Time to Heal
Sometimes, it is really hard for you to know what is best for you, especially when you are not giving yourself time to actually stop and listen to yourself. When you’ve been a “Type A”, overachiever your entire life, you just keep pushing forward, you just keep going, you just keep doing, no matter what happens. You keep doing what you think you “should” be doing for yourself, your job, your family, your friends, until you realize that you haven’t actually stopped to think about what YOU actually need, and you almost have a complete meltdown.
At least that’s what I did for the year following Trey’s death. I went back to work after 5 days because my team was counting on me and it was what I should do; and, to be honest, I was so stuck in shock that I’m not sure I could have done anything else anyways. But, I was a literal shell of my pre-Trey’s death self, shutting my office door to cry periodically throughout the day - when I still had an office before office moves left me at an open desk that was extremely exposed. An email that would’ve taken me minutes to compose before Trey’s death now took hours, if it didn’t sit in my Drafts folder for days before getting sent. I would completely lose my train of thought mid-sentence in meetings and sit there, trying to regain my composure, so that I could salvage my dignity and walk out of the meeting with a little of my pride still intact.
My team and employees must have grown so tired of me constantly asking for the same updates over and over again - despite truly trying to listen and taking copious notes that I could never seem to find when I needed them. And, when the time came and I had to start giving presentations again - a key component of my job and something I had been doing for years without issue - I began having full-blown panic attacks. It was all I could do to get through a presentation, and heaven help me if I somehow got thrown off of my well rehearsed sequence due to an unplanned question.
You would think that I would recognize that something was wrong, and to an extent I did; but I just did what I had always done, expecting that same playbook to work for me again that had always worked so well in the past. I kept my head down and pushed forward with work, convinced it was what I “should” be doing. This was not limited to work; I was taking the same approach in my personal life. I was continuing to see my friends, but I’m sure it was obvious to them that I was completely unengaged despite my best intentions. When I was out, all I could think about is when it would be appropriate for me to leave to get back to the safety of my quiet home and Maverick. And, I continued to push forward with my triathlon training, too; this actually seemed to be one of the only areas where the old playbook of just working hard to push the needle forward seemed to actually be still working.
Everywhere else it was failing miserably. Things were getting so much worse. I was sleeping maybe 5 hours a night if I was lucky, which is nowhere near enough for my brain to function properly, especially with the added stress of the grief and the physical training I was putting my body through. I found myself growing extremely apathetic about my job, a job I had always loved and whose mission had always been a major driver for me. I began fantasizing about getting fired (what, Type A me?!) for saying something like, “well at least your husband didn’t die before 40”, every time I had to take a client escalation - I never actually said anything like this, by the way, just imagined it in my head. But still, I kept going.
My therapist had encouraged me to take some time off around the holidays, but I pushed him off, telling him I would be fine, and besides, I had far too much going on at work to even consider taking any time off. But as the 1-year deathiversary approached, I continued to decline, cancelling dates with friends and quitting to do activities I had previously enjoyed. When, during a session in early April I told him I fantasized about getting in an accident on my way to work every day - not so bad that anyone was seriously injured, but just bad enough so that I wouldn’t have to go to work for a little while and would have some space to breathe - he immediately insisted that I see my doctor and take time off from work to focus on healing.
He was not going to take no for an answer this time, and I was not going to fight him. I was suffering from PTSD and depression, and it was time to let go of whatever I believed I “should” be doing and just focus on what I actually needed to do to heal.
If you’ve never lost someone close to you, it can be hard to understand how the grief can so fully take over your mind. I know that for someone like me, with a “can do” attitude, I truly thought I could will my way out of the grief. How naive that was of me. Processing grief is hard work that requires time and energy, neither of which I had while working a demanding job. With my doctor and and therapist’s guidance, and with my boss and team’s support, I finally took the time off work to focus solely on myself and healing for 12 weeks. It was exactly what I should do.
