0016-Brain Dumping - Random thoughts on work life balance

The stress of obtaining a career-related certification was weighing heavily on me, but I didn't realize just how much! It caused enough stress to slow me down on producing other content for the podcast, so, I HAD to get this out.

Transcript from the episode:
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There are going to be times where my episodes are going to include what I call "brain dumps." Basically, when I need to unload thoughts that are dancing around in my brain in their incompleteness, I "brain dump" to get them all out and try to sort out what they're telling me.

I, somewhat recently, had an exam to take to get a much coveted certification. The following is what I dumped from my skull, about a week before taking the exam:

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Life is a pain the ass sometimes.

I have a few other drafts in the queue for episodes, but nothing 100% finished yet and nothing I'm feeling connected to enough to finish up so I can record.

See. Okay. I like to write out the episodes in advance. You know, that whole clarity thing. It keeps me on track so I don't just ramble on and fall in a ditch somewhere, leaving yall looking at me like, "this bitch is crazy…"

I've been able to record some episodes in batches so I've had some sitting in the wing, just waiting to be shared with you guys on a schedule.

I knew this was going to come up too. I've released all the episodes that I've already recorded. I like recording in private, without another person in the house. The last few weeks, that hasn't been an option. But, it's not like I've finished writing out any episode drafts either to make time and TRY to record while someone else is in the house with me. I mean, they're only like 10-20 minutes long so it wouldn't be THAT hard to do if I had my outlines shored up.

Thing is, I guess depression or something has rolled in again. I don't really know. I've struggled with connecting with myself the last couple of weeks. The feelings of not being worth it are dancing around my body, hugging me and keeping me in some cloud of existing.

I know I need to reach out to people. I know I need to talk. I know I need to demand time for myself if I'm not feeling alright, but I'm always second guessing what's actually happening to me.

"You're just being overly sensitive for nothing."

"What good will it do to talk about it? They aren't gonna change. Better just realize that's who they are and move on."

"What if you talk to them and they ask for clarification? You don't even KNOW what the hell you're feeling!"

"Why can't you be more productive? You know you need to be doing these things but you aren't."

Even though I've talked about these things previously and I know why I do some of the things and I recognize the harm in the other things, I can't seem to fucking stop.

It's the same shit over and over again and it's like some low level anxiety is what is living in me, fueling what little I do.

Apparently, stress that I've generated for myself relating to my job is causing the most recent ruckus. When I met with my therapist, she did the usual of asking me how I was and was trying to get me to get in touch with feelings so we could go off of that and have something more concrete to work with. After a few rounds of "I don't know" and "meh," I finally had the brain to let out info about some of my concerns with my job and how it's affecting *me.*

Like, the biggest thing at the moment is getting a certification that I've wanted for a long time. I've scheduled the exam date, finally, but…I don't have the confidence that I'll be able to make it through this exam with a passing grade. And what burns my ass is that my job has paid for the coursework two years in a row for me to get this certification.

I feel like…if I don't get this certification, I don't deserve to be in my field anymore.

When that came up and out, my therapist asked me why I felt that way and…well…it's because that's the only "unit of measure" I have to determine my "worthiness."

If after two separate week-long courses I still can't "get" the information and make it stick so I can pass this exam, then I don't deserve my job. I don't deserve to be in my field. It's "proof" that I'm "not good enough."

The weight of those thoughts and feelings is drowning out nearly everything else in my personal life.

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So, a semi-fascinating thing has happened, since writing all that.

I continued busting my ass on studying. I knew I had improved my knowledge, but I still didn't feel like it was enough to pass the exam.

The night before the exam, I spent a few hours cramming and still had more to go, but my brain just couldn't take any more information. I came out of my study bubble to sit in the living room with my husband, which gave him the opportunity to start asking more questions about what this exam actually means for my job and how it would actually benefit me, I guess trying to make sure it wasn't a "fluff" type exam that "didn't really matter."

That paved the way for me to confess to him my feelings that if I didn't pass the exam, then I don't deserve to be in my field.

Naturally, he didn't agree with that line of thinking and offered some examples on why not passing an exam doesn't make someone undeserving of being in whatever field they're in.

The logic was sound, of course, but everything in me told me that it didn't matter. That if I couldn't see myself through to the end of this exam and actually pass it, then why bother staying in the field, especially since the certification itself is something that I've lusted after for YEARS.

