Six Weeks.

Six weeks was what it took for me to go abruptly off the deep end. HARD.

I had been trucking along. I was doing telehealth, I was teaching online, and though it was hard, I was getting through it.

Then the last two-week stretch of the semester started.

Grading papers between seeing clients.

A lot of time at my computer on days where it was beautiful outside and noticing myself starting to feel resentful.

More time at my computer.

I'm not sure where the switch flipped, but Monday morning I woke up with a splitting headache. I was looking at a 10-client day, and I thought to myself that I couldn't do it. But I got up, showered, threw in some laundry, started the dishwasher, flossed very carefully, actively avoided coming upstairs, but when I did, I went about my day and I saw those ten clients.

Then it happened again Tuesday morning. I was looking at 10 hours in front of a computer again. I had the same routine as the day before, doing all I could to put it off. Wednesday, more of the same.

I'm not sure where the tipping point came where I said to myself that I couldn't do another day of this. Maybe it was an email from a student that made me lose my patience. Maybe it was a meeting or two running over because I said I had to go and that was the point at which people started asking a million questions. Maybe it was those referrals coming in that I know I can't take. Maybe it was the sheer number of no-shows that I had on Thursday and I was annoyed. I don't know.

But I shut off my computer on Thursday night after my last session was done and said to myself quietly that I was going to cancel my appointments on Friday and take the day off. I didn't quite mean it at that point, but when I woke up on Friday morning, I sure as hell did. I was near tears at the idea of spending another full day in front of a computer, of spending half the day grading and then the other half seeing clients. I just did not have it in me. I had lost the mental space to do any of it. It was like I was painting a floor and all of a sudden I had one tiny spot that I could stand on left.

I have tried everything I could to take care of myself over the past six weeks. I've kept up with my diet. I've put myself on an information diet because I just can't take the news right now. I've started crocheting a new blanket. I've kept our house (mostly) clean. I've made time to enjoy myself and really significantly reduced screen time whenever I can (which is not a lot lately). I've also tried everything I could to take care of others over the past six weeks. I was officially out of juice. My cup was emptier than it had been for a long, long time.

I cancelled all of my Friday clients without guilt, and then I sat on my couch, crocheted, and watched TV all day. I also left the house to run a few errands for the first time in almost a week. I ate pizza with ham on it and I loved it, and found gluten free crust in manchester that was not hot garbage. Then, the headache that had been nagging me all week was suddenly gone when I got up yesterday. I was set to grade all day yesterday, and I got a few papers in, and then I put that away too. I was in no mental space whatsoever to do all of the work before me. I'm still not sure if I'm able to do that, but I'm going to do a few and keep trying and if I can't, I'll make the conscious choice to take a break.

I've realized that what I need to do for myself at this time is have patience with myself. If I can't have it for myself, then I definitely can't have it for anyone else. Also, if I can, then that patience will tell me that it's ok to take a few minutes to get my head on straight. It's ok that I don't have full 60-minute sessions with my clients because that's a really long time to sit in front of a computer, for both of us. It's ok to spread out my schedule a little bit more to give myself some breaks in the day. It's ok to not take those referrals and start that waiting list. It's all ok.

I'd been giving my patience, so much of my patience, away to others. It's ok that you missed that appointment. Of course it's hard to tell what day it is. Of course if you need to miss class it's ok. I had been turning a grand total of none of it inward.

What this sixth week has taught me is that I need some too. It's ok for me to make changes to my schedule. It's ok for me to take a vacation the week after the semester ends (which I am 1000% doing.). It's ok to take a few minutes and unpack that box. It's ok to plan paint colors for my kitchen and living room instead of grading that paper or writing that note. Get out of your house, if only for a few minutes. That's ok too. When your husband is outside working and wants you to take a break for a few minutes so he can show you what's under the concrete slab in your back yard that you hate, it's ok to go outside and check it out and be overjoyed for a few minutes that it's actually dirt under there and you CAN make yourselves a backyard because of it. All of it is ok. Every bit.

We're finally starting to set down our roots in this house, and I am loving that. But, I haven't been able to pay as much attention to it as I want. I've been hard on myself as a result, and it's time to let that shit go. We're going to be here a really long time, so I have time. I don't have to keep this train running all the time. I can slow down, but it absolutely, 100% has to be an active choice. I haven't been making the active choice, and it has cost me a lot over the past few weeks. I haven't backslid in my burnout recovery, but I have seen new burnout start to emerge, and I'm not liking what I'm seeing, so it's time to do something different. The good thing is that I have so much time at home now and in some ways I'm doing so much better with my anxiety that I can recognize it before it becomes a huge problem and force myself to stop. I'm listening to that internal feedback so much more now than I used to - it tells me a lot, and I'm finally paying attention. I think the important part is that I'm also negotiating with it less. There's no "ok, but seriously, could I work Friday and then take the rest of the weekend off and not grade or do anything, even though that will cause more stress later and I probably won't do that either?" My body tells me that I need a break and I take it. It's actually pretty straightforward when you get into the practice of it. :)

And, I did not burst into flames. It's amazing how much I thought I would spontaneously combust from doing something different, and none of it has happened. Miraculous, right?!

