#why do you think I’m posting at degen hours on a Friday?

[squeaky-potat]

Deflowered 🌺

[aburntoutdiscovery]

Shit son, our brains can lie!

Cortisol. Designed to keep you alive in an ancient world, destined to kill you in a modern world. 

I’m a happy person. Extremely positive. My parents did all the right things! Except, for some unknown mix of biological and psychological factors, a little anxiety monster crept up upon me when I was 18. It was then I realised my mind was capable of things other than the image of a daisy being cuddled by a polar bear. From a panic attack and a few hospital trips developing over the course of a year (”the only thing we can find is that your heart is racing”, “you’re dehydrated” “your chest x-ray is flawless [why thank you]”), I developed a deeply satisfying hypochondria - which would be my little pet, adopted from a shelter, by my side for the upcoming years. 

My brain grew in wondrous ways over the next few years. Though my relationship with fear remained very primal. The fear was rarely about tangible events but almost always either health or sanity related. Anxiety being the creative squirrel it can be, I started coasting through the motions - I tasted panic, agoraphobia, and developed an acute sensitivity to all peculiar bodily sensations. Every time I sailed through and conquered one anxious fear - another would, months later, rear its head and claim some enjoyment of my life. 

Once I started full time employment as a lawyer that’s when the squirrel really went nutty. Driven by work stress, perfectionism, a desire to outperform and the total absence of creative output and socialisation, the squirrel had a field day, every day. Anything and everything became a threat