Work-Induced Dysphoria

Burnout doesn't even begin to capture the state I am in. "Burnout" is over-used and sometime amidst a global pandemic and national outrage about...everything - the word "burnout" lost its depth and weight. Burnout has burned out. We need a new phrase to capture this place we drift off to after too many weeks of aggravation at work, too many micro-digs in our personal lives that go un-resolved, too many bills that must be paid before we can splurge, too many lost opportunities for self-care, and too many god damn reminders about what the rest of the world is doing - faster than us, smarter than us - all while looking better than us. And so i find myself at the end of that road and I am partly-humored by my irritation, partly-disturbed by my ugliness. Mostly i am feeling flat and emotionally vacant by all of it - with small glimpses of comedy etched in between. 

Today someone was waiting to be seen and i almost said "no i don't see anyone by the name of Benjamin...part of my practice policy" because i'm over it. sometimes the complaints i get are so asinine i want to print them out and frame them. maybe compile it into a book called "Office Space for the Modern Era". one day at work we discussed for 90 minutes whether or not we should allow office staff to wear t-shirts on Fridays. I got paid to be at work that day. and the homeless population is rising and access to good medical care is declining. [insert debbie downer meme]

So yea there are moments I think really offensive things in my head. and I wonder if I should not be in this profession - since I'm supposed to be all warm and fuzzy (at least that's what my research on google tells me). Why can't I throw truth bombs? I filter myself so much that by the end of a long day I fumble through my words trying to string a sentence together. 

My morning starts with scrolling through a series of redundant emails of people asking/saying the same damn thing without an actual conclusion of any kind. A few emails that have me robotically hitting "click, send, redo".  Then my first appointment shows up. They tell me "i got a lot going on , a lot of situations, a lot of trauma. can you give me something for that?" They want me to offer them a solution for all of their pain/suffering, that has accumulated over the last 30+ years of their lives - with no concern for the actions they took, the decisions they made, the behaviors they need to change - all the pressure is on ME. I need to give them something to fix/undo the chaos in their lives and I need to do that in the next 15 minutes. Go! I'm typing away - documenting what i can however fast I can. I glance over and they are scrolling through TikTok on their brand new smartphone. i pause my typing, start inadvertently staring hard at them - wondering if they will even notice that I have stopped typing (and stopped researching for that wonder drug they so desperately asked for 5 minutes ago). A few red flags come up - i ask, in the most non-confrontational way i can - "... the crack cocaine and marijuana...." - before I can finish, they cut me off and say: "no it's not the weed or the crack. the weed is what helps keep me calm, and i don't know why crack was in my system cuz i don't do it." ---- back to tiktok ----

i spend the next two minutes feeling frozen, flat, confused, irritated. Those feelings morph into an existential hopelessness and then I hear myself say "how about a sleep aid" - and they take it and they go away for a few months and then the same thing happens another 12 times. and then i close up shop and I go home, trying hard not to ponder too deeply into the meaning of my work.

T.G.I.F and Thank God there is a new real housewives episode this Sunday and thank god my teeth whitening kit is in the mail. thank god california closets will be here next week (so what if customized closets are my own version of a wonder drug). thank god i have a date night with my husband tonight. thank god our next trip to Coopers Beach is just a few fortnights away!

Don't forget to be grateful my spiritual gremlins, hallelujah and godspeed,

ElyVas

Heaviest Baggage at Baggage Claim

Driving down Meadow lane, eerily quiet, the love was noticeably absent. Nick was dropping me off at the helipad where I was meeting my ex-boyfriend Will (of all people) who was taking me back to the city. In the car ride over - I could've died of heartache and grief. There was tension and sadness. so much sadness. Our relationship was coming to a close and we both knew it. The trust was lost between us. He had sworn up and down, he had sworn on his mother's grave, he had sworn on our future children that he wasn't seeing her anymore. But a woman's intuition is nothing to take lightly. I felt it in my bones, I knew in my gut he was lying. I wished so badly I was wrong. I turned a blind eye, i lived in denial for a few months, I didn't want to know the truth. Looking back now at last Fall, during my period of forced ignorance - I realize I was drinking heavily. Unconsciously I was trying to silence my inner voice - I didn't want to hear my conscience. So I drank, i shopped, i starved myself - I leaned back on all those neurotic coping mechanisms that handicapped me years ago...

