real talk – Turbulent Mind

February 5, 2021February 7, 2021

Productivity Shame

2020 was a rough year for a lot of people. A lot of us experienced disruptions in our professional and personal lives. This disruption has forced so many people to work in their homes. It’s also forced people out of their jobs. While I was lucky to not experience much of either of these things, I have recently caught myself in a negative feedback loop. In this loop, I constantly berate myself for a lack of “productivity.” This lack of productivity I’ve been experiencing has been through an active choice to embrace stillness by taking a school term off before jumping into a new job at a new school here in Daegu, South Korea.

I started out 2021 thinking of all of the changes that I have experienced in the last year. I thought about how many things I have completely turned around and I was able to give myself a few pats on the back. But why did I still end up feeling so shitty on most days? Why was I constantly feeling shame for not “doing enough” during my days?

I feel that the reason I am able to clearly see the mechanism in which productivity shaming truly brings a person down is due to the fact that I simply don’t have many obligations at this moment in time. Therefore, any “productiveness” that I perceive is necessary is actually not necessary at all. I literally have nothing that I have to do besides eat, walk the dogs, feed the dogs and cat, and clean the cat’s litter box. Technically, if I wanted to lay in bed all day and sleep, I had no obligations to stop me. Yet, I found myself feeling tired, hopeless, and full of self hatred.

I began to go into productivity overdrive a few weeks back. I scheduled every hour of my day to include some kind of activity. I started working out, studying Korean, walking the dogs 5 times a day, and reading. I even planned out exactly when I was going to prepare my meals and how long my meals must take. The first day was great. I finished everything. I felt this little high off of my accomplishments. I proceeded to try to pack the next day in the same way. While I succeeded, I found myself absolutely drained and exhausted from all of the hours I was devoting to studying and working out.

Ten or so days passed and I woke up this past Wednesday and felt absolutely hopeless. I was doing so many things, but I didn’t want to do any of them that day. I let my alerts on my watch and phone ring. Every time I swiped them away, I felt like a piece of crap. Feeling exhausted was getting to me. My insomnia was and still has been out of control. I was running on 4 hours of sleep every day and not allowing myself to rest was catching up to me. Yet, that Wednesday was not restful. I laid in bed, awake, frustrated and full of self-hate. Why couldn’t I just get my lazy ass up and do the stuff I’ve been doing every day?

I had completely depleted myself and instead of allowing myself to take a break on reaching these expectations, I mentally berated myself for being a “failure.” The guilt and the belief that you are not enough can be extremely taxing. That Wednesday stretched onto Thursday. Somewhere between Thursday and today, I finally figured out why I was “stuck” in this loop. I was setting expectations and goals that were so specific and grueling that I was setting myself up for failure.

You see, productivity shaming is an internal battle you fight with your perfectionist self. The self that sets these goals doesn’t have “happy, healthy, balanced” you in mind. It has the “cracked out, stressed, gotta survive” you in mind. It pushes you to the limit because perfectionist you was created under extreme scrutiny and stress. Your perfectionist self has served you well, and has likely helped you in many of your successes. However, the reality is that we can’t always be in “perfectionist” or “go, go, go” mode.

On Wednesday, when I woke up with the “fuck this and everything on the list” feeling, my mind and body was telling me, “Girl, it’s time to go easy on yourself today.” The checklists and reminders from perfectionist me were there to remind me of how I continue to set unrealistic goals for myself despite how badly I feel when I don’t meet them.

So, between Thursday and this moment, I’ve been working out how I can reconcile these parts of me. I reminded myself that it’s ok to not do everything on my checklist down to the amount of time I have allotted. I began to adjust my tasks from having allotted time slots to simply being a loose list of things that I’ll attempt during the day. I also broke down my list into “obligations” and “desires.” The obligations were simply to get out of the house twice a day for at least 30 minutes each time to walk the dogs. I tried to keep each of the lists manageable.

On Friday, I woke up in a pain flare-up from a condition I was diagnosed with a few years back. It’s called interstitial cystitis, which causes bladder pain/UTI-like symptoms in the absence of any actual infection. There’s limited knowledge on the condition and after many tests and scans, I was diagnosed with it based off of the fact that I was not diagnosed with other conditions that exhibit similar symptoms. I often have pain flare-ups during especially depressive/anxious times, and it’s just icing on the cake. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, is my body trying to tell me something?”

I recently saw a quote on Instagram that said something along the lies of, “If you’re guilting and shaming yourself while you are resting, then it isn’t really rest. If you feel exhausted after resting, then that’s a sign that you weren’t truly resting at all.” It’s definitely not the exact quote, but the gist of it is there. My body was telling me, “Girl, you aren’t resting enough. You aren’t giving your body what it needs while you can and your mind is making yourself feel like shit while you’re telling yourself to rest.”

