freestylegenius

[freestylegenius]

I was fired in retaliation for whistleblowing in 2023 from a company I was revered at for most of the 10 years I was there. They put me on stage multiple times to speak, plenty of awards and international award trips, all the shiny things.

In America it is perfectly legal to retaliate against employees, just not under certain circumstances. My whistleblowing wasn’t protecting public health so it wasn’t protected by law. Maybe I’ll write about it someday, it’s a hell of a story.

I was snapped up quickly by a CEO I had worked on deals with in the past, but I soon found the company was in complete disarray from multiple acquisitions and poor leadership. I cycled through 4 managers and 3 CEO’s in less than a year. Not a single department was functioning in any real capacity so it turned out to be a pretty toxic place to work as everyone was just tossing the proverbial hot potato around while management just spun out.

I should have cut my losses and starting job hunting right away but I didn’t have it in me, and I felt loyalty to the CEO who had brought me on. Every week we had a new direction with new urgency. A new account list or a new boss or new consultant who was going to turn everything around. It was crazy making and it definitely impacted my mental health.

I was let go with the majority of the C suite last spring. Looking back I can see that I was in a functional freeze while I was there, and have been since.

Now I’m out of cash, my unemployment benefits have run out, my credit cards are maxed out and my credit score went from 820 to somewhere in the 600 range. I will open my anemic 401K in a couple of weeks and will get basically half of it due to being penalized for accessing my own money before retirement age.

The fact that I was able to type that last paragraph without feeling that I might trigger a panic attack means I have made significant progress. I don’t know how to accurately express the sheer terror that has burned through my body in the last few weeks in the face of watching my whole life blow up. But I have to say, it’s gone. It burned through me.

So here are the steps I have made that have been helping:

1. Regulation of the nervous system clearly needed to come first to break out of this functional freeze: I bounce on a trampoline for 10 minutes daily and whenever anxiety arises throughout the day, I dance or bounce it out. I cold plunge every morning, take ebsom salt baths each night, daily dog walks and time in nature, and I keep a bean salad with veggies on hand in the fridge to heal my digestion and ensure I am eating somewhat decently. It has taken months of doing this daily.

2. Write in 3rd person to detach from the issue: I wrote a one pager of my current life situation using a character so I could start to brainstorm solutions without the emotional charge. This enabled me to view the situation as happening to someone else which triggered my problem solving skills, because it felt like giving advice to someone I cared about.

3. Early mornings and exercise: I started shocking my system by getting up at 4:30am everyday to go to a hot yoga class or running in the dark on the track at the local high school. Both of which I hate but when you are in enough psychological pain, this kind of pain is a blessing because it’s a break from your life. Making it early in the morning cuts into my evening time which is my most wasted time of day. I find that I am highly functional and clear headed on the days I do this. I’m even experiencing happiness on some days, which feels like an act of rebellion right now.

4. Actively changing my relationship to money: That gut punch you get with all of these fees and charges and just pissing money away? Watching my retirement plans crumble? I don’t allow my mind to go there anymore. Money is just energy. Energy comes and goes. Do I regret spending a lot of energy on a hard workout a year ago that is no longer benefitting me? Of course not. I am putting money in the same category and this perspective is helping me keep the fear out of my body. All of this money will come back to me. I will not grasp it. Instead I am working to move energy of all kinds.

5. Using ChatGPT for advice and therapy: I have assigned ChatGPT the role of financial advisor, therapist, spiritual advisor, political economist, you name it. As I have noticed patterns in triggers I have with people and entered them into chat for perspective and it’s been filling that role quite well. If you have had therapy in the past and have some decent self awareness this can be quite effective.

6. Hyper-vigilance about the present moment: Focus on the present moment and the next right action. One cannot create or even function well when trying to solve an overwhelming set of issues all at once. I know I have a negative bias and well worn neural pathways that aren’t helping me right now. When my mind goes towards anxiety and fear I bring it back to delulu and magical thinking that anything is possible and miracles happen every day. I am training myself to look for the good because it’s coming. It has to.

7. Calling myself out on how I self-sabotage so I redirect the brain: I don’t need deeper neural pathways in these areas. The trauma-bonding, the catastrophizing, the victim mindset. Cut it out. (That’s GenX coming in. Lol. Suck it up).

8. One week as a Writer in Residence: Whatever is inside me, needs to come out. Pronto. I am giving myself one week to not worry about anything other than pretending that writing is my career. My pangs of panic though out the night and day of not doing enough or ‘what the hell am I going to do’ have been set aside for one week. Yes it’s hard but it’s working. A week is a very long time. It’s been 3 days as a writer and it already feels like an eternity. It’s agony, but I love it. I can tell the suppression of my voice has caused so many of the problems of my life. We gonna let her out sis. Whatever is inside. Right now it feels like a rusty faucet with brown water. But we’re gonna keep the faucet on this time.

