Peeling the layers of burnout and illnesss

Hello Coaches,

I’m proud of myself for using AAC as it’s not normally how I engage with TFC. Thanks for being here, there’s one big thought download encompassing quite a lot of things and my key takeaways at the bottom.

The theme is: Peeling the onion of burnout and illness

I am getting better, regaining energy and strength and reducing my pain and I am so grateful and I know I’ve come so far. I know the resources it took to get here and how much I’ve taken responsibility for my health.

However, when I have a health upgrade, a wave of grief hits me. It’s like a new understanding of how bad it’s been because although I feel so much better, I also still feel so tired, painful, low mood and low resilience. It’s probably not helpful to think “I’ve been so ill” but it has also been my reality. Sometimes I can be really compassionate and think “Of course you can take your time, you’re still going through a lot” and other times I feel I’m playing the victim and making excuses. It also feels like it could be a ship approaching a horizon type situation where the goal post does just keep moving because my standards for my life and health are constantly improving.

A thought came up with a friend the other day: “I let myself get this ill”. I’m still blaming myself for not knowing better, for not facing it sooner, for allowing my standard of health to get so low. I’m grieving how much I’ve lost in terms of confidence, passion, belief in myself and energy in moving forward with my new purpose. I can now see why my family described it as “getting the old me back” and although I’ve told them that it isn’t a helpful narrative, I’m still buying into it!

I am regaining confidence and having glimmers of the me I know is in there, I’m frustrated that it’s not as often or as much as I’d like.

The pain, menstrual issues, low mood have been present for so long I started accepting them as normal and it’s still somewhat of a surprise to me that it doesn’t have to be this way. But I don’t know how much better it can get either – am I setting the bar high? Am I not accepting that life will always be 50/50? Am I limiting myself by not believing I can be free of my health conditions?

I also don’t want to be chasing after something that is maybe not possible or waiting for the day I’m “fully better” to be taking action on my business – realistically, I’m likely to be managing multiple chronic health issues long term. I’m trying to accept that as part of me. I find when I start to feel better, I can often easily switch to “I must no longer have PMDD, my migraines are gone and won’t come back” when clearly neither is true. The PMDD seems to sneak up on me every month despite me knowing it’s coming but I think because I’ve been telling myself it’s not that bad, I’ve stopped recognising when it does show up, instead allowing the thoughts it’s giving me to run unchecked. I have stopped tracking my cycle which is something I know would help (as would doing a food diary) but I feel demand avoidance around this – data means interpreting and looking into the details, and I don’t want to overthink but maybe I’m overthinking it more by not having it clearly logged because I’m trying to remember and interpret as I go rather than zooming out.

A thought coming up with the business is: “I’m not ready, I’m still recovering and I want time to enjoy this before throwing myself into something else”.

But the whole point of me being my own boss is to not ‘throw myself’ at anything else but to do what I can when I can and build the big picture over time. I’m trying to see it as “what can I do whilst taking exquisite care of myself?”. I experienced a real energy boost the other day after working on my business and have a thought of: what if working on my purpose is part of my healing?

But in my PMDD phase, in flare ups, in having low energy days from burnout, I am finding it hard to access these intentional thoughts, and harder to recognise my PMDD/low quality thoughts and not spiral with them. Definitely experiencing the dip and the dramatisation of it!

I think this boils down to: feeling the inner pull to take care of myself and the inner (and outer) push of wanting to have a fulfilling and successful business and grappling with holding both AND not beating myself up about needing to lean into one or the other at different times.

I don’t think I’m doing well enough. I should be better than I feel because I’ve put so much work into feeling better. I keep thinking “I want to get my life back” and I know that isn’t a helpful thought, it’s very dismissive of this phase in my life, when ultimately, it’s what I need, rest and recovery is very valuable. It’s also not my own thought – it’s an iteration on my family and friends wanting a version of me back that served them more than it served me!

What do I mean when I say get my life back?

Having a job I enjoy, that I’m passionate about and gives me purpose and the benefit from interacting with and helping others. I want to change the world with what I bring to it – my partner and I had a conversation about what this means because to the people around me, I change their lives on a daily basis, but also can anyone really change the world? How is that quantified? I couldn’t answer it, this vague pressure on myself to change the world isn’t serving me. I think this is caught up in the hope that the world can be better (but what if it’s always going to be 50/50, like my life is?) and grandiose ideas of self and believing that I, me, COULD change the world. With all my privilege, I should be giving back and doing what I can to make the world a better place than others – but I think this is my mums voice, when I asked her why couldn’t she help me with my maths homework when she taught all the kids at school, her answer was “because compared to them, you have everything”. She’s martyred herself at school in order to help others at the detriment of not having the capacity for her own daughter. So i think there’s something in here about believing me effecting the change I can is enough and having faith that others are also doing the same.