If anyone else can relate to a chronic feeling of not “doing enough” please reach out. I’d love your insight on how you deal with this never-ending feeling that you should be busy with something at all times. How do I embrace stillness and rest? How do I get the most out of it when my mind/body seems to reject simple acts of rest such as sleep?

July 22, 2020

High-Functioning Anxiety/Depression

I recently had a talk with my therapist about what it means to be a high-functioning person with anxiety and depression. It made me realize that a lot of people are likely suffering from mental illness despite “keeping it all together.” This happens because I was taught that falling apart was not ok. I also continue to function because the culture in which I work in cannot really deal with “mental health issues.”

I have been in situations where I’ve been sobbing in my classroom before class begins. Desperately trying to suck the tears back in before any students see me. I’ve been still in bed 30 minutes before the time when I have to be at work, and still somehow managed to get myself “together” enough to pass for “functioning” at work. The moment the students come in through those doors, I put it all away and I put in all of my energy and efforts into making class fun for the students. I know that the students can feel me struggling some days, because they are patient with me. But I constantly berate myself. I tell myself how I’m not doing enough. I reprimand myself for not being more “together.”

The High-Functioning part of my mental illness stems from a childhood of constant activity. If I wasn’t at school, I was doing some type of sport, or some kind of project at home. I was raised thinking that idleness is a sign of weakness. That if I let my mind or body stay idle, I will, in turn, allow myself to become a worthless sack of shit. Being useless is my worst fear. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I rarely sleep a weekend away.

So what happens when my mental health takes a turn for the worse? Well, I simply overcompensate. I run myself until I’m on empty. I forget about really simple things such as meals, medication, cleaning, and doing laundry. In my worst state, I do everything I can to make it through those doors at work before collapsing in a heap on my bed at the end of the day. On the weekends, I have no work to occupy my time, so I keep myself so busy that I don’t even have time to think about what is making me so distraught. This works for some time because it keeps me from dwelling on negativity, but eventually my emotions cup overflows. When it overflows, then the anxiety begins to manifest itself into real physical symptoms.

The past two weeks, I’ve been terrified to fall asleep. I wake up every two hours during my sleep, gasping for air. Panic attacks plague me and coming down from each attack takes time and energy. Sleeping is almost as detrimental as not sleeping, and I wake up every morning absolutely defeated. In my dreams, I replay all of the things in my day, my week, my month, my year that have accumulated to break me down so that I can be gripped in fear when I wake up… on the dot… every two hours.

I am exhausted. I feel like I’m constantly on the verge of tears. I feel hopeless. But that’s life, right?

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020

One day at a time…

Today has been a little bit of a journey for me. I’ve been feeling very physically ill, and terrified that it was the Wuhan Coronavirus. I know, I know… health anxiety is a real thing and I should stop Googling symptoms. I stopped by the hospital to get checked, and they don’t seem to concerned. Of course, that’s not how anxiety works. I’m still terrified.

Aside from taking care of myself, I have also been sorting through a lot of thoughts this evening. I had planned on doing this, as I mentioned in my last post. It’s my last day of a long holiday weekend and I have been thinking and sorting through a lot of the anxiety, sadness, and fears that I’ve been setting aside because I have been too tired, overwhelmed and anxious to deal with my stuff. Here are some things I’ve sorted through, and some things that I have realized through the last few weeks.

The winter months are packed full of holidays, and I’ve been experiencing some serious sadness and loneliness on an almost monthly basis. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Lunar New Year are all holidays I enjoy spending with my family and friends. I missed out on so many things and I know it’s my own damn fault. I chose to come out here, why? Why did I choose to come out here if I get so sad when I can’t be with people that I love on important days. My anxiety kind of overflows during this time, as my family and loved ones are too busy to communicate and update me. I feel like their lives are flying by while my life is sitting at a standstill waiting for news and updates about their lives. I am justifiably sad/down in the dumps. Even though I have been feeling a little bit sad about things like missing my family, significant other, and friends. I understand that being far apart doesn’t mean that I am not loved and not important. Realizing this and working through the rationalizing has helped me feel a lot less anguished.

Another feeling I’ve been working through is absolute exhaustion from work. It’s really hard to stop myself from criticizing my decisions to come back to a job that does get extremely busy during the winter and summer seasons. There is a fine line between being extremely busy and burnt out. I could feel everyone around me slowly cross that line and enter “burnt out.” And, to be honest, I was getting secondhand burnout and anxiety. “Did I make the right choice to come back?” and “Is this a toxic environment for me?” are thoughts that I actively tried to avoid thinking about during the busy times for self preservation. I know that I enjoy my work immensely. Seeing the kids learn makes me happy. The environment can be what I make it, and I can choose to let the energy of others ruin the experience for me, or I can choose to focus on my own emotions and how I feel.

