Hello there! Long time no blog! My writing this year has been limited to personal journaling, greeting cards and the occasional Instagram post. I’m excited to be sending my work out into the interwebs once again!

So without further ado, the story of this year:

There are times when everything feels like too much. I’m not talking about when there are one too many items on your to-do list or when your schedule is super busy. I’m taking about when the very idea of doing what brings you joy and purpose morphs into thoughts you can barely tolerate. When the capacity to deal with life’s teeny tiny problems (basically non-problems) is maxed out.

What I’m describing here is one of the many signs of burnout.

Prior to this experience, I mistakenly thought burnout only happened to specific groups of people: the 9-to-5ers or the juggling two-jobers. The harried parents or the college students. The go-go-go able bodied humans of the world. Unfortunately, burnout can happen to anyone, including me. And this past March, it did.

Of course at the time I didn’t recognize that my fragile emotion state was due to burnout, so for a while I ignored increased symptoms and flare-ups. However, it is near impossible to ignore when your body decides to move, jerk and flail around all on its own. So a few emotional breakdowns, a functional movement (tick) disorder diagnosis, and a vacation later, I decided to drop everything I was doing and start from scratch.

No brain rehab. No volunteering. No social media. No blogging.

What have I been doing the past several of months? Well, besides taking blurry photos of the moon and launching myself into the genres of anime and K-drama on Netflix, I’ve neen healing. Healing my mind and the parts of myself I’d been neglecting. The parts of myself I was repressing because I didn’t want to feel grief or frustration or relive trauma. The parts of myself that were more anxious then I wanted to admit. The parts of myself that were still severely uncomfortable with my physical and cognitive limitations.

Turns out, when you add constantly trying to control your emotions to the every-day anxieties of living with PCS, and mix in productivity junky and perfectionist programing, the result is nervous system and neurological malfunction.

I apologize for the length of the previous sentence.

Moving on!

Learning to let myself feel what I feel without judgment, or attempting to burry or avoid my feelings has been tremendously difficult. It takes an enormous amount of mental energy to be well in the head. There were days where it felt like most of my spoons were going to working on my thought life. No wonder people avoid therapy like a hot potato. It’s certainly not for the unwilling.

After a few months of counseling, my ticks decreased significantly and I began re-introducing activities into my life in revised amounts.

Which brings us to now!

Every time I’ve worked on this piece it’s been for 10-20 minutes at a time, where previously I would have lost myself to my inner world and resurfaced hours later to a wreaked body. This new practice is definitely hard and unnatural for me, but when faced with the question, ‘Do I value productivity more than I value my health?’ the answer is no.

I can’t tell you how often I’ll be posting, but I can tell you that I will be. I have so many ideas I want to explore and work into cohesion.

Here’s to learning and growing and putting in the work to heal
emotionally. If you’ve been thinking of going to therapy. This is your sign. Just do it. Your future self will thank you.

Love Always,

Elisa