Things I've Learned from Nutritarianism

These last seven and a half weeks have been...interesting.

With this major diet change, I've lost an additional 20 pounds, I've hit my 50th pound lost since the beginning of this journey almost a year ago, and found inside myself a level of energy that I legitimately don't think I've ever felt before. Barring Life Shenanigans (of which there have been more than I bargained for, that's for sure), my mental health has been better than ever. I did not handle Life Shenanigans the best most of the time, but I shudder to think about how I would handle it if my mental health were not as good as it is. I literally probably would have holed myself up for several weeks and buried my head in the sand, and I didn't entirely do that.

Can you believe that it's been almost a year since I started down this path? I can't. I look back to a year ago at this time and I'm FLABBERGASTED at the changes that have come about in my life just from making the shift to focus more on my own health and wellness.

One thing is for sure - I will never go back to the way I ate. This is partially because I have medical evidence now that says that I shouldn't, but also, I feel so effing good that I wouldn't want to. I've said in the past that my relationship with food has totally changed, but those times weren't true, I've realized. This time is. I've learned more in the time I've been following the nutritarian diet than I have about myself physically, ever, and I look forward to incorporating these lessons into my everyday diet as I start to reincorporate things. That being said, here are some of those lessons:

1. There is such a thing as too much garlic, at least for me. Some of you will gasp at this, and I did too with this realization. But, if I eat too much garlic (and sometimes even a little bit is too much), my nose runs like a faucet. That's an interesting reaction that I'm not super interested in looking at, but I have to.

2. I might never go back to eating meat full time. I think it's no coincidence that I lost so much weight AND I cut out meat. Might I try to reincorporate it? Of course. But I think I'm going to do so fairly infrequently and instead lean on the stuff I eat now.

3. Even in a pandemic, people won't eat chickpea pasta. I watched someone shove another person out of the way for a box of regular lasagna noodles the other day and it was the most ridiculous thing I've seen since I worked retail. Too bad for them, more for me.

4. I CAN be vegan. Do I want to be? I'm not so sure. But if I have to be, I can.

5. I will have to either drastically reduce or cut out my cheese intake entirely. This one's a bummer, but I've tried a few nondairy options and they're...edible. We'll just leave it at that.

6. Coconut is like...my favorite. Absolute favorite.

7. When you cook red lentil pasta, it smells like weed. It also tastes like it smells. I find this endlessly hilarious and laugh about it every time I eat it. (Side note: is it possible that there might be weed in it? It'd explain the constant laughter about it.)

8. I get sick of food REALLY quickly, but if I rotate staple meals, I won't get sick of them as quickly. Chickpeas and salsa is a big one, as is chickpea pasta with sauteed vegetables. There are also these sweet potato stuffed mushrooms that are the stuff that dreams are made of.

9. Just....coconut.

10. I react badly to Dunkin' Donuts coffee. This was a very interesting realization.

11. Almond milk too. Less interesting because I half expected it.

12. HEMP MILK. 'Nuff said.

13. While there is a thing as too much garlic, there is no such thing whatsoever as too much salsa. I could literally eat it out of the jar. (I may or may not have done that as a meal once or twice or five or six times.)

14. Water sauteeing is a thing that I didn't know about. Also, I have a...we'll call it less than ideal reaction to olive oil. I'm testing it out today to make sure this is what I've been reacting to, so we'll see what happens.

15. My reactions to gluten are much, much worse than they were even two months ago. While most see this as a bad thing (and I certainly did at first), it means also means that my body is doing what it's supposed to. I have celiac - I'm supposed to have a reaction to gluten. That I didn't for so long because my immune system was in such overdrive is nothing short of alarming. (It's also worth noting that even though getting glutened was accidental, I was definitely eating something that I shouldn't have been eating. I kiiiind of had it coming.)