There have been a lot of days where I did not want to wake up in the morning. I go to bed hoping that I won’t have to wake up the next day. I think about all of the other days to follow and I’m overwhelmed by the weight of the future. I think about all of the things I want to do but haven’t. Before I have even begun the day, I’ve already set myself up for failure. I’ve already set myself up for a day of hopelessness and sadness.

Now that I’ve spent the entire day contemplating what to do with some of these negative and unhelpful emotions and thoughts, I definitely need an action plan to deal with some of the negative and intrusive anxious thoughts. Recently, I’ve been really enjoying a Podcast that brought me a lot of strength today. The Tablo Podcast has helped me see a lot of things about dealing with depression. I really need to take each day, one day at a time. I need to complete thought processes and dealing with my feelings one day at a time. As much as I’d like to just push some of the things off for an “easier” or another day, I really do need to address the day’s feelings on the day so that I don’t carry the day’s weight on me.

Through listening to the podcast I’ve felt a little less alone, as there have been so many moments of “Ahah! I’ve felt exactly the same!” As he describes moments in his life and his own struggle with depression.

A lot of things have been difficult these days, and I know that they can continue being a challenge, but I’m determined to make the best of things and to better my mental health. Every New Year, people make “New Years Resolutions” to be a better version of themselves. I’ve said before that setting a resolution for the year can often mean setting yourself up for failure. So, like Tablo says, I’m gonna make a day resolution for every day of something attainable.

For tomorrow, Tuesday, my resolution is to wake up at a decent hour and do some work around the house before heading to work. And each day, I will need to take all of the emotions and events of the day, and properly address them. No more putting it off for later.

December 27, 2019

Late Night Thoughts: The Weight of the World

Late night thoughts are some of my most convoluted and complicated thoughts. They can also make absolute zero sense, because of the mental state I’m in while writing, but in order to promote genuineness and honesty for myself, I will begin a series of thoughts that are unfiltered that run through my head late at night.

For a lot of people, depression feels like a giant weight on your shoulders. The weight keeps you in bed until the absolute last minute you possibly can until you have to go to work. Some days, this weight makes it feel like I’m always on the brink of tears. Any stupid thing could set me off. The other day, I started sobbing because I noticed the gray hairs coming up on my 7 year old dog’s face. I used it as an excuse to just stay in bed holding her just a little longer. The weight continues to weigh down on my shoulders as I move about my day, keeping my shoulders slumped forward, my head hung low. The weight makes things that I used to enjoy feel like chores. Simple things, like eating, are almost impossible. Especially if I have to cook it myself.

This week, my knees are buckling under the weight. I put up strength and calm at work so that my team and I can make it through the winter intensive classes. I take every unpredictable event that happens and remind myself that the intensive classes are temporary. I see the worry knitted in the brows of all of my coworkers, and I can’t help myself but to bring the weight onto my shoulders. “What can I do to make things easier and smoother? Did I miss something?” I don’t want to think about those things when I’m not at work. But I do. And it seems like everyone around me is crumbling too.

The first time I felt this weight was when I was told I would be a big sister. “Being a big sister is a big deal, and you have to make sure you set a good example.” I wanted to be a sister that my younger sisters adored. Or at least really looked up to. As I grew older, I tried my best to do things in the order that they “should” be done. Find a partner, get serious, get married. None of that really worked out. And, I wasn’t that great of an example. So now what? If I’m not supposed to follow this laid out path the way I started to, how do I proceed? Do I start over? Do I pick up where I left off?

All of this weight bubbled over into my professional, personal, and family life. I could not longer handle small stresses. I could no longer handle other people’s emotions for fear of not being able to take on the emotions as my own. And this is where I am now. I’ve been told that there isn’t a weight I need to carry. I can do as I please, and that I will have the undivided support of the people I love. But what do I do if all I knew was to carry that weight?

Without the weight I feel like there’s nothing tethering me down. Nothing to focus my efforts on. Without the weight, I feel lost, and some times the little things that make me happy make me feel scared afterwards. “What if I’m making another wrong step?” “How do I figure out what to do next?

I can only take things a moment at a time. The future is terrifying. At this moment, the next thing I need to do for myself is to put myself in a soothing and long sleep. I really don’t want to wake up all weekend, but I know that is just feeding into the fear, depression and anxiety.