Burnout: The Slow Work of Healing and Coming Back to Myself Part One

    The path lay out before me like an ocean, with no horizon or clear viewpoint of another shore. I stood on the last bit of shoreline, facing the task of jumping into the water and finding my way without clear instructions or a map. 

    Traveling the path back from the Valley of the Shadow of Death has been long and arduous, and seven years later, I'm still walking it. 

        The truth is, I think I walked the road much longer than I was aware I was on it. Maybe I was already there and only became aware of my predicament 7 years ago. I'm not sure the answer to that question, but I am going to spend some time processing it all and putting the story down on paper. 

The Groundwork

    Approval and love felt like scarce resources to me for as long as I can remember. Even as young as three or four years old, I felt like a failure. I have a vivid memory from when I was around 5. My family of origin went on a trip, and when we returned, I remember recognizing the opportunity for a fresh start. I sat in church attempting to sit and behave perfectly and thinking that all the people around me would see me behaving so well and think, "wow! she's changed so much. Look how good she is now! She used to be bad, but now she's good." As though a 5 year old girl needed a transformation story! 

Through my adult eyes, 

1. I don't know what I saw in myself that I labeled as bad. I didn't get into trouble a lot. However, I had a vivid and consuming belief that I was bad, that I was failing, and that everyone I knew was disappointed in me. I sensed contempt and condemnation from everyone around me. I learned that the most I could hope for was tolerance and attention, even if the attention was negative.
2. I recognize that I saw my value as a product of other people's assessment of me. I placed the responsibility of my self-worth and self-concept squarely within the purview of other people. I think this belief shaped me well into adulthood. 

    A few events from early childhood fed these beliefs. Several instances of people rejecting me when I didn't have a clear understanding of why led me to believe that there was something wrong with me and I couldn't see it. That everyone else could see my vileness, even if I couldn't. The contempt and condemnation I sensed from everyone else pervaded my self-concept. Instances and periods of various kinds of abuse compounded this exponentially.

    I did well in school until fourth grade. I found validation and some acceptance through being exceptional at reading, writing, and math. But even now, I recognize that I always saw this as a scarce resource that I could lose at any time. And I did. I attempted to hold on to whatever attention I could through nefarious means that fed into my own beliefs that I was bad. I told everyone at school that I was several years older than I was. I made up a story that explained me being in the grade I was in despite my age. Looking back, this got me attention, but didn't serve the true agenda. 

    This might be where I began to mistake attention for approval and connection. I felt unlovable due to my badness. Approval and connection seemed out of my reach, so I settled for short-term attention to meet the need in the moment. What this truly achieved was the contempt and condemnation I learned to expect from everyone around me. It was a cycle that fed itself, and that I was unaware of.

    In fourth grade, I had my first male teacher. All of a sudden, it seemed like nothing I did was good enough. He would make me rewrite essays over and over, but I could never understand what he wanted from me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I remember one time in particular that he made me stay in from recess to rewrite something. I was confused and at a loss for what he wanted. I tried rewriting it, but he rejected that as well. So I copied the first essay in neater handwriting, and he accepted it. I took great pains to write it neatly because the first draft had not been sloppy. I truly could not figure out what he wanted from me. At the end of the year, this teacher presented me with an award at our monthly award ceremony. I still remember what he said about me, "she coasted at the beginning of the year, but she's really picked it up and is making effort now." I was shocked by his words because I could not tell I had ever been coasting or that my level of effort had changed. I had no idea what he was talking about. 

    This experience fed the belief that everyone else could see how bad I was, but I was blind to it. My own actions also fed the narrative that I was vile. I made up lies and acted impulsively in ways that alienated me and fed the contempt I felt from other people. I never intended to hurt or harm anyone else, but I recognize that sometimes my actions did hurt them. 

    A cycle played out in my life, at least in my own head and heart. Someone would "falsely" recognize goodness in me and like me, but then the true me would come out, and I would lose their regard. I spent a lot of time desperately grasping to hold onto their regard, but all of my attempts only served to expedite the loss of it. My attempts to hold onto it would often include doing things that, if I were thinking logically, I would have known would feed the narrative for them and me . . . that I was bad. 

    In my mid to late teens I kind of gave up. I tried to maintain the facade of normality, but I was anything but normal. It would have been like if the picture of Dorian Gray was visible to everyone but he went around acting as though it weren't. This is called denial. I was trying to maintain the appearance of normality while privately believing there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

    I knew that the things I was doing to manipulate the attention of other people were wrong, but I did not know how to function normally. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I had never been able to figure it out, so I had learned to use these coping mechanisms that fed the narrative and had become reliant on them. I didn't know how to function without them. 

    When you feel like garbage, you live like garbage. And that's what I did. I think giving up was actually a benchmark of burnout. I had worked so hard for so long to figure out what was wrong with me and try to pretend I was someone else so I could get someone to love me. I didn't have it in me to do much more than exist. 

