced into handling it. Like the situation with my teaching job in the public school this fall, and the one I attempted to take on for the summer. These situations triggered me, and how. 

And the sense of being trapped was most palpable this fall...I was coming undone and I knew it but I was plagued by this guilt that I must put myself aside and push through it because my family needs me to provide financially. So I had to press on. 

But the burnout part of me screamed, but you can't. 

The other part of me insisted, but you must. 

So on one end was the outcome of pushing on for the sake of my family but being driven absolutely over the brink, and on the other, the choice not to push on and this bearing the consequence of losing my income and harming my family. This was when the ideations began to become very real. This was when I began to feel that this was going to be my only way out. 

Thanks to the support of my husband and family, I narrowly escaped in the fall without having to go to in-patient. The whole not wanting to go to in-patient is a serious thing for me; the last time I went to in-patient in my early 30's when the end of my first marriage pushed me over the edge, my ex-husband used my having been hospitalized as a means to take my children away. I wouldn't put it past him to do this again. So it is very, very important that I keep well. 

What happened the other day when I tried to go back into the school system, found things to be intensely worse, knew I had to leave but was yet again faced with the prospect of doing so meaning I would be depriving my family of much-needed income triggered not only a meltdown, but a swift plunge back into burnout because I'd effectively retraumatized myself and I was reliving the trauma of the fall in addition to the new trauma of the present. 

Knowledge is indeed power. I recognized what was happening for what it was. So did my parents, and my husband. I immediately resigned. My parents, who are of significant means, offered to just write a check for the amount I would have earned. I am grateful for their support in more ways than I can express. 

This was several days ago. And am I okay now? Yes. 

But am I all better? No. Not yet.

I am sitting here writing this right now to try to make sense of the aftermath of experiencing a burnout. There are phases, stages. A lot of it is what I've come to understand is a lot of grief. And not just grief for whatever was lost in order to escape from the burnout. Grief that has very deep roots, goes back for a very long time, through a number of experiences that are all similar to this one. 

There's grief for the present and all prior times one of the greatest of all expectations I've ever tried to have for myself has eventually died after being born in such hope: my ability to take a job and keep it. For two decades now, I've been locked into an intensely heartbreaking cycle... all I've ever wanted is to secure and maintain gainful employment, to establish and thrive in a career I've studied and prepared for and to which I know I have lots to contribute. This is why I earned two Master's degrees and professional licensure. I wanted to become a teacher. I was able to get this far, and only this far. 

I am someone who is a very hard worker. I am excited, passionate about what I do. I'm creative and innovative. I put my whole heart into all of it. I am someone who is industrious. I am someone who believes in putting my family first, and this means getting up and out and on and bringing in money to help support us. I'm compassionate and I connect well with students and families. And I'm smart, yes, I'm so smart and an expert in my content area, basically. 

But none of this is enough to save me. I can only last three months to a year or so in one job. Something just...happens. There always comes a point in time when I just can't do it anymore. I meltdown, and meltdown, and I will either quit to go run to a new job, telling myself it will be better this time, or I end up getting fired because in the final stages of my meltdowns, I've lost any and all ability to conduct myself in any manner remotely professional to the people around me. 

I'm still trying to figure out in concrete terms why that is. As I wrote in an earlier post, I likened it to going into a job situation as a pitcher full of liquid, but each day a little more is poured out and the time will inevitably come in which I am emptied out and I have no more to give. 

I have what I can perhaps describe as an intense control issue. Not to be in control of others, but I can only feel safe if I am the one who is in control of me. 

Here's how the triggers happen:

--Having to go to a workplace that is an environment that is not mine, at an hour that is not of my choosing

-- Where I must remain until a designated hour that is not of my choosing

-- Where I must wear clothing based on stipulations that are not of my choosing 

--Where I must be effectively imprisoned for a certain amount of hours a day alongside others whom I did not choose to be around, and cannot get away from

-- Where I am not in control of the lighting, the temperature, the smell, the elements of rooms

--Where I am not at liberty to choose to step aside for my own space as I need it

--Where I am not at liberty to come and go at times of my choosing

...this is literally what my own personal hell would look like.

