I'm Not Okay
And I'm done pretending
I’ve repeated this pattern for a few years in a row - vow to write more, have an uptick of posts in January, disappear for months, come back briefly, disappear for the rest of the year, then repeat.
I think I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m okay.
Generally, sure. I’m good. I have a job, my family is healthy and doing well. But personally? No. I’m not okay.
I’m not o-fucking-kay!
I’m burnt out.
I worked for years building a career in tech while navigating a ton of personal traumas. I did it. It finally was settling into a high-profile job where I was confident in what I brought to the table. I had a team that I built up. I felt good.
Then I got laid off.
Then I searched for a job for a year. And I got a job. And I wrote about the experience and gave a talk about the experience.
And the new job has been good. But I’m not back to where I was before all of it. I’m not confident, I’m not settled. I’m getting there, but I’m not there.
I’m hurt.
Since I was a kid I adopted a mentality of getting up and moving forward no matter what happened. I never take much time to grieve or feel pain or anything. Whether the mistake is one I made, or something that happened to me, or something that was done to me - I always took the same approach.
Get up. Move on. Be better. Be strong.
And I have. Through a rocky childhood. Through a complicated sequence of colleges and jobs.
Through a marriage, a kid, a miscarriage, falling out with my mom, another kid, an autism diagnosis, reconciling with my mom, a divorce, a custody battle, a new relationship and taking in two wonderful girls, a new baby (that’s five if you are counting), my name being dragged through the mud, fighting for my kids, getting my kids the help they need, dealing with a spiteful ex, having my ex commit suicide, navigating my kids through losing their mom, navigating the rest of my family and the effect it had on them.
Being forced to move sooner than we planned, moving to a new state, making new friends, another autism diagnosis, and one more for good measure, a child who identifies as boy instead of a girl, IEPs - 4 of them, job changes, keeping my marriage afloat while we both deal with our hectic lives and our past traumas, getting out of debt, finding joy where I can, dealing with extended family going through similar struggles, and that’s just the stuff that's directly part of my world. What about everything else going on?
I have work to do.
Through burnout and pain, I went down a bad path. I developed an addiction and an obsession. It consumed me until it nearly ruined my life. That all came to a head last week. I’m barely holding onto the life I’ve known for 8 years. This is why I don’t want to pretend I’m okay anymore. The past has continued to affect my present. And the present just brings new things that will affect my future. I want it to stop. I want to end the cycle.
So I’m back in therapy. And I’m practicing self control and quitting my addictions. It’s easy until it’s not. I feel relief but without the chase of dopamine I’m feeling my real feelings more and more and that is hard. Because like I said earlier, I’ve buried a lot of that in favor of moving forward. So I have to dig it up now and work on myself. Sometimes tragedy breeds change.
So here I am.