    But I did more than exist. I had 5 babies in 4 years. The truth is, being pregnant gave people a reason to see me as valuable. I saw myself as valuable. Being pregnant was a task I could complete without much effort. The only trouble is, once the pregnancy was over, my responsibilities compounded. Responsibilities that I was not ready for and couldn't or wouldn't complete. I loved my kids, but I was not mentally or emotionally capable of taking on the responsibility of motherhood. 

    At various points, people tried to help me. But their help was like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound where my guts were spilling out of my abdomen. If I encountered my younger self now, I would call CPS. Not because I didn't love my kids. I did love them, and I wanted good things for them, but I wasn't capable of doing good for them. I needed a lot more help than someone coming over once a week and telling me how to be a good mom or babysitting once in a while. 

    At 28, I hit rock bottom. It's like all of a sudden I couldn't pretend anymore. The gaping wound where my guts were spilling out of my abdomen had reached a pivotal point. I either had to set down all of the beliefs I had had about myself that were killing me and live, or I could die. I chose to live. 

    I began a period of reformation and transformation by setting down the baggage and accepting that God loves me. It changed my life. I began to trust that God loved me, and if God loved me, then I must be valuable. It's like I shifted from living my life from the assumption that I am garbage and interacting with the world from a place of asking it to prove me wrong, to using the framework that I am lovable. That freed me up to produce love, beauty, and goodness. I started baking elaborate and delicious things from scratch. I felt completely at ease and in flow in my kitchen while producing something delicious, beautiful, and good for my family. I had fun with my kids. We rode bikes, went to the park, and I greeted them each day with cheer and pure delight. My capacity to meet their needs expanded.

    But once again, a cycle of things being good for a while until I messed them up, played out. This time, the fall was quick and harsh. The only thing that kept me alive during this period was the thought that if I committed suicide, I would break my kids' hearts, and I would not be able to comfort them or explain to them that it wasn't their fault. I became engulfed once again in the beliefs that I was garbage and that I was ruining my family's lives.

    I wasn't just experiencing another difficult period. I was experiencing it through the lens of a deeply entrenched belief system. And that belief system influenced the decisions I made about my family, my future, and my own life.

    We moved back to Texas when we did because I was singularly focused on getting my kids and my husband to my in-laws. I believed that I needed to get them to a safe place so they could get away from me, and I could stop ruining their lives. That old narrative that I was broken and incapable of goodness enveloped me. It's all I could see. I wasn't going to commit suicide for the reasons I previously stated, but I was going to drop them all off at my in-laws and then go and commit a crime so I would go to prison. I knew there was no way I would be able to go and live a happy life away from them, so I decided this was the best way to accomplish the goal. 

    When we got to Texas, it felt like a fresh start. We lived with my in-laws for a while. I was able to lean into the simple rhythms of taking care of my husband and kids. At the time, they were the house parents at a group home, and I was able to serve the young moms in a way that made me feel like I wasn't completely useless. I had fun with my kids, too. We took walks, went to the Perot Museum, and played games. 

    At this point, it became clear that I was not the only problem in my relationships, and that some of the things that had happened to me were not all in my head. Events involving my parents, brother, in-laws, and marriage began to show me that I wasn't the only flawed person in these relationships. I had always believed I was the problem, the one constantly dragging everyone down. It was difficult to begin considering that perhaps I wasn't responsible for everything that had gone wrong.

The Next Phase

   

    This created space for me to take responsibility for my part in things, but let go of what was not my part. I was primed for the next phase.

    I learned about Celebrate Recovery at a church we had previously attended. The situation was a bit fraught because my in-laws had recently left the church under tumultuous circumstances, so going there felt complicated. At the time, I felt like I was choosing between life and death, so I went anyway. 

    We walked through the doors, and it felt like being enveloped in love. Looking back, this should have been a red flag, but at the time, I needed that envelopment. I immediately became immersed in the culture of the church. We weren't even members of that church, but my life became centered on it. I felt loved and pulled into a community. I needed that community. I joined a group of praying mothers, we joined a weekly bible study group, I participated in large group Celebrate Recovery, as well as a step study. I started pastoral counseling and worked out with one of the pastors' wives. I joined everything I could. 

Some context: I joined Celebrate Recovery at this church in September 2014. But to understand what that welcome meant to me, I need to go back ten months, to December 2013.

At the time, we were living in California and visiting my in-laws in Texas. They were still attending this church, and there was an event happening while we were there. My husband and children were quickly enveloped by the congregation, but I found myself standing on the outside. I felt completely alone, as though nobody noticed or cared that I was there. I wandered around by myself and eventually left for a while. No one noticed I was gone.

At one point, the pastor's wife appeared to be waving at me from across the room. I was relieved. Maybe someone did notice me. Maybe someone was actually happy to see me. I waved back, only to realize as she approached that she was waving at someone behind me. She noticed my mistake, laughed, and continued toward the person she had intended to greet.