But today there was no way to escape the reality. Nick had been unfaithful, over and over again. He had lied to me, over and over again. There was no turning back. This other woman was nothing like me - which crushed me more than anything. Did he ever even love me? Were the last 6 years all a lie? He told me she didn't mean anything. He promised he was done with her. But then I inadvertently found emails between them - as recently as last night. Last night when Nick and I were fighting. Last night when Nick and I were laying in the same bed, going to bed angry - something we promised each other we would never do. Last night he was emailing her that he missed her. Finding those emails was like getting the wind knocked out of me - i couldn't get any air in, it's like i forgot how to breathe. the shock was devastating, the emotion in those emails was palpable. He was making promises to her that I was still waiting for - that I had been patiently (and at times impatiently) waiting for... Nothing can describe what that betrayal feels like. He had proposed to me two nights ago. and yesterday a conversation about our wedding date and our future kids led to an explosive argument that had me wondering if he even meant to propose to me - the whole thing felt impulsive - like he hadn't put much thought into it but was tired of hearing people ask when we would take the next step. Looking back I think it was half-hearted. 

Suddenly I remember one of Pema Chödrön's quotes from When Things Fall Apart: 

Most of us do not take these difficult situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape — all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.

Nothing about this situation feels educational. It simply triggers every insecurity, every fear, every abandonment I have suppressed for the last 3 decades. No I haven't worked on myself. No I haven't done therapy to process my father cheating on my mother for 20+ years; no i have not worked on the rage and anger I have at my father for letting me think infidelity is acceptable. Two years ago when he was dying - and the only women there to take care of him were my mother and me - he begged us for forgiveness. With tears running down his sunken eyes, down his pale skin - he told us the pain he caused us was unforgivable but begged us to consider it....It was catharsis for my mother - and for that I am eternally grateful.     However, it was also right after I had forgiven Nick for the second time for being unfaithful. When Nick told me he had (again) been with another woman - I had reflected on my parents' marriage and reconsidered my anger towards him - I thought: "if my dad could do that to my mom... and she never left...then maybe I should be okay with this..." Against my better judgment I used my father as a standard for what I would be willing to accept. I told myself it was okay and i went back to him. i let my guard down and without realizing it - I had fallen in love with Nick.

Now Nick was driving me to my ex. My ex boyfriend is so much more than that. He is my rock. He is there in these excruciating moments when nothing makes sense. Over the last 10 years Will and I have been in-and-out of each other's lives. Even after the ugliest of fights he always calls the next day to check in on me. Will is married now. and I cannot stomach that truth. I messed up, I let the best guy get away. and I feel like I will never be able to forgive myself for that. When I decided to end things it was out of respect for Will that I did so - I was spiraling in my addictions and I needed help. He was applying to grad schools at the time and getting ready for his summer internship in the UK. I was "applying" to rehabs and choosing between the different recovery houses i would "summer" at after graduating from rehab. The whole thing was embarrassing. I wasn't going to hold him back - I loved him. I still love him. When I got home from rehab that summer - Will called me every single day, sent me hand-written letters with uplifting quotes and promises of loving me forever, no matter what. But at the end of that summer, when he returned home to Long Island - when we went to dinner together, something felt different. We were worlds apart in our next steps. I saw some photos from his time abroad and I saw the joy in his eyes, I saw the other women in the internship - they all looked so carefree, so youthful, so unburdened. I felt like the heaviest baggage at baggage claim. I had put some (much-needed) weight on in rehab but it hadn't yet settled in my new body so I had that strange look of a skinny young person with love-handles and chubby pockets of fat all around. Will deserved a woman with fewer scars, with a history that didn't weigh their future down...so despite what my heart was screaming - I politely and amicably ended things with Will. He went on to meet his wife in grad school, and I went on to relapse a couple more times while finishing a few bullshit internships. Then I met Nick...at a rooftop bar in the city. during one of my relapses. We attended Will's wedding 3 years ago. The night before Will and Amanda's wedding - I found out Nick had cheated on me. the wedding is a blur in my mind - i sat there in tears realizing the mistake i had made. I nearly jumped in the middle of their vows - asking Will to reconsider. The whole night Will and I exchanged knowing looks - was he feeling it too? was he thinking he had made a mistake? He was too much of a gentleman to actually say - or perhaps he really loved her. 

To be continued...

xoxo

Ely's GuestWriter