Most of the time, I think I manage to appear normal to others:
- I’m friendly and outgoing, and I ask people about themselves with genuine care and curiosity. When asked, or sometimes even unprompted, I tell people about my own life.
- I’ve had a fairly successful career so far, with some very solid accomplishments on behalf of the organizations I’ve worked for and with.
But the truth is, I’m often one emotional blow away from drowning in my own brain chemistry.
Yesterday was one such day. Those around me are a bit more objective about what I’ve been going through, and told me so yesterday, as I lashed out and flailed. The immediate trigger? An informational interview that flattened my hope for a new type of work.
(One incredibly shame-inducing part of mental illness is how small and insignificant any particular trigger can be. Because you know, in the ever-rational part of your brain, that people go through and are going through much worse, but somehow it doesn’t matter to the part of your brain swamped in the wrong type/amounts of neurotransmitters.)
One friend wrote, “You are in a new city in the middle of winter with a newborn and a five year old and you are probably home alone a lot.”
Another wrote, “Is it because you have no support system?”
My husband wrote, “Poor sleep, plus stress.”
So yes, the past year has been a big one for me, and for my family. After A Really Long Time, my Academic husband earned his dream job, and we moved from Washington State to New Hampshire, leaving all of our immediate family back in the Pacific Northwest. And then, just two months later, I gave birth to our second child.
The addition of a new child to a family, in whatever circumstances, is fraught with challenges. Ours were less daunting and desperate than many. In fact, this postpartum period has been miraculously easier than following the birth of my daughter five years ago. This time, I was rearranging furniture after a week, and hiking in the snow at three weeks, sledding with my daughter at one month, and snowshoeing soon after that.
Likewise, I’ve jumped in to professional networking. As I learned after the birth of my daughter, my brain needs something to do. And if I don’t give it challenging work, it finds other things to obsess over, leading to paralyzing anxiety.
I’m being proactive, see. Trying to prevent my brain from short-circuiting and tailspinning. This kind of proactive, pre-emptive activity is common for me. I’m a planner. I use excel spreadsheets and calendars as weapons in my war against panic and despair.
So I followed up on the meetings I’d started on a visit out here to NH last March (that I’d already followed up with further meetings in August, September, October, before I was so pregnant as to make any cohesive thought impossible. Not only am I proactive, I’m also persistent and dogged.)
In these meetings, everyone is friendly and generous with their time and knowledge. But the information they share often leads to cognitive dissonance, confusion, discouragement. For example:
- Qualified people are really hard to find here.
- You’re going to be really in demand.
- The unemployment rate is effectively zero percent.
- You could run this program, you’re overqualified.
- There are very few organizations here and they all have tiny teams, most working less than full-time.
- There’s an unbelievable amount of wealth in this community. But there’s some Yankee hang-up; they like their organizations to be frugal, struggling.
- You have no experience in higher ed, and people here are not kind or patient about that.
- I don’t have the time or inclination to train you.
- I’m not sure what your experience prepares you for.
- You want to make sure whatever your next step is, it is the right step.
- Well, it sure was great to meet you. if there’s any way I can offer you advice about other roles you come across, do let me know.
***
Depressive flare ups are painful and embarrassing. It feels a bit like making a ghastly faux pax at a staff meeting, or having diarrhea, in white pants, at your company’s Christmas party. Or being a four year old having a temper tantrum, and having everyone say, “Now, now, you’re just tired. Let’s get you to bed.”
On the one hand, you’ve done something outside the established norms for our tightly buttoned up society. Something emotional and over-reactive, behaviors typically reserved for children and teenagers and crazy people. On the other hand, people are genuinely worried and care about your well being.
***
There’s been a lot of writing about the stigma of mental illness. Honestly, it feels like the worst part of that is the internalized voice the constantly tells you how ridiculous you’re being. About how much worse other people have it.
Do people with other chronic illnesses do that? Do they say to themselves, “Snap out of it Susan, your MS is so mild?” Maybe they do. We’re not nice to ourselves in this culture.
***
My anxiety first started when I was around five, when my parents separated. It was a constant through elementary, middle, high school, college. It got unbearable as I worked to finish my undergraduate thesis. I finally got medicated, which does help, most of the time, but which comes with side effects and disadvantages. Changes to health insurance can mean changes to covered medications; one insurer’s insistence that I change from a brand name drug to a generic caused a two-year spiral. By the time I got back on the original drug, it no longer worked, and had to find something else.
To maintain equilibrium, I’d found a whole team of brilliant health providers: doctors, acupuncturist, chiropractor, massage therapists, therapist, couple’s therapist. Every six weeks I took a day off work and just stayed in bed and slept, finding that a day of deep rest helped. Eventually I started my consulting practice, allowing me to set me own working hours, giving further flexibility when necessary.
***
I’m never sure how forthright one should be. I should be. Though I’m a terrible liar, terrible at being false. I have no poker face whatsoever (former colleagues quite enjoyed this about me).
Will writing about my disease get me in trouble? With insurance companies? With potential employers? With potential clients? With potential friends? With the parents of my daughter’s friends?
Will my (relatively mild) chronic anxiety and depression cost me?
I’m certain it already has.
Sometimes I think about what I could have accomplished, what I could have been, if I wasn’t working so hard, from the age of five, to manage my anxiety and depression. I’ve been blessed with a lot of privilege, but frequently I feel I’ve put it all to waste. That I should be more, and bigger, and better, and smarter, and harder working.
But that’s a story so many of us tell ourselves, isn’t it?
***
I have to think, being explicit, and honest, and authentic, about what I deal with each day — even if it seems pathetic, and ridiculous, and juvenile, and ugly — is better than my attempts to hide it.
For one, hiding it separates me, leaves me lonely, without a support system, exactly as my friend said. Because in fact I sometimes do need someone to tell me to take to my bed, and let my brain rest, and see how things look in a day or two.
Two, I don’t think I’m successful at hiding it, and not being honest probably breeds distrust from others.
Three, I tell myself maybe someone else will benefit from hearing it. That someone else needs my (little/pathetic … NO — human, animal) story. Needs me to stop trying to hide the invisible, over and over, every time I bump up against the reality of my brain.
***
I tell my husband I’m going to call these “flare-ups” from now on. I need a name for them, a narrative to help me when they arise. Like the eruption of a cold sore — there is a set path of care, a process and dependable timeline for healing.
***
I have a chronic illness. Yesterday I had a flare up, and it was no longer invisible. That’s embarrassing, but I can survive it.
Believe it or not, for all the struggle, I wouldn’t trade being me for anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment