The demon with broad shoulders

I have been battling a dark demon for the last five months.

It started when I got my new job. I had been working in an organization that I thought was "the one", that had a mission that I loved with all of my heart. It was good work - but that work began to suffocate me. The case load was unmanageable, even for the most obsessive of perfectionists and maximum-drive, perpetually-unhealthy overachievers (not that I'm assigning labels to myself or anything). Furthermore, the work was so emotional - heartfelt and beautiful most of the time, but inexplicably painful at others. No matter what the emotion, there was no time to process it. Add into that a 24/7 on-call rotation, the loss of summers to the busiest work season of the year...it all became too much for me. 

I found a new job - decent pay, even better benefits, room for potential growth, and most importantly, a healthy separation of work and life. My days became balanced, and my house got (a little) cleaner. I spent time laughing with my kids and my husband. I read books from cover to cover. I listened to Brene Brown talk soothingly to me in her southern drawl on my long commute. I breathed in fresh air on a regular basis.

And yet.

Long commutes meant longer amounts of time in a car, with only my thoughts, and no "urgent" distractions. A new travel schedule meant time alone on a plane, time alone in a sterile hotel room, time alone walking to and from sessions and receptions...

And that's when the demon started poking his head around the corner.

"Hey."

"Uh...hi."

"You know you've been through a lot the last few years, right?"

"Um. I guess. Why?"

"You should think about that. All of it. All of it at the same exact time."

"Nah, I'll pass."

"No, really. Just take a few minutes to feel that weight on your chest. Kind of interesting how you can't really breathe, right?

"...."

"You can't breathe. And you also can't really see straight. And now you're getting all emotional about it - months or even years after all of the worst of the worst went down. Things are good now, but they weren't then."

"Hey, hold on - "

"Maybe you don't deserve how good things are. It's easy now. It wasn't then. And you're going to crumble up into nothingness. You held it together when you had to, but we both know you're weak."

"I'm done with this. Stop."

"That's fine. But you know I'm right."

And that demon sat on the edge of every quiet moment. He was in the passenger seat of my car, to and from work, for hours every day. He sat at the other end of the couch in the moments between my kids' bedtime and the TV being turned on. He laid very still at the foot of my bed and waited for me to lie down and turn off the light, just so he could softly whisper to me.

"You know I'm right. Things are good now. They shouldn't be. It was all so hard for such a long time."

"Stop it," I spat through gritted teeth.

"You were calloused then, and you're fragile now."

Joyful moments quickly started to lose zest. Laughter didn't reach the depths of my soul like it used to. I carried Visine everywhere, because I never knew when the demon would whisper just the right words to make me burst into tears when all was calm. Life became paralyzing. The simplest task would cause my hands to shake, because I felt like I wasn't good enough, and even the smallest mistake would add material to the demon's endless taunts.

Those closest to me began to worry. "Are you depressed?" "You're unhappy with your life?"

No answer seemed to do it justice, because the demon was way better with words than I was.

"I'm just...I'm content with where I am in life, but I'm feeling everything right now. Every emotion that I didn't allow myself to process over the last few years. I have enough headspace to feel it finally and...I'm overwhelmed and just really, really sad."

I read article after article, trying to translate the demon's personality into something named and tangible. It would be easy and convenient to name him "Depression" or "Anxiety", but he had broader shoulders than that. "Burned Out" seemed to be the closest fit.

Burned Out would critique my mothering. My appearance. My intellect. Burned Out would show me how hard I worked, and then he would prove to me that it was not enough. It would never be enough. Burned Out thrived on my crippling physical and emotional exhaustion.

"You were calloused then. You're fragile now. And the road is still so long."

I could have (should have?) gone to therapy. I spent too many nights humoring the demon, drinking with him while he whispered. I spent even more nights ignoring the demon, trying to perfect the pointless in my life, because controlling the most minute details of my day-to-day meant I could tune out his constant murmurs.

One night, when his whispering got louder and more aggressive than usual, when it was the only sound I could hear, I pulled out my dust-covered journal and wrote down every word he shouted. Every vile, nasty, hateful, toxic syllable that he uttered went through my hand, into the ink, and onto the paper. I scribbled until my hand cramped up, until my writing was illegible. I slammed the journal shut, wiped the tears off my face, and said "I am done with this."

And for the first time in a very long time, the demon stopped talking - just long enough for me to go to sleep.

Day in and day out, he continued to sit within my periphery, but every time he opened his mouth, I opened mine. I stopped isolating myself and started talking - to my husband, to a small handful of friends who made time and space to hear me, to my steering wheel, to God. When I didn't want to talk because shame or guilt would overwhelm me, I would write feverishly, as if I would never write again. I would take Burned Out's words and articulate them myself.

"I know this is ridiculous," I would almost always start, "but I'm feeling like if I so much as breathe wrong, everything in this moment is going to go south. I feel like I shouldn't be talking about any of this, because it didn't bother me before, and I don't know why it's bothering me now. I feel lost. And broken. And miserable."

Talking didn't make him disappear, nor did writing...but he finally started closing his mouth. He still sits close by most days, but I don't feel suffocated by his presence and his mocking anymore.

I'm learning that the logical part of my brain tries to reign supreme over my emotions on a regular basis, and that's when Burned Out starts to crawl out of the depths and wait casually for the perfect moment to strike. And, ironically, I'm realizing that the more I articulate the emotions and the resulting self-doubt, this small, logical-brain-fueled voice chirps overtop of Burned Out and cheerfully says "You know that all of these insecurities are complete and utter bullshit, right?" It's as if Logical Me can't really click in until I - at the very least - allow myself to feel all of the gunk that I typically avoid.

So...I'm breathing again. And seeing straight. And feeling a little more like The Me that I've Missed.