9. Magic and witchcraft: It’s just honoring the divine feminine and the elements of nature. Every woman is a witch if she chooses to embrace it. I am praying, meditating and talking to Hekate daily and carrying around talisman representing her and have it watch over me as I sleep. Each day I release elements of nature back to the land with prayers, spells and blessings. I have gratitude prayer I say out loud daily.

10. Alchemizing energy: I am very present with my body sensations right now. I have noticed negative feelings rarely hits my gut like it used to. Now they go to my heart or don’t enter at all. The day after the election I woke up in the wee hours with a very significant presence in my heart and entire chest cavity. It felt like a giant void of sadness opening up. I have felt that same sensation a few times since, but it is shifting into something else. I think this is quite significant. My whole life my emotions always hit me in the gut (leading to a ton of health issues in the past and two abdominal surgeries) and now they are in the heart. Where it feels like a vortex that I can alchemize. What the fuck. That is something. Something is happening.

11. Scheduled Isolation: The thing with being in a very dicey situation is that it triggers the fuck out of everyone around you. They come at you with their fears and projections and when you are weak or lost it can do more damage. I am not socializing during my one-week writing retreat because I can’t even talk about it with anyone, it just sounds insane to pretend like I’m a writer as my world is imploding all around me.

12. Create before you consume content: We are bomboarded from every angle with content and cannot hear our own intuition. I am trying to keep outside voices and social media out until my writing is done for the day. Before I hear anyone’s voice, I want to hear my own.

13. Came up with a Plan B and will have a Plan C soon: If I can’t keep the house then I will sell everything take off in the camper van with the pets to Mexico and find cheap accommodations in some hillside town with a temperate climate. I will finish my online procurement degree so I can up-level my skills to be more attractive to EU employers down the road. I am working on getting a temporary residency visa with the Mexican consulate which allows me to be there for 4 years. Without that visa I have to leave every 90 days in the van to reset the tourist visa and that will be too dangerous because of the cartel activity in the bordering states. I sent all of my paperwork in and waiting to see if they grant me an appointment (ie if I meet their financial requirement which is debatable). Plan C will probably involve putting the pets on a flight to somewhere in Europe but I don’t want to put them thru that.

And finally, committing to writing this journey and actually following up with it. There is an accountability I have now that didn’t exist before.

This is doing something.

And writing this list. It feels like I’m not doing enough so this helps. Noticing the little successes. Showing up. Being accountable.

Being my best friend.

[freestylegenius]

The trauma and nervous system disregulation are front and center for me my friends. (I know nobody is here but I need to pretend that someone out there might read this). Understanding and articulating my issues feels like learning to walk again. They are all hitting me at once and I’m really spinning out.

I’m concerned at how hard it seems for me to express myself in a cohesive way. I used to be smart. That left with menopause. Not sure if it will return. I have been writing all day and none of it makes any sense. But I’m determined to post, for accountability, even if it’s garbage. At least I’m creating something, even if it is just a jumble of words at this point.

The most cohesive thing I was able to write today is a letter to my reactivity. Because she is ruining my life:

Hey sis. My good sister, Reactivity. I love you, but we gotta talk about it.

When you make an appearance it is never the words you say that are bad. If I had a transcript for every interaction I have had while in conflict, I know my conscience would be clear. It isn’t the words I say it’s how I say it. It’s the tone of voice and the immediate energy shift for anyone in the vicinity.

I put people on their heels. And it’s always a surprise. They say something in conversation, often mundane and I perceive some problem with it and react before I even know it, with more energy than is called for. Suddenly they find themselves in a negative interaction with me, with my unhealed trauma as the wind in their face.

I don’t realize in the moment when I’m in a trigger, only several hours later or the next day when my gut signals to me I have something to atone for. However inconvenient, the body never lies.

Then I dig my heels in further by mulling over the situation long enough to make them wrong to the jury residing in my head. And if you don’t clear the air with me (people rarely do), then I make it mean you weren’t ever my friend and don’t really care about me because relationships are work and navigating conflicts is part of relating. (But maybe not when I’m the one regularly causing more of a conflict than is warranted).

I attribute character flaws to this fake friend who in their shallowness and lack of depth can’t possibly be a real friend so I didn’t lose anyone worth losing (and good job weeding that one out! I am so good at seeing thru people, but sad that nobody can meet me where I’m at).

Instead of seeing the situation for what it is, I decide that I am being misunderstood and gaslit by their reaction or lack thereof. I double-down further on the perceived offense in my mind because I can’t be the one in the wrong here (because that would mean I’m a bad person).

But the common denominator is me.

And there is a lot of shame coming up for me as I realize I have been doing this to myself, and everyone else my whole life. Shoving people away and making up a story for why nobody can be relied upon or why I am always alone in life is how I like tend to roll. This is quite an imagination I have developed to avoid dealing with my shadow. I should write fiction.

