Two Years
Two years after leaving the NHS.
Two years into recovery from burnout.
Almost two years since I launched my own VA business.
Where am I now? Healing but not healed, recovering but not recovered, stronger but still fragile. Some days are good and some days are definitely not. I will never be the “same” again and I don’t want to be but at the same time, I will fiercely protect her because she was hurt so badly and who I am becoming is part of who I was.
Picture by toyoufromSteph
I’m not going into the details of what led to the burnout again – if you know you know, and if not, I don’t need to talk about it again. Suffice to say it was a combination of many things and eventually I simply could not carry on. I am grateful I was able to take redundancy from the NHS but I should be clear that had redundancy not been an option I would still have left because I had to.
I sometimes (even now, though less often) wonder if even one thing had been different could I have stayed? Could I have ridden out the storm and still be standing? No, I couldn’t - I’d tried so hard to keep going, tied myself in knots to “do the right thing” and when I finally left – I simply had nothing left to give.
18 months before I finally left, I changed location in the hope that would help (and because I really didn’t want to leave the career I had worked so hard for) but it didn’t and ultimately it brought more pressure to take a stand, fly the flag and hope others would do the same. I needed to and did take a stand against some of the things that happened but ultimately it was poorly handled and the outcome was inadequate. If I think about it too much, I still get angry but that gives my power away and I have spent far too much time in my life giving my power, my strength and my energy away so I will not do it anymore and I will not feel guilty about it.
You think it will be the big things that break you but, in my experience, it is the buildup of a great many things and the final straw, the one that breaks the camel’s back is often quite small in comparison which can lead people to question the validity of what you are experiencing.
When you are a people-pleaser and highly sensitive to other people’s moods and emotions it can create an impossible spiral because you want to “fix” everything and make things better – often at your own expense and I know I did that for a great many years, in many different situations and with many different people and unfortunately this has had a lasting impact on my health.
One of the most important lessons I have learned is simply that I can choose – I can choose not to be in places or situations I don’t want to be in, I can choose not to associate with people I don’t feel comfortable with.
Over the last two years I have spent a lot of time on the path to coming back to myself, I am enjoying the journey back to the woman I am at (very nearly) 50.
Picture by my husband
She is brave, strong, loyal and loves fiercely.
Her health is unreliable but she isn’t.
She is kind, funny, encouraging and passionate about the things and people she loves
She hates letting people down and she is often scared to ask for help but incredibly grateful to people who offer help without her having to ask.
She values the people who see her and appreciate her.
She’s no longer afraid to try new things but she does get anxious about them!
She is finding peace in the things she loves – creativity, books, music, theatre, magic, the sea, the moon and stars, her family, her friends, her theatre family.
She is angry and frightened about the state of the world and is doing what she can to make her tiny part of it a good place.
She has no time for bullshit and picks her battles carefully.
She will no longer stay in places or situations where she is not valued and she protects her peace before anything else.
She is grateful for the life she is building – the people, places, things and opportunities that are here or are coming.
She is not the same woman she was – working in the NHS through COVID, chronic illness, peri-menopause, bereavement, loss and burnout has changed her but she no longer feels like a broken and worn-out shell and she is coming back to life and she knows where she is going.
I am more than my chronic illness, more than burnout, more than anxiety but those experiences make me who I am just as much as my love for my friends and family, my desire to help people, to make a difference and if I can use my experience to give hope and support to others then so much the better.
I often say it took me a long time to find my tribe and I am grateful to every single one of you. To walk into a room and see people’s faces light up when they see me, or as happened on Saturday night when my daughter drove some friends home and they all wanted to come in and see me and hug me – those are things that fill my cup. To have people who want to see me, spend time with me is very special and I truly appreciate it. I honestly don’t say this out of arrogance or vanity but simply gratitude at beinh seen.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who have been – and still are - on this journey with me, you know who you are and I love you.
I read this piece this morning and it really resonated with me.
Thanks for reading, please reach out if you need someone to talk to.
A xx
Picture by Beth Spencer.