At some point though, I just had to say fuck it. I either know enough or I don't and I can retake the exam after having gone through it once already. I HAD to tell myself that to let shit go long enough to get through the exam. I HAD to give myself that permission or I was guaranteed to fail.

I spent the next morning trying to jam more info in my brain, then headed to the testing facility a bit early so I could review the notes I'd been taking along the way.

I took my time on the test and marked a few for review, in hopes that maybe another question along the way would help me determine if what I'd chosen was actually correct. A hundred and twenty five questions later and I said to hell with it on the three I marked for review. My brain was exhausted and those three lone questions just weren't going to be enough to help me pass, based on how I felt I'd done to that point already.

I hit submit.

And then I stared at the screen, neither stunned nor elated.

It said "Pass."

I stared at the word like, "What? How?"

I passed that fucking exam. Barely, but I passed.

After I alerted the people that needed to know and made my obligatory post on the facebooks, I headed out, back to work. On my way there, I kept staring at that word that was softly burned into my memory and had the thought, "maybe I am good enough…"

Since passing the exam, my work output has improved as well as my mood. It's honestly made me wonder if I have been SO devastated, internally, by the thought that I'm not good enough to pass this exam that it has been a primary catalyst in the state of my mood over the last couple of years. Yes, YEARS.

After the first class I took for this exam, did I decide then that I wasn't good enough to be doing what I was doing? That I was a fraud for being in the field and wanting to specialize but having a handicap on my knowledge that is nearly required for the specialty? Did I let that hurdle bring me to a halt and cause me to question EVERYTHING about myself, my wants, my goals, my dreams, my abilities?

With as much relief as I've felt over the last week, I feel like that's a pretty valid consideration.

The alarming part is that I had NO idea that THAT would drag me down as hard as it did. I had no idea it was happening. I had no idea that it even played a role in how I was feeling or how I viewed myself. I hadn't viewed my career as being on a similar playing field as the rest of my life, like with interpersonal relationships. It's felt distinctly separate, as though it's an entity all its own, unrelated to the life I live on a daily basis. Being separate entities to me, I hadn't considered that sadness or feeling "less than" in my job would have such a tumultuous and subconscious effect on the rest of my life. I mean, I've had my fair share of bad days at a job. I've brought work home with me on more than one occasion. But, I don't think I'd considered my career to be such a deeply ingrained extension of myself. I looked at it like, "sometimes I don't do very well at work and sometimes the people don't treat me well" and rarely ever, "my inability to grasp this concept on the job means my entire sense of self is flawed and worthless."

Okay, throwing all that out there, I can remember a few other examples where that was the case - where I saw and felt that line of thinking. I don't know how this was different for me though. I don't know how it hid so well that I didn't see that my concerns over getting that certification were dragging my WHOLE self down. Intentionally, I wanted work and home to be separate. I HATE bringing work home. So maybe it "felt" separate because I willed it so, but the reality is that they couldn't BE separate because my job consumes like half of my life.

I WANTED them to be separate, but they COULDN'T be separate entities. I am ONE person. Sure, I have the option at this point to not work on work-related things at home, but it was a bit naïve of me to think that half of me feeling bad and worthless wouldn't carry over into the other half of me that was trying to live the rest of my life.

I’m sure that seems like a "duh" principle and all, but…well…I guess sometimes the lies that we tell ourselves aren't always obviously negative. It's like when I made that decision at a young age to never express or "be" angry because it was a "terrible" emotion. Just because I didn't WANT my job to affect me negatively, doesn't mean it wouldn't. It would just lay dormant until something catapulted it into consciousness again.

The awareness feels better. Letting go of that perception that I need to keep work and personal life completely separated and as their own entities is a relief. Understanding that my work "role" and my self "role" are closely intertwined is a relief. Allowing the two to "see" one another again has eased some tension inside me.

I'm not fighting with myself.

I'm not spending the energy to keep them separated, which apparently took up more mental real estate than I realized.

Anyway, thanks for listening guys! Your support means a lot to me, even if it's just a simple share on social media or to a friend or family member who you feel might enjoy the podcast too. Also, I can't forget to give a shout out to both Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com and Scott Buckley at scottbuckley.com.au for the music transitions they  provided for use in the show. If you want to shoot me an email, it's questionyourgarden@gmail.com Be sure to check out the show notes for any links or additional information from the episode.

Until next time, keep weeding!

Intro Audio:
"Cold Sober"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transition Audio:

"Wonderful"Scott Buckley (scottbuckley.com.au)