And yes, I realize I just described what work is like for basically everyone. And I also realize that no one consistently enjoys any of this, but tolerates it for the purpose of keeping one's family cared for. 

But for me? It is beyond dislike. For me, all of the aforementioned are only tolerable for a limited period of time, depending on how clement or inclement any of these factors present themselves. The longer the period of time that these things don't present themselves as direct vexations to me, the longer I'll be able to stick around. But eventually, they will become vexing enough that I will be triggered. 

And what's triggered? This terrified, panicked fear of others being in control of me, others controlling everything about my life experience during the hours of my confinement as if the bars of a prison have slammed shut behind me and I can't get out and I can't handle it. I will eventually begin to feel like I'm in danger, trapped, and these things begin to hurt me in a way that I can't protect myself from being hurt...and so I will eventually run. Run to a new job to try to start over and tell myself that it will be different this time. Or just quit and flounder until I find a way to repeat this process. 

I always tell myself it is going to be different this time, because I have been ashamed, so deeply ashamed, that this has always happened and keeps happening, like there's something flawed in my character, like maybe I am just lazy and spoiled and entitled and willful. So I have kept on trying, and trying, and trying, attempting to prove to myself and everyone who loves me that I've got this, when I don't. That I can do it this time, when I can't. 

I now am at a point where I have no choice but to accept that this is the way it is for me. It's my neurodivergence, for one. For two, I have no doubt that the PTSD I suffer from my confinement at the therapeutic boarding school has a lot to do with this as well, for my perception of and reaction to the work environment is mimetic to what I went through there. 

But it is what it is. And I have to accept that because I can't keep pushing myself from one meltdown into burnout into another. And given how quickly my psyche absolutely bucked and threw itself out, I don't even have much more masking left in me to give. 

So I am working toward acceptance, but oh, there's a lot of grief.

 Grief to have to finally resign myself to the fact that this is something that is never going to change. I am never going to be able to go out and have any kind of full-time career again. I am incompatible in every fundamental way. 

Grief that one day, I was going to somehow conquer my neurodivergence to the point that I would function just as neurotypically as anyone. This is never going to happen, because the best I can hope for in terms of my treatment and medication has a ceiling. I have to focus on being the best I can be within my context, but understand that this context is what it is and it is never going to be comparable to a neurotypical. I'm not just going to arrive at this magical someday in which I'll be "all better." No. I have brain damage. Brain damage that can be helped, but not healed. I'm always going to have brain damage. I will never have a brain that is the same as someone without this damage. 

Grief that I am likely never going to be able to be much of an earner, and coupled with this, grief that I am never going to be in a position to maintain a completely independent lifestyle.

 I have tried. 

I have been able to physically live on my own, but always with the scaffolding of my parents. They've always had to step in and help me meet ends with the job thing inevitably happens. They've had to, in moments, handle paying my bills and the other more complicated aspects of adult life. There were a few instances in my life in which I nearly ended up under a conservatorship because I struggled so badly. I can do the best that I can, but this is also just something that is what it is. It isn't because I'm some kind of lazy, worthless person. It is because I can't help it. Again: I have a damaged brain. All I can do is my best, but my best is going to be different than a neurotypical's best. 

As I write this, and reflect on it, it all is so simple to type up and share. It is all so straightforward to express. And also, shouldn't I be relieved? Finally, I can stop struggling, stop fighting, just let go, let myself breathe, let myself be. Accept myself once and for all. 

The trouble is, there's sometimes a significant distance between feeling and knowing. I can know all of this, but I have to give myself time for my feelings to catch up.

 There's always a pattern of emotional processing after the burnouts. 

Once I've been extracted from the trigger, I can calm down. Stop screaming and crying. Put the ideations to bed. 

But what follows is this calm that isn't really calm, but just a void that quickly fills up with anxiety, an anxiety with about ten heads, anxieties that aren't even directly about anything at all.

 Oftentimes, I'll become obsessed with this idea that I am presently dying, suffering from some undiagnosed, incurable disease that's going to wipe me off the face of this earth and then what will my children do? 

Anxiety that, on the other hand, something terrible is going to happen to my children and oh God, the intrusive thoughts.

