Unwelcome Reminders

An alternative title: Why Oat Milk is Delicious Bullshit.

So, this whole gliadin thing and it being the biggest reason of several that I have celiac has been a challenge. The reason for this is oatmeal.

You see, I love oats. Love them. I’ve been eating them my entire life - they were a staple of my childhood, even! When I found out that I couldn’t eat them anymore, I asked my doctor what that meant. Like, no oat flour? What about gluten free oats? Or oat milk? The response was what I was expecting, which was no whole oats of any kind, gluten free or otherwise, but for the rest of the stuff, just give it a try and see what happens.

I hate this answer because it means more playing chicken with my immune system and I usually lose huge. Also, this didn’t make any sense to me; what could be taken out of the oat that would make it so that I can eat it, even if it’s oats still in a different form? I was confused, so I waited and stayed away.

Then I went to a cafe a couple of weekends ago and tried a maple latte with oat milk.

It was effing delicious. It was nice and creamy but not too heavy (like almond milk) or light or sweet (like coconut milk). It was exactly the beverage that I was looking for. It was probably the closest alternative to milk or cream that I’d found texture-wise. I loved it.

If I’m being totally real, I started to react before we even left the cafe. I started feeling a little hot, it was harder for me to walk to the car than it was to walk to the cafe (neither of which were very hard, I just noticed a difference), and then we were driving to go apple picking and I suddenly got so tired that I almost had to pull over and let Rob drive.

We got to the orchard and I was fine while we were outside, better even! Then we sat down to eat and it started to hit me. I swelled up like a balloon and just felt kiiiiiiind of awful. But we still had one more stop to make (I needed a new hoodie) and so we went to get that. As we were driving home, I was like “I think it’s finally time to admit that I’m not feeling well.”

Shit.

I’ve also been eating an excessive amount of dairy lately, so I’ve been trying to get a handle on that without much success. I just can’t quit you, cheese.

Really, it’s just cheese. I made the unpleasant discovery that I can’t have dairy-based creamer in my coffee, which I found out the hard way the other day (AND STILL TRIED AGAIN ANYWAY EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THAT’S WHAT I WAS REACTING TO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME), but I’m managing. I’m figuring this out slowly and trying hard not to get impatient with myself if I slip up and really want some maple coffee with regular creamer, but it’s hard. These are permanent changes and I get resistant, even though I know it’s what I need.

The thing about it is, though, those times that my body reacts unfavorably? I was in the middle of feeling like absolute shit from the oat milk and I came to this really startling realization, which helped me feel about 1000% emotionally better about the whole mess that I’d just gotten myself into: this is how I used to feel all the time. Like, 100% of the time. I was constantly a little queasy. Everything was hard, like walking long distances to my car. I was always on the verge of a migraine. Like, teetering on the edge of A Big One. I was always this tired. I would be able to push through it, but I always felt this way. Why I had such a strong emotional reaction to how I’m feeling is for a few reasons:

1. I hated feeling that way and I was afraid that I had flipped a switch and all the work I’d done was for naught (it wasn’t) and I’d feel this way all the time again (I didn’t)

2. I feel this way so rarely now that when I do, I have a stronger emotional reaction to it because it’s no longer my default

3. I had a really strong physical reaction to something I ingested that I really shouldn’t have because I’m really intolerant to it and I’m mad about it. It messes with my internal stuff just biologically.

While I'm feeling better (even though I had a six.effing.day.migraine), the reaction lasted two full weeks. I didn't even noticeably feel human again until a couple of days ago. I had a big migraine for my first entire week at my new job, which wasn’t in itself great (and I don’t blame it entirely on the oat milk - I was pretty anxious about the transition too), I had to go get the tramadol shot to knock it out otherwise I'm convinced I'd still have it (I wouldn't), but I managed. With lots of drugs and tea and peppermint essential oil in the diffuser (which actually kind of worked miracles), darkening my office when I wasn’t seeing clients, napping during those times if I needed to, I managed. If nothing else, I certainly learned that I can’t have oats of any kind.