16. COCONUT. CAN'T OVERSTATE THIS ONE.

In other news, Rob and I bought a house! We close in mid-April, and I'm really excited about it. We also sold our condo, and all of this happened within a month of each other. The pressure was on to find a place once we sold our condo, so some feverish home searching and many, many meltdowns when we offered and it got rejected definitely happened. We made offers on 9 houses and they all got rejected before we were finally able to get one accepted. It cuts just shy of 30 miles from my commute every day, and it's in the sweet spot of being close to work but also far enough away for me to not worry about clients seeking out my services in the area that I'm living in.

Now if we can just get through this pandemic and make it so that I don't have to miss work (and thereby can keep getting paid), that'd be greeeeat.

In the meantime, I go back to the doctor on Wednesday to check in. I'm supposed to get blood taken and I'm not quite sure I want to do that at the moment because going into a hospital or a lab unless I really, really have to is not entirely appealing to me at the moment. We shall see what happens.

Detox

“Do you want to do a detox?!” My naturopath asked excitedly in November. 

Before any holidays occurred.

Of course, in my folly and because I was feeling well, I said yes.

I may live to deeply, deeply regret that decision. Or, you know, not.

I had the appointment yesterday where we talked about what it would entail, and I’m going full bore paleo vegan for two months. 

Snort. And I thought we were going to talk about giving reincorporation of eggs and sesame seeds another try at this appointment now that I’ve cut them out for 6 months. NOPE.

Anywho, so here’s the deal.

A pound of raw veggies per day. (Minimum.)

A pound of cooked veggies per day. (Minimum.)

Lots of beans.

2 ounces of nuts or seeds.

4 large pieces of fruit per day. (Minimum.)

No grains, not even rice or corn.

All the white or sweet potato I want. (A relief, in a way, except I can’t slather my potatoes in butter and sour cream.)

No meat, no dairy.

No juice or anything else that contains added sugar.

End of list.

This would be like a vegan person were doing a whole 30. Except I’m not vegan. Like, not even a little.

Oh wait. All the tea and water I can drink. I can drink black coffee too.

The science makes sense. The focus on micronutrients instead of macronutrients makes sense.

The goal is not weight loss, though she told me to expect to lose 20-30 pounds, which will put me exactly in the range I want to be. This diet is one ordinarily given to people who need a reset or to set themselves up for drastic changes to their diet, both of which apply here. There is a lot of good news other than this also:

1. I’ll feel better. The holidays were terrible for me food-wise, and this will give me a much-needed reset. I have felt like shit since about early December, so I’m ready to start feeling good again and get back to being accountable for what I put in my mouth.

2. I’ve fixed my Breakfast Problem. You see, I’m a big breakfast person and have been for a really long time. Then I had to cut out eggs, most dairy, oats, and gluten, all foods that are an integral part of a good breakfast. I don’t want anything to do with chia seeds, and because I shouldn’t be eating all that much sugar, I shouldn’t be eating all that much yogurt either. I’m pretty much limited to one kind: unsweetened coconut. It’s out there, but hard to find. Now I’m doing smoothies again. Fun fact: there is unflavored protein powder (which I called smoothie dust yesterday at the doctor in a moment of aphasia) and if I mix it with frozen fruit and some water, voila! Breakfast! (Along with, according to my doctor, two pieces of fruit.)

3. If I’m hungry between meals, or if I’m extra snacky (which I shouldn’t be at all), I’m not eating enough and I should eat more. This concept is SO foreign to me that I don’t even know where to start. She told me that I can (and should!) literally eat until I’m uncomfortably full at every meal. She also gave me some recipes and told me to double them and take that as a meal.

4. It’s not that far off from the elimination diet that I was on, so I should be ok. It will be a bigger adjustment because I SUPER fell out of habit during the holidays, but I’ll get back there.

Now I have to go find myself a food scale. I start it on Monday.

923 Days

July 13, 2017, my teeth looked like this.

That was 922 days ago, as of right now.

922 days of staring into the snackless abyss.

922 days of my teeth moving in microscopic increments.

922 days of wearing them (mostly) 24/7. (Ok. I was lax when I had aligners for more than two weeks.)

You can’t tell too much, and my teeth weren’t terrible by any means, but I was having MAJOR jaw troubles. Lots of crowding meant my bite couldn’t meet the way it needed to, which was way more painful than I was giving it credit for now that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Today, my teeth look like this. 

Are they perfect? No. Do I want them to be, necessarily? Not really. I want to be satisfied with them, which I definitely am. Are they amazingly different in every way I thought possible? Yes, and then some.

Tomorrow is day 923. I get fitted with retainers tomorrow after having my current set of aligners for literally months. I’ve had the top aligners since August, and the bottom ones since November. My top teeth have been done for quite some time, and I can understand why my dentist wanted to wait, but it took Invisalign an inordinately long amount of time to get the retainers done.