 Anxiety that isn't particularly related to anything but just manifests in my body, leaving my jaw aching and sometimes teeth broken from how hard I've been clenching, my muscles sore all over from the tension, this powerful sense of dread that prevents me from sleeping and then panics that it's now five in the morning and I really need to sleep but I can't because I'll oversleep and I have to be present for my girls. 

This eventually passes. And finally comes this overwhelming and vast sense of hopelessness and depression.

I've been here today. I don't feel doomed like when my anxiety insists that I'm doomed, but doomed as in, it's all hopeless. Hopeless. Nothing is ever going to happen that's good ever again. And oh, how the constant setbacks I've experienced in trying to plant this manuscript have been such excellent fodder for this stage. Right now, it feels very much like it is all hopeless, no one is ever going to represent or publish my books and for that matter, even if I self-publish, no one is ever going to read them and it is all just a waste. I'm just a waste. Why am I even here? I scarcely exist. What have I ever contributed to the world? What am I even for? 

But I've kept an objective eye on all of these phases, having experienced them before, knowing which is coming next. This doesn't make them vanish; I still have to feel my feelings, I have to sit with them. The only way out is through. But by making this an objective experience, stepping out of the midst of this and saying to myself, "You're in the depression phase of the burnout aftermath today. It really sucks. All of this feels very real right now." and then, "But this is all very textbook considering you've been through this before. This is actually a good sign-- this is always the last phase. It is going to pass soon. And even though all the things you're telling yourself sound and feel very believable, you can know and trust that God has always closed doors only because He is going to open one special one He has picked out for you and in the looking back, you'll understand why all of those agents said no, why there has been so much rejection. It is all going to make sense, just like every other time things that didn't make sense eventually did."

And then I nudge myself, let's go. Let's move. In the affirmation of my protagonist, You're Not Helpless. So I allow myself extra time to rest, I am gentle with myself, I do the things that I know soothe me, but I then take moments to get up and wash the dishes, clean the house, do the laundry, make sure everything is in one piece. The other night, in the middle of all the anxiety, I channeled this into cleaning as I soothed this part of myself, saying, "You're all to shit right now because that's what happens and it's okay. But you're going to get this house clean. Because tomorrow, when you wake up, there's going to be a window for this anxiety to diminish and you'll be able to get out that window only if you wake up to a clean house."

And so it was. So it has been. 

So I'm in a balanced place. I am hurting, but I am healing. I am validating myself, and I am finding ways to pick myself up to take one more step forward at a time. I am accepting whatever phases and feelings come in these days following, and I am maintaining an awareness that they are going to pass. 

My husband told me tonight that he is very proud of me. He is proud of how I have taken healthy steps to move myself up and out of this in an authentic way. He is proud of how I have handled this like an adult. 

I'm grateful for his praise. And I'm grateful, too, because I know he's right. I believe that about me right now. 

And I'm plugging very much into my relationship with God right now. Pain is an excellent fertilizer for enriching one's spiritual connection. And He is giving me what I need to get where I need to go. All of this lined up with my daughters going with their bio dad and his (God-sent totally awesome) girlfriend for a fun beach weekend, giving me an almost five day weekend to take time to myself, work on my novel, work on some art, rest, relax, and have kind of an opportunity to power-boost my way not only back into wellness, but maybe even into a place better and more healthy than I was before all of this happened.

God is good. He is always good to me. He hasn't failed me yet. And He is taking me somewhere. And every day, more and more, I am handing him my writing career especially and just telling him, "Take it. You make it into what You want it to be. Guide me and show me where I need to go. But I'm not in control of this. You are. I trust You." 

And I just have a quiet knowing somehow within me, even though my feelings haven't caught up... that all of this isn't going to be for naught. My writing career will happen. My books will be published. And no, I'm sure I won't ever be famous, but...people will read them. People will be inspired by them. People will want to know me. And they'll find me, right here. They'll be reading these words that I am writing right now. And the thing about this whole thing, my whole desire in wanting to write, will take place: my experience, my stories, will become meaningful to others who are like me, who will borrow from my strength and I will enable them to heal. 

All in God's time. And in the mean time... I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when I can't see the road stretching out before me, for I know that God is laying it out and He is leading me somewhere more beautiful than I could have ever imagined or every arrived at on my own.

Thy will be done. In Jesus' name, Amen.