Hitting a brick wall; or literally, a tree. I, ironically, make my class, my coping skills, my book, and my survival toolkit all based on an inner tree. An inner tree that is a living, evolving, and changing real being (just in the terms of – it exists); the inner tree of each of us is grounded on the foundations/roots, nourished by the soil and environment always trying to adapt to the environment so that the tree doesn’t fall down, the tree doesn’t give up, and that it stays capable of living and weathering the elements.
I wrote a book; WOW! But, I didn’t stop, pause, appreciate and refuel. A tree needs a reprieve; there’s a calm after a storm, after the tree has weathered gusts of wind, rain, snow, may have lost some branches to lightening and even its trunk threatened by a crashing bolt of lightening followed by the ominous boom of thunder. I put myself through memories, and work as a mother, wife, employee at Williams College, as a runner, yogi, and someone who wanted to get moved into our new house. Last week – I knew, I knew that my trunk was swaying back and forth, that I needed to ground myself, but I couldn’t.
But, here’s the thing – sometimes even the wisest of us, the oldest and strongest of trees – sometimes we can’t even imagine that we are a “being,” and as a living “being,” we cannot continue at a steady, consistent pace independent of how hard our inner being has worked. When a flashlight stops working, we don’t keep pushing the button hoping it will work or ignoring that we are in darkness; we replace the battery.
When a tesla is on 0%, it stops. It doesn’t move. It needs to be recharged. It’s driven too long and has no battery life left. We don’t sit in the car willing it to move; we make sure we charge it.
Last week and for months on end, I have been driving my inner tree, my living “being,” and have not recognized my lack of fuel, or low batteries. My Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has put me into a survival mode, defying the odds of functioning without batteries or fuel. Literally, “running on empty.” A living being can defy the odds, I guess, but it shouldn’t. What happens when you let yourself continue to defy the odds and run on empty? Is there a collapse? A collision? At some point, how are you stopped? Because, I feared, rightfully so, that I would stop to a dead halt.
“When do I run into a brick wall?” I asked my therapist this just last week. We discussed this; nothing in my life seems like it can give, be loosened, or let go. Everything is so meaningful to me; I love my children and being with them and friends. I love going into the elementary schools and meeting with college students; I love to write and I believe in my message and my ability to impact others if given the opportunity. This immense drive to have an immediate effect on those who are hurting, to prevent those from getting hurt is my fuel. But, this is false fuel and even the fuel of sheer stubbornness, determination, stupidity in feeling that you are fine, invincible without actually being invincible – it’s not real. This is not “being.” This is false. This is the impostor, not knowing my true limitations. When is overload, overload?
When, when, and “how am I going to know I hit a brick wall?” The question resonates. I hit a brick wall in residency; I was pushed to my limits and broke. My inner tree needed to be uprooted and removed from the hospital and profession as a physician that I was seeking. I had to completely replant myself and immerse myself into something else. I didn’t know what; I knew I wanted to help others not feel vulnerable and powerless. I knew what triggers I couldn’t handle; I knew what environment I had to leave. I knew I needed help; more than I currently had. Sadly, when it took a lot of damage to my foundation and core, for me to recognize my limitations. As a result, this led to healing and repairing the damage before even starting to shift directions and pathways. Pushing myself resulted in increasing the damage and time it would take for me to heal. Think about an athlete who feels a twinge in their foot that really is getting worse with continuing the sport. The athlete chooses to ignore it, because they want to finish the season or the race they trained so hard for. As a result, the simple stress fracture (just an example) turns into a real break, resulting in surgery to align the displaced bones and much longer recovery time.
It is important to know “when is too much, too much?” When do I have to acknowledge that I’m human, rest, and bow out?
All I knew is what I couldn’t do or handle; like knowing what is poisonous and to avoid, but not knowing what is sumptuous, and will bring health and joy to the “being.” So, the “how do I avoid a brick wall?” questions really needs to be reframed, “what do I need, my body and soul, that will spread over warmth, comfort, and bring joy and health to me. What are those nutrients, those very things that can bathe me in sunlight and blow away the dark clouds, the fog of uncertainty and of triggers and flashbacks?” The question is not what to avoid or what is going to be the last thing that will finally break my inner tree or make me hit a brick wall, the question is how to nurture a healthy being and surround myself in a healthy environment that allows for growth, development, and forward movement. Remember, the goal is to empower the self, not to have the self rendered powerless or on the defense and avoiding obstacles.
Individuals constantly seeking adventure and danger; these are individuals who require to feel like they are near death in order to feel alive. Climbing cliffs, jumping out of a plane, swimming through class V rapids, mountain biking down a large steep mountain, taking on one more student into your class, one more extracurricular activity, volunteering to take overnight call for the fifth night in a row; these are all challenges that can literally or figuratively threaten our physical and mental wellbeing. Constantly living on the threshold of either physical death or mental breakdown (interruption in one’s sanity), depletes resources and increases our thresholds of pain or feelings that are normal, until you live and keep pushing, because you don’t feel the pain, the stress, the overwhelming feeling that most people should feel after placing blocks on top of blocks in Jenga and removing one at a time, hoping that it doesn’t topple. You just keep going and keep building. It there’s a topple over, you work really fast to rebuild it just as it was without even thinking. You are avoiding the destruction from impacting the journey too much.