Being able to do fun things like go for weekends away without it being a big deal – I’m not sure going away for a weekend wasn’t ever a big deal. And I do do fun things, just not ‘big fun things’ or having lots of things planned in the diary (I don’t even want this! it’s just a societal norm!). I wanted to throw a party for my 30th but then I didn’t but I do love a party and being centre of attention for my birthday! but I didn’t want that this year so really this is a win in honouring what I wanted.

Interact with my family as a group again – I don’t know if this is a want of mine or my family repeatedly telling me and I’m used to fulfilling their wants and needs.

I think it comes down to my capacity – I want my capacity to achieve things to come back because I got such a buzz from overcoming people’s expectations of me and aiming high and smashing it out the park. But I don’t think I want this back either. Maybe it’s more about more stable energy levels, less pain, less of a battle with mental health. **I want to not have to spend most of my capacity recovering and maintaining my day to day and managing my health conditions.**

I want to earn money again so that I can financially plan and not rely on anyone else – but I also don’t mind relying on my partner at the moment because he actually doesn’t hold it against me or treat me differently because of it. I’m only 30 and definitely haven’t reached my ceiling for earning! this is just a pit stop to me building my business.

I just want to GO GO GO and I know that’s not the answer – my body is literally telling me it’s not. I’m feeling more acceptance of being where I’m at. I had unrealistic expectations of where I would be having had a year off, maybe because I was in denial about how bad my pain was and how burnout I was. Also, my year off hasn’t really been a year off because I’ve been pushing myself still. It’s been a whole process of learning how to rest and how to take care of myself. If I could go back and do it again, I’d literally tell myself to stop, don’t try and go onto the next thing, sit in it, let it move through you and you’ll get up when you’re ready. So maybe that’s what I need to tell myself now.

If I try to quantify how much I think I’ve healed from my burnout my brain wants to tell me I’m only 20% of the way there, which feels daunting. but maybe this is the ‘setting off’ requiring more energy and then cruise is coming and from there, it’s just time.

My question is: how do I maintain the patience and self trust of needing more time to recover? How do I show up for the future I’m wanting (building my business) whilst honouring my needs?

**My key takeaways are:**

I’m still listening to other people’s wants for me over my own. I am building the life I want and it’s a challenge to go against societal norms (and my own habits build over years) so it will feel uncomfortable.

There is always a difference in me curating what I want and my expectations of it and how it actually feels.

I’m holding onto the idea of getting something BACK when I actually only intend to move forwards. There is no going back. Again, this idea isn’t even mine and I can let it go.

I need more recovery time. Actual recovery time, where I’m not pushing, not putting unrealistic expectations on myself, just showing up with what I have on the day. Being very intentional with priorities is helping. Managing my thoughts is helping. Finding acceptance. Zooming out to the big picture.

I can trust myself just to log and then schedule time to look at general trends. This can help me not get sucked into using my mental capacity to figure out the why’s here and now.

This time in my life is valuable. I’m learning so much about myself and my needs and I’m learning how to make these things habits – at some point, it will take less capacity and I will be on cruise control

My time to shine is coming, it’s building, it’s growing, I don’t need to put pressure on myself for deadlines like 30 or 1 year post leaving work. Trust that it’s happening because it is.

I don’t need to fix everything, the world is still going to be the world, with it’s 50/50. I know where I want to effect change, I’m already doing it and I’m building up to doing more of it. When your brain offers you this, get specific! And know, your enough even if you don’t effect the change you want to, it’s likely adding building blocks for future generations to add to.

I’m judging and shaming myself for not being ok and not being able to utilise my privilege more – this again comes back to parents telling me how ungrateful I am and how could I be sad when I have everything I could ever want. This is not how I parent myself – all feelings are valid and part of the human experience.

Lots of love.

Answer:

Thank you for using what’s available to you in all the ways! And we love that you’ve come to AAC as well.

As you said, all feelings are valid and part of the human experience, and, as with most things, the human experience lays on a spectrum. Some of it pleasant, some of it ecstatic, and some of it downright awful. I wonder if you have an idea that if not all of you is ‘healed’ then none of you is healed. What if there are parts of you that are on different parts of their journey than others and that’s alright?

As always, high quality thoughts are difficult to access when we are in physical and emotional pain. If you gave yourself some grace around your PMDD impacting your ability to access the kinds of thoughts that you want to have, even if it comes after the fact, how would that impact your experience of yourself during that part of your cycle? You’re allowed to ebb and flow – to have highs and lows. Again, you’re a human having a human experience.