    I think I was so relieved that these people, whom I had always seen as better than me, suddenly seemed to want me around. If I had thought about it more logically, I might have noticed the contrast between this welcome and the way I had been treated ten months earlier. I might have questioned it instead of simply receiving it as the love and acceptance I had been longing for. But the truth is, I needed to be loved. I needed a reason to keep living. I needed people to think I was special and treat me that way. And I think that what some people may have intended for selfish reasons, God worked for my good.

    As I began to heal and thrive, I started noticing the people everyone seemed to value. They were people who did a lot. They were relied upon. They were trusted. They were valued.

    I wanted all of that, and so I began to take on projects. I began to be relied upon. I began to be trusted. 

    But something felt off. I felt the constant turmoil of the situation with my in-laws and the church we were going to. I quieted my intuition at various points to keep the peace. And there was conflict between my husband and the church leaders. 

    And it always felt like no matter how much I did, I was never as valued as other people. I was never on their level. So I worked harder. 

    Now, I want to be clear. I want to own my part in things. While I believe there were unhealthy dynamics at play, I was responsible for myself and taking on as many projects as I did. I was trying to earn love and respect by being useful. 

    It felt like there was no soft place to land. Everything was a lot of work. I had to earn my place in every context, and it never felt quite good enough. It felt like I was a hamster in a cage that only consisted of wheels to run on. Rest felt like just getting on another wheel and having a different viewpoint, but still working as hard. I was working full-time in a secular job and doing full-time work for the church. On top of having 5 kids, a husband, and my own spiritual and social life. 

    All of this was taking place while I was processing my past, identifying beliefs I had been operating under, and letting go of them. I was learning that my worth wasn't dependent on my performance, but I was still organizing my life around opportunities to demonstrate my worth. That doesn't mean my healing was insincere or that I wasn't making progress. It means that changing an internal belief and changing the behaviors and circumstances organized around that belief are two different processes.

    My life cycle of doing well for a while and then crashing happened again. This time it didn't culminate in suicidal ideation. I didn't see it as all my fault. It was just a recognition that I couldn't do it anymore. It was finally admitting all of the things I had ignored and refused to acknowledge. This also led me to doubt myself and my sanity. I had allowed myself to start to believe that I was worth something based upon how other people felt about me. I thought that if they thought I was lovable, maybe I was. I had begun to use other people's affection as evidence that my negative self-concept was wrong. But that meant my sense of worth was still dependent on their assessment. In a way, I had exchanged one external measuring system for another. 

Before: If people disapproved of me, it confirmed that I was bad.

After: If people approved of me, it suggested that I might actually be good. 

Neither system gave me a stable place to stand.

    It eventually became clear that they didn't actually think of me what they had claimed to. And I finally acknowledged that people I had considered my friends didn't see me as their equal. 

    I had quieted my intuition because I wanted it to work so badly. The truth is, in all bad relationships, there is some good. If there weren't, nobody would stay in bad relationships. 

    As the relationships began to deteriorate, I realized I could not continue to run on the hamster wheel. When I tried to step away, I was given guilt trips. It was a true growth moment when I recognized the manipulation and quit anyway. And quit everything I did. I barely went to church on Sunday. And even when I went to church on Sunday, I couldn't bring myself to occupy a seat. I stood in the back. 

    It felt like my whole world was collapsing. I questioned everything I had believed and everyone I had known. You can read about that more fully in my deconstruction posts. 

    And then Covid happened. I was furloughed from my job and spent two months in my house, laying in my backyard staring up at the sky. In some ways, this was a beautiful time. It gave me space to process what had happened while it all came crashing down on me. I read a book and learned the phrase Dark Night of Soul. It changed my world. It felt like being seen and understood for the first time. 

    I questioned everything. It still felt like there was no truly soft place to land, nowhere I could go and know that I would be loved and supported. I felt like my husband couldn't handle it because he didn't really have support either. We both had to grapple with what had happened, what parts we needed to own, and how we would move forward.

    I think it's important to acknowledge that this feeling of being alone wasn't new. I had felt alone for most of my life. If there were people who would have truly supported me, I didn't feel it or know it. I realize there are people who would say that supporting me was their role, and maybe that's true. At the time, I did not feel loved or supported by anyone other than Michael and our kids. 

Processing all of this and figuring out our next steps felt like disentangling strands of DNA with our bare hands. It felt impossible, overwhelming, and exhausting. And it felt like we were on our own. 

We left that church, went somewhere else, and I went back to school. 

In processing it all, I decided to figure out a way that I could combine the work I had done at Celebrate Recovery, the work I had done for the church and a secular job. I was still working full time and I started going to school full time as well. 

That may not sound like a logical way to heal from burn out, and maybe it was the long way to go. I'll explore that further in the next part.