Now that I have more time and freedom, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to take the time I need to really get this stuff figured out. I feel good about it.

(I also did the math and if I stay at my current caseload, I’ll be taking a pay raise that is significant. And I still have a bunch of openings. Snort.)

Also there’s a terrible something going around my office and clients and the ER that I’m doing per diem work in, and I sneezed a few times but feel no different, and I’m feeling like that may be the extent of my fall cold. It really, really makes me chuckle. I’ve usually been bedridden at least twice by this time of the season. So maybe I don’t have too much left to figure out, or maybe I do. I’m game either way, and that’s pretty awesome.

Professional Self-Care

Ok. Time for some real talk about mental health.

So, here’s the thing about professional self-care. Much like personal self-care, I don’t do enough. I just don’t. So when one of my colleagues asked me to put in a proposal with him to present at a counselor education conference in Seattle, I jumped at it. This was not FOMOP - I go to this conference every year anyway - and I love beefing up the ole’ CV, and I loved the topic - Simulated Clients in Counseling Skills Class (which I happen to teach and use them a lot). We got an education session, I fangirled because the daughter of the authors of a few of my books in grad school came to it and was like “I DO VR LETS COLLABORATE PLZ” and it was awesome, and just...it was an all around great conference.

I went to sessions about impostor syndrome (which, if you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll find my picture instead of a definition...more on that in a minute), liability, how to talk about sex with your students and supervisees, and how to coach them around leaving space for talking about sex with their clients, and self-compassion and self-care, and mandated reporting, and I listened to a great keynote about passion and work from a great author, and I left so full of knowledge and gratitude. This was all on top of seeing a really great friend and hanging out with my colleagues and just having an amazing time.

phew. To say that my cup refilled to overflowing would be an understatement. I had a seven-hour long flight home to start to unpack it, and what I came to is this.

I’m at a huge crossroads professionally. Huge. Leaving my job was so hard for so many reasons, but I finally admitted to myself just how much I questioned myself and the work that I’m doing and my very competence as a counselor, and that’s why I had to leave. To admit this to myself, I also had to admit to myself that my workplace was toxic to me. Maybe not to everyone who worked there, but certainly to me, and admitting that I could no longer tolerate it was the first step to stopping that internal train of not ever feeling like I’m going to be good enough at what I do enough to feel satisfied.

You know how you have those times that are really hard but you don’t really realize how hard they were until you’re on the other side of them? Yeah. That’s where I am now.

What I was experiencing before I went to Seattle was burnout. I can comfortably call it that at this point. It wasn’t to the level where I couldn’t work, but I came dangerously close. I had been having thoughts of taking some FMLA to give myself some time to rest and get things figured out. I also started seeing my therapist weekly again. I just really needed the support. 

Then I went to Seattle and somewhere in my head, the wheels were set in motion. I made the conscious decision somewhere along the way to leave it all there.

The grief about leaving this job and this team that I loved.

The shame.

The hopelessness.

The feeling that I failed.

The feelings of not being enough professionally.

Just all of it.

I got on that plane home a different person than when I left. My outlook was completely different and I finally felt better. Like, genuinely better. I felt like I’d been carrying a horse on my back that I was finally able to let go.

Better still, I learned what my burnout actually looked like. I have been intimately familiar for a long time with how I experience compassion fatigue (what I affectionately call burnout’s oppositional little cousin), but this was not that. This was bigger and harder to work with.

I also learned that what I need in those times is to talk about it openly. In the workshops I went to, we talked a lot about the costs of these jobs, which doesn’t get acknowledged nearly enough. And because every time I go this particular conference every year feeling as though I am around My People, I felt comfortable enough to internalize the validation I found there, and didn’t realize how much I needed it. I allowed it into those dark places that were difficult to sit with on my own, and just sat with this new knowledge and was able to process a lot of difficult stuff.

Do I still have a long way to go? Yes. I’m realistic about that. But I’m getting there, and that ain’t nothing.