"Coree, You Really Need to Learn How to Take Care of Yourself." 

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Want a peek into a crappy, dark moment in my life?

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This was a few years ago; I was burnt out but still functioning, bone-tired but scraping by, feeling emotionally dark during January in MN, a season that is, literally, super dark.  And cold.  We'd just moved to Minnesota and I didn't have any friends yet, the weather was too cold to take my little kids outside for too long, and I was on my 5th day of solo parenting (hats off to all the solo caretakers out there 👏). 

 

It was early morning and my husband was home for a brief moment before heading to an all-day hockey tournament with friends.  Soon he'd leave again, leaving a mess in the kitchen on the way out the door, and I'd have to put on my well-worn toddler-mom hat.  As I became aware of what my day would likely feel like - heavy, more performative than I was ready for, dissonance between what I needed to do vs what I wanted to do - I broke down crying on my bed.  Big tears.  Loud crying.  Loud enough that my husband heard me, which I was kinda hoping for but also kinda not.  He sat next to me on the bed and I told him how I was feeling: tired of taking care of everyone, tired of supporting everyone else's fun days, lonely, and stuck.

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His reply? Get ready for it…

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"Coree, you really need to learn how to take care of yourself."

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Ummmm 😐

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(Necessary context: my husband is not a selfish jerk and was later revealed to be feeling triggered and guilty about leaving me like this to go have fun with friends)

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For me, this is a vivid memory.  At the time I didn't even understand that what I was going through was burnout, but looking back, it's pretty clear that's what it was.  It was difficult for me to admit to my husband that "yeah, I'm actually not doing well," that inside I was starting to buckle under the pressure.  His reply to me felt like a parenthetical "this is actually all your fault."  Apparently I wasn't taking care of myself.

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At that time (and even now sometimes) taking care of myself just felt like more work, which was the last thing I needed.  I wasn't even sure how to take care of myself beyond what I was already doing.  I was eating ok, trying to make friends, moving my body, taking my vitamins.  But none of that was breaking through to provide actual nourishment needed to tackle my life.  Looking back I have compassion for myself; I was actually killing it.  Doing ALL the things in a new city with a passing grade.  Which is what I needed my husband to reflect back to me at that moment: "It feels hard because it is hard, you're doing a lot.  And you're doing great."

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You know burnout, either you've seen it, experienced it, fear it, or you're in it right now. 

 

You know the layers: the beginning stirrings of feeling tired and out of capacity, when it's still possible that a little reprieve can properly mitigate your stress or some extra sleep will effectively recharge you.  That's the hope.  But it doesn't always work.  You take a nap; you're still fading into exhaustion.  You ask for help, you maybe even receive help, and the relief is only temporary.  Or worse, you notice the people on your team are actually not happy to help you, or they can't, and you're met with the reality that the supportive system you thought you had is kinda pissed at you for needing to step back and take care of yourself.  Sometimes heeding the advice to "just take care of yourself, slow down" is actually the pain point, bringing up waves of discomfort at the thought of doing less, finding stillness, or disappointing someone.  So you circle around trying a few things to ease the exhaustion and burnout (cancel a social engagement, take half a day off work, go for a walk alone), but it's not helping.  Realizing that none of the superficial tricks are taking you to that place of deep rest, is pretty scary.  What are you gonna do?  You fear the thought of having to rearrange your life to heal from these feelings.  You don't always know where to begin.  You may not even have time to think about how you feel because you're still trying to maintain stability in the impossible game of Life Tetris.  Everything else needs you and you really don't know what to do.

 

That's where you are, where you've been, where you don't want to be ever again.

 

And that's where I was, too, sat on the edge of my bed having tried to take care of myself in the least disruptive way possible, but feeling out of options and unable to hide from my husband who is curious about my tears.

 

 

 

If you've been in this moment you know how scary it can feel to talk about your inside world.  Will the other person get it, like, really get it?  Can they handle it?  Are they stable enough to listen to me?  Can they disregard how this affects them for now and just hear me?  I'll tell you something true: when you're burnt out, and always, there's nothing actually wrong with you.  Most women I know realize this intuitively.  Burnout is a response to overload.  An overload that's very real, and by that I mean there is a real internal hope to check all the boxes, and external pressure to keep steady.  Sure you can learn some new skills to take care of yourself, but we're not at the skill-building part of the story.  We're standing in the middle of a mess, unashamed, wondering who is big enough to stand next to you.

 

Has that ever happened to you?  Finding yourself punched in the gut with the realization the people and systems you've poured your authentic energy into building up are the same people and systems that will not integrate your authentic exhaustion?  Dang, that stings 💔

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of much of this during my burnout.  Pretty sure I thought I was all alone; simultaneously too much and not enough.

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The truth about burnout is something you may already be clued into: you're not doing anything wrong and there's nothing broken about you.  You're meeting the limits of your capacity and stamina to perform.  And it's SO normal.  Maybe you're ready to open up about it (or your loved ones discover you in a crappy moment and you have a decision to make) but wonder if talking about your feelings will be met with open arms to ease the pain, or will talking about it to this person add to the load instead of lightening it?

 

Your disclosure is a gift.  A Gift! 🎁  Do you have someone you'd like to give it to?  Do you have someone in mind who will see it for what it is and hold it tenderly and proudly?  Or, do you need more time alone with your thoughts and feelings to build resiliency so that if that someone can't give you what you need in the moment, your whole world won't shatter?

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Let's retell the scene, same husband, same words, but this time I know something I didn't know then.  I am not failing at anything.  Nothing has changed about me, I'm just so deflated.  I'm ready to talk about my inner world with someone who will hold space for me, and he solidly misses the invitation.  That sucks.

 

It's hard to create that space when you have a full life with people depending on you.  The last thing you need is to help manage someone else's feelings, especially when they are triggered by your honesty.

 

This part of the process - how to talk to the outside world about inside experiences - can be tough.  You've spent a long time understanding how you feel and analyzing as much as you can, you may even fully accept yourself exactly where you are, as I do for you 😊.  Sharing it can feel entirely different and a point of vulnerability.  I totally get it.  I've been there, I've had it go well, and I've had it go badly and feel like a setback, not only in my own attempts to feel better, but it can also feel like a step backward in the growth of a relationship.  Maybe you have someone in your life who will know exactly how to hold you in your burnout, but in case not, it's ok to let it permeate that I've been where you are, I probably will be again someday, I am totally ok with who you are, and what you're going through, and you can lean on that.​