It's more than ironic that yesterday after I posted the first part of my story I was at a craft show with my mom. A woman recognized me as the former director of the agency I ran for ten years. She said ..."You burnt out didn't you?" I said that indeed I had and after working through things for the past two years I was feeling very good again. She said she thought I would burn out. She had heard me on the radio many times and saw me in the newspaper and said she thought it was only a matter of time..no one could work like that, put so much of themselves in their work and not burn out! Yikes...why indeed was I the last to realize that!
I, however, did not simply burn out...burning out where you physically and mentally exhaust yourself is a huge problem for people. But what happened to me involved not only burn out on that level but also a tremendous dose of post trauma stress.
I am not going into everything that happened to me. But I will give you an idea of how truly black it got for me. There is an expression in sports that to win you have to leave everything on the field...you expend everything you have. Well that would sum up nicely what I did.
You have to understand that I am someone who never thought I had an end to my energy. Never. That was other people. Me, I assumed I could always pull something out of my magic hat to meet every challenge and every circumstance. But here is a major lesson I learned the hard way...if you do not take care of yourself. If you do not look after your own needs there is an end. It took me a long time to get to the bottom of my magic hat. But there was a bottom. And when I reach the bottom I fell hard. Flat out...on the ground.
Add to that post traumatic stress that resulted from dealing for years with people's issues. The last ten years simply saturated with people's stories of pain and abuse and violence and fear. Rarely taking the time to process it because as soon as someone was gone there was another person to take their place. And my job was to be as present for the next person as I was for the first.
Here's how I knew I was in trouble. I was sitting in church just being very meditative when all the sudden I saw faces. They came at me quickly. I sat very calm and said to myself, "you can come but you have to come one at a time." Then for the next several minutes I swear to you on the soul of my dogs that it was like a slide show..face after face after face of people I had worked with. I have to say I took it all pretty calmly and knew I had work to do.
Now I have a certification in trauma and loss so I knew what was happening. What symptoms I was having...but knowing what was happening did not stop me from having to work through everything.
So there I was physically and emotionally exhausted, dealing with post traumatic stress with few resources because I had planned to take a few weeks off and then be working again. I was not financially prepared to not work. I was feeling lost and confused and very scared about what was happening.
Here is what I know for sure. When you are exhausted every problem you have feels magnified. I am certain that some of the things that happen would have not had the impact they had if I had been well rested. Sounds simply but how many times have you gone beyond you limit..of sleep and eating right only to find yourself faced with a problem that felt overwhelming that in another space and time you could have dealt with it with a different sense of ease.
I had my great doctor and a very small circle of friends and family who surrounded me and helped me feel safe as I worked through things. But no matter if you have that circle or not the facts are you have to walk through the process yourself. No one can make the pain go away. No one can give you rest. No one can help you gain your footing again. You have to do the work. They can help you find the tools you need. They can offer you support. But in the end it's you. You have to decide to get up yourself.
There are some people who don't recover. They cannot find their way back. Sometimes it is simply to painful and people lose hope. I understand that. I lost hope several times. I will tell you as we go along what helped me. Maybe it will help you. And maybe something that helped you find hope again will help someone else.
I want this to be a place where people can share what has been helpful and what hasn't been. As I wrote in my first post...this blog is not about my story is worse than yours. Or how dare he or she writes that what happened to them was traumatic. It's not traumatic! And that my dear reader would be your opinion..not a reality for someone else's life.
What I know from my trauma training is that everyone's sense of trauma is based on the experiences in their life up until that experience. We are all different and our reactions to experiences will be different too.
If you have fallen no matter what the issue and are looking for helping in getting back back...I believe this is a place you can find some help. I can't do the work for you but I will tell you about what helped me get back up and I will be your loudest cheerleader in saying you can to!
It has taken me two years to work through things and stand back up. I honestly believe if I can find my way back so can you.
Comments