But, what about if you took your time and didn’t ignore toppling over, but looked at your shaky hands tired from building towers and removing blocks or jumping through obstacles? If you nurtured your body and mind, embraced obstacles, bathed yourself in comfort, pampered your weathered being to promote maximal healing? What about if your threshold did not increase to the point that normal pain was numb, that you could not figure out your limit, but you never felt right? You were always looking around trying to figure out your way through the darkness, squinting your eyes, feeling with your hands, just to get by to keep going? Wouldn’t taking the time to change the battery, recharge, STOP have been more helpful? Being human and recognizing that you are a living being that needs nutrients, and fuel, as well as comfort, love, and companionship is a necessary skill to survive.
Last week – after I asked “how do I prevent myself or know when I’m going through a brick wall?” and we left this question to get back to during our next session, I was leaving my driveway and felt two ticks crawling in my hair. They were real; I didn’t imagine them. I reflexively took them out of my hair and cringed, losing focus. Bam – I hit a tree. Yes, they were real, but my survival mode and reflexive instinct was disproportionate to the threat of the ticks. I ran literally into a tree. The tree – well it was fine – my car was not fine. I left the car, no jacket on, but with my workbag on my back, and kept walking to hopefully make my next meeting all the while calling to reschedule my three appointments in Boston. Like nothing happened. No tears, nothing. A true ‘hit and run.’ (And the ticks, I actually have no idea where I flung them!)
I hit a tree, not a wall. But the tree lived, I lived, and I kept going. When will I stop moving? How much of the integrity, of the structure needs to be sacrificed and how much growth is stagnated or pathways of potential (branches) and beautiful leaves don’t flourish or come to be, because they are strangulated from nutrients and essentials necessary not to just maintain, but to grow.
But, here’s the thing; what do I need to blanket myself with, to soothe myself with? What does taking care of yourself really look like when you’re just looking for the wall, marching through obstacles, numb to discomfort? I certainly feel nothing like a martyr; I feel more like an impostor who is exhausted all of the time and does everything just enough to be okay, but nothing to be excellent. I feel just okay, but never excellent. I never paused or healed; I don’t know how and after 14 surgeries in my life, if I paused every time I had a surgery (this doesn’t include procedures), I might as well have paused my entire life.
But, then, why do I have this luck? I switched my appointments from Thursday to Monday. Monday – I started my journey to Boston, not even past where our old house used to be but did a school bus stop, as did the cars behind it, including myself, because that’s what you do (duh), but someone behind me rammed into my car. That woman did not even break. She clearly was looking at something or distracted. The sensors on my rental car (remember my real car had hit the tree Thursday prior) were messed up. Her car was in a lot worse shape, but she managed to drive right along from where we pulled over to go to her appointment that was in Williamstown.
Me, I had to make todays appointment as well as those the next day. I couldn’t call again and reschedule. The two lovely people who helped out dragged the sensors out of the rear end and while ignoring the ‘parking is disabled sign and to look in your instruction manual’ all the way to Boston, I made it to Boston just in time for a test that is more torturous and embarrassing than I’d like to get into. I made it. My blood pressure was very high at the office, but, I was granted a “pass” since I had just driven stressfully all the way to Boston. When am I not running around stressed? When am I not in survival mode? So, when is my blood pressure not high? Doesn’t this result in all of the chronic negative effects of high blood pressure even if my true, unstressed baseline is low?
Of course my drive was foggy and raining the whole ride; blurry and hard to see. My dissociation mirrored in the weather as I traveled. So many more things for the rest of the day went just, unbelievably wrong or miscalculated. But, I took no time to pause, and I kept going, because I needed to get through these two days of appointment.
It’s hard to not think; am I being punished? Am I a faulty switch that just keeps blowing fuses whenever I try to start? I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m anxious that I’m losing my mind. What about if how healthy or how “together” we appear on the outside is nothing but impostor syndrome and on the inside there is nothing but a hollow hole full of air and one gust of wind, the whole thing will crack? Each day another leaf falls down only there are no seasons; my inner tree never goes through the seasons. A leaf falling down will not be replaced by a new bud and leaf in the spring. A branch that falls off will not be replaced with the hope of another branch or opportunity. Though I feel nothing like a martyr, I feel a little bit like I’m slowly getting down to the stump; the stump in the ‘Giving Tree,’ though I’m not supporting a little boy, I’m killing myself to save myself?
So, instead of asking “how or when am I going to hit a brick wall or something hard and immobile,” I should be asking, “how, when, who, and where am I going to learn to care for myself and protect myself?” When will I build myself up instead of cutting myself down to survive.
But, then, as luck continues to have it, something that is not within my control happens and then I have to ask, “do I not deserve protection or to learn how to implement self-care?” If so, “why?”
I know that my book is a powerful memoir and we’d all like to think that having three children and living in the bucolic Berkshires is a happily ever after ending, but it’s not. The book is a start to open and acknowledge that there is a journey towards healing to be had. But this healing journey can’t be done alone and trust and reaching out is harder than running through obstacles and, if a person abuses my trust, my reaction is to close off even more. Reaching out with one hand that was not held or returned at times in my past only made the fall that much harder.
What is wrong with me? Why me? Why do I have this luck? Why is everything so hard? I don’t know; I wish I did. I am human though and I do have to admit that there are some days when I’m afraid what tomorrow might bring and the thought and terror of it haunts me into wishing that I didn’t have it, the tomorrow.
Then I have to remember that we live for today, not tomorrow and that’s just going to have to do for now. It’s Sunday, a new week. For now all I can do is be in the moment, inhale and exhale, syncing my body and breath with my girls.