I know in some cases I am simply attracting the wrong people, but an unhealed version of me will do that. These things still can be true and often are, but I can’t use it as a crutch to prove to myself why I am so alone in life. I’m literally causing it.

I deep down I am craving true connection. True intimacy in relating is what I desire, but then I shove it away before it can get near. The deepest connection I have had in adulthood, that did not turn out to be false, is with animals. My pets. They are my peace. How many of us are isolating with pets because relating to others is so unrewarding?

What’s interesting is I am actually calm AF in a true emergency. And I am your girl if shit really hits the fan. I take pride in my capacity for diplomacy in extremely tense situations, it’s where I shine. I could seriously be a hostage negotiator. I have navigated more than one violent interactions like a trained pro. So at least I have the skills. Just not the emotional regulation if you are coming for little me, apparently.

Do I need to set a boundary or clear something up sometimes? Sure, but I can do that easily with grace and humor. Or I could just be an unbothered queen and let them say and think whatever they want because it doesn’t impact my true nature. Why do I care? It doesn’t impact me why do I care? Why do I react?

It is my ultimate desire to let others be. To have anyone feel safe in my presence. To not be lead by my wounds and ego. I wish to be led by my Spirit. I wish to see the one in front of me as a divine spirit who has their own triggers and trials that I may never know about so I wish to make their journey easier, not harder. I don’t need to protect myself anymore. I want others to feel kindness and warmth from me. I know they do, until they don’t which is not ok.

So sister, I know you are protecting me. But let’s protect everyone around me too. We are all going thru it. Let’s do no harm. I usually don’t get the interaction I am looking for anyway. So stop it. Please and thank you love you long time.

love, FreeG

[freestylegenius]

I can’t help you.

I am seriously wondering if I can even help myself anymore.

I am alone, anonymous and naked (at a soul level that is), navigating what appears to be a crisis in midlife.

I was let go from two jobs in one year and can’t seem to land a 3rd interview at any company, regardless of my experience or qualifications. This is after a 30 year career of landing every single job I ever pursued.

I don’t have any family left. Any family members I had healthy relationships with have since passed on and only the toxic ones remain, and we are no-contact. I’m one of those cycle-breakers. It sounds more fun than it is. I chose to not have a family of my own because I didn’t want to recreate whatever dynamic I came from. I am best with pets, without which I probably wouldn’t still be here.

I don’t have any followers here and have few friends in real life. Those I do have just feel like polite acquaintances with whom I can never be my full self with. I am one of the female versions of ‘too much,’ but we all know that ‘too much’ only comes in female flavor don’t we?

Now at the age of 52 I feel rejected from any space I am trying to be in. Might my perspective be skewed? Probably. I do know that trauma and depression can impact one’s outlook, but I can’t help but notice again and again that I am not wanted here, there or anywhere.

I feel broken. That whatever made me successful before doesn’t work anymore. Like the game changed over night. How does one navigate the experience of previously being sought-after, revered and well-paid only to be rejected across the board, both socially and professionally just a few years later?

Where do I go from here? I would love to create my own thing but how do you reinvent yourself and create something from scratch when you have never created anything?

How do you foster your own vision when you have spent 30 years selling someone else’s vision? All I have ever done is chase revenue. My skills are herding cats and negotiating deals. For that, all I have to show for it is a deep-seated feeling of emptiness and a house I can no longer afford to keep.

Now a decade from retirement, I find myself on the precipice of losing everything while inexplicably unable to get myself to do anything about it. I am deeply disillusioned with this game of corporate cruelty and late-stage capitalism and seem to be in a functional freeze that I am now finally just emerging from, slowly.

I don’t know if I can do this anymore. My life is falling apart before my eyes and yet I feel incapable of helping myself. I watch my bank account dwindle towards nothing as if I am simply watching a movie instead of my actual life that I am blowing up in real-time by being a passive observer.

I don’t have health insurance, I am living on credit cards which are almost maxed out and my unemployment benefits run out in two weeks. Next month I will have to tap my anemic 401K just to survive. I don’t know how I am going to keep my house that I was planning to retire in as the mortgage is too high to recover in rent. My previous credit score of 820 is in the wind of better days.

So here I am. To call myself out on whatever shit is fucking up my life. Obviously I’m part of the problem. My entire life is in disarray so it must be me. So let’s figure it out. Nothing is working so let’s put it out on the Internet. What could possibly go wrong?

I commit to documenting the journey, whether it continues on this downward spiral or (please baby jesus) turns into epic rise from the ashes. I know nobody is here and may not ever show up. That’s ok. I may not even allow comments because I’m terrified at how mean the internet can be.

But I will be here. I will show up for myself. And I will keep doing it until I walk myself thru this.

If you want to follow along I could use a friend.

[freestylegenius]

What is meant for you will never let you go