In my life, I've nearly convinced myself that I'm invincible. Not emotionally, but physically. Emotionally I'm often a wreck although you may not be able to recognize this since I hide it well. But physically? Well sure. I've pushed myself to the limits many times unable to decipher when enough is enough.
This morning proves my point.
I got up to a fairly gloomy weather, very groggy and tired. My brain couldn't register the alarm, that's how bad it was until the constant buzzing of my phone indicating emails roused me. As I peered through half shut eyes at the messages, panic set in. There was a slight 'emergency' with a client and it was clear I had to get into gear immediately. Barely able to take a fulsome shower, I was out the door in less than 50 minutes, fighting traffic, manically monitoring my phone for additional situations and cursing up a storm in my head.
By the time I got to work, I started to feel relief. I should have known better.
I pull into the garage and as I spot my favorite space open for use, I make a tight turn, misjudge and hear metal on cement. That is not a good sound. It never is. You know that sound, right? It's abrasive and loud and horrifying. It means a lot of money, time and energy wasted on a stupid mistake. I jumped out of my car, zoomed to the back right side close to the wheel praying the whole way that it would miraculously be nothing and there it was in all it's glory, a nice big ol' dent with flecks of grey (the color of my car) and green (the color of the pillar that I had hit) all entwined together. My heart sunk. My knees went weak and my hands started to shake.
My burning eyes took this sight in and I had to blink back tears of frustration and anger. But I didn't have time for a nervous breakdown but I assure you that's precisely what I wanted to do. I wanted to sit down on that dirty garage floor and weep like a baby. Still, I had to get going and the situation at work needed my attention. This much I knew, this much I could deal with. The dent? Not so much. My mind (and body) couldn't deal with this.
Anyhow, that was earlier today. As I went to get java (after addressing all the fires I had to) I stood in line thinking that this was a telltale sign of exhaustion for me. In the past, whenever I'm about to hit the proverbial exhaustion wall, often I start to make thoughtless mistakes. These manifest in such things as sending an important email to the wrong person, copying over an important document, dumping hot water on myself, vastly miscalculating a piece of furniture's proximity to my butt and then unceremoniously ending on it in a painful position on the ground. But you know what, Folks? For all that I seem like a pretty intelligent person (and I use the word intelligent loosely) I'm actually a superlative bonehead.
My body could be screaming at me to rest and I will not listen to it. I will keep pushing and pushing until it shuts down on me. It's happened before. The scariest example of this was back in 2008. I had traveled to HK for a month on a document collection for a client. Once back, my firm was apart of what would be the biggest merger of the year and I was the lead paralegal. I worked tirelessly, traveling all over the place, staying up for straight 24, 36, 72 hour stints at a time (and when I say staying up, I mean staying up. No catnaps for this girl). A normal worker bee puts in about 1600 hours a year (40 hours a week). In the span of 10 months, I had logged in about 2600 hours. Yea, I was a beast. I was badass. I was headed straight for a fall of epic proportions but I wasn't willing to recognize this.
Near the end of the year, I started to experience numbing pain in my left arm. Every night without fail, my arm would tingle and the middle of my chest would ache. For about 2 weeks I ignored this (nope, da-Nile isn't just a river in Egypt). Then one night I laid in bed staring at the ceiling wondering 'am I having a heart attack?'. Sweating, I quietly pulled out the laptop to look up symptoms. BTW, self-diagnosis is always a bad thing. At one point, my hands were cold, my feet were freezing, my chest was hurting and I almost couldn't feel my left arm. The symptoms were there. Heart attack.
Eventually I went to the emergency room. This was January 1st of '09. I had thought to myself that I had an awesome way of starting off the year. The doctors did their thing and once all was said and done (which included me becoming a human pincushion) I was informed that I was suffering from severe acid reflux and basically was stressed. These things have the same earmarks of a heart attack and that I was 'wise' to get myself checked out. Let me tell you, I did not feel in the least smart. First, I was ashamed that I had so misjudged what was happening to me. Second, I thought I had been far too reactionary by rushing into the emergency room. And last, but most importantly, I had to question myself as to my ability to handle my stress. Surely in the past I could take it, why not this time? I was, after all, invincible.
The emergency room doctor suggested I go to my primary doc and then possibly a psychologist (or is it psychiatrist?) because I needed to figure out what was mentally wrong with me. What? No way, I didn't need a shrink.
So it turns out that my primary physician is actually an Indian woman. After my check up and a prescription for Nexium, she sat and had what one would consider a 'chat'. She told me that as an Indian, she understood the stresses that define our lives such as work, family, responsibility, sacrifices expected and the numerous roles we play. She advised me to take a step back and learn to say 'no' more often.
Have I learned that lesson? Not on your life. I tried and it worked for a few months but then I fell right back into my 'pattern' of self destructive behavior. I am a hard worker, I am a dedicated worker as well. Actually not just in my career am I like this. I am thus in all aspects of my existence. I am fantastic at saying 'yes', lousy at saying 'I can't' and I will push myself until I want to fall down right where I stand but even that I wont allow to happen. I feel like I owe everyone around me my 1001% and that's what I do, even at the mental and physical detriment to my own self.
Lately, I've been doing that again. I've been pushing myself at work and other aspects of my life. I don't sleep much, I wake up irritated and exhausted, I go through the day with far too much energy (which boggles my mind since I don't get hardly any rest) and my mind never shuts off. I get yelled at constantly about not going to bed on time but it's not something I can control. Even if I do manage to lay down, everything else is still 'turned on'. I don't know how to shut off. Where's that switch?
And I go through my days worried that I'm saying something wrong, doing something wrong or generally hurting/offending/pissing off the world. People would never guess this about me because the façade I've honed won't allow for it. Do you know how exhausting all this really is?
But here is the true fact (the only one I'm willing to admit): I am not a machine. I am human.
Now, I just have to convince myself of this fact, right?
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