Doctor’s orders, well, my therapist. She watched me walk in and said at the end of our session that I had very depressed and withdrawn body language at the start. It was a little better by the time our session ended. But I’ve been unemployed for six weeks (usually my mental limit) and haven’t taken any downtime to rest and reset. Like Supergirl (or Superman) getting supercharged by hanging out closer to the sun.
Daily, I remind myself that the current climate is not job-seeker friendly.
Regarding rest, I say I have tried, but I have been keeping busy with JSCs, networking, jumping through hoops to keep my UI, and random stuff related to home upkeep. Spring cleaning and all that. But I haven’t had enough downtime to veg, read, binge a few shows, or play video games. How did that happen?!?!
And an excellent question from my brilliant therapist — is what I am doing right now helping me? My answer - well, it’s keeping me from spiraling into defeatist thought patterns. I’m forced to get out of my head and help others, along with some self-reflection in the exercises. Is it helpful? in some ways, yes. In others, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself again to excel and trying to do too many things at once, leading to a relapse of burnout. I have value not related to being busy (translation: employed). I have to let that sink in.
Part of me is down/low/ready to check out because of the weather and migraines, pro- and post-drome, chronic back pain flare-ups (pain takes away a lot of motivation, y’all. And why am I so damn tired and fatigued?!?), and the rest is because I haven’t put myself first in where I expend my energy.
I’m beginning to wonder if I even know how to do that.