I got the call today and I go in tomorrow. I am STOKED. I still have to wear them 22 hours a day for now, but I’ll eventually get to move to nighttime wear only and I can’t wait.

What CAN I wait for? My naturopath appointment. It’s tomorrow. My gut is NOT smiles times lately and I got a buttload of blood taken last week that I think ain’t going to come out great. The holidays were tough, and I think it’s just going to take some more time to recover. I literally haven’t felt well in weeks. I’m by no means back where I was, but I’m tired, swollen, and icky.

I agreed to a cleanse in my last appointment, in a moment of absolutely terrible judgment, so we’ll see what that entails.

Stay tuned!

Letting Myself be Bored

This transition to the new job has been harder than expected. The transition out of my old job was difficult in itself, but there was something that happened at the three-day mark of the new one that really hit home.

I was bored. Like, really bored. It's the same kind of boredom that hits around this time when I’m on vacation, but I’m not on vacation. This is a permanent change.

Well, shit. I totally, unabashedly panicked when I came to this realization. What do I do with this time? What if I’m always bored like this? What if I just keep asking hypothetical questions over and over until the end of time?

Also, I don’t know how I’m even bored. I’m already up to 18 clients and when I hit 20, I’m taking a break from taking new people. That’s 20 hours of clinical work a week with some admin stuff, but not anything that takes more than 10 minutes at the end of any given day, even when there’s a lot. I’m also busy during my off times. Like, really busy. The shit that I have to do just to live is ridiculous. How did I not make time for this before? Or maybe I did, but I just did it half-assed? I have no idea. But like, doctor appointments, dentist appointments (OH GOD I AM ALMOST DONE WITH INVISALIGN AND I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT IT I COULD SPIT) and therapy appointments. And going to the bank and just all of the little piddly stuff that we take for granted and think will take two seconds until you lump them all together and then suddenly they all take two hours. All stuff that I do now and takes more time than I think I gave it credit for when I had to carve it out of my day to go and do it.

My schedule has changed quite a bit, so maybe that’s something? I go in around 1 (maybe a little earlier) and stay until 7 or 8, and then I go home. And then I teach on Wednesdays and work at ES. I think this is the least busy I’ve been, ever.

My therapist and I have an interesting relationship because I feel like it's part therapy and part consulting at times. She's been through what I'm currently going through, and so (checking in on her comfort level always), I ask her questions about it making it clear that she doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to.

Her thing with this for me is that I have finally arrived at a place where I'm not looking to prove myself to anyone. I think she's right in that I have to prove myself to fewer people, but I don't necessarily agree that I've arrived anywhere if that makes sense. If anything, I feel less sure of myself now than I did when I left grad school, even. I certainly feel more pressure not just income-wise, but also in the idea that I have to do something with these clients now. Of course I have to do clinical work, that's not what I'm saying, but I now have 18 families I have to show my abilities to instead of just one supervisor. Although, I had to do that before too when I was doing full-time clinical work and it was WAY more families than that, so I don't know, and I had no problem being productive then. I'm puzzled. Maybe it's just a muscle that I have to get back into working full-time because I had an eensy caseload before and now I've got a big one.

I brought up my boredom with my naturopath too when I was talking to her about how the transition was going (especially the "I don't have any idea about timing anymore and what is time anyway, so fuck it I'm not going to take my supplements at all for three weeks" of it all) and she validated and then was like "So, now you have time for self-care." I openly rolled my eyes, desperately NOT wanting the conversation to go to that. What she said to me knocked me off my feet a little bit, though - "The planning part of self-care is not sexy. At all. But it's the most necessary part of it."

UGH. SHE'S SO RIGHT. WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO RIGHT ALL THE TIME. ALSO SHE'S MOVING OFFICES TO A PLACE THAT USED TO BE AN ICE CREAM SHOP. WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT CRUEL JOKE.

So, now I have to get planning, probably my least favorite activity when it comes to things I have to do for myself. Seriously! The reason I was so resistant to the idea of changing my diet is that it takes planning and that's why I didn't want to do it. There were other reasons (like it's hard), but those were not nearly as compelling as the idea that I didn't want to have to plan out my entire effing week of food. That's just annoying. Like, Send Me Into a Rage kind of annoying.

So, I think this is the next step, now that I've bumped up against it. Become a person who at least doesn't mind planning things. I'm not even shooting for liking it. I'm shooting for tolerating it.

Also the acceptance of the boredom. Though today was free and I certainly managed to fill it up with a shit-ton of grading, so maybe I'm not so much bored, but I just really, really don't want to do the things on my to-do list? Maybe.

Who the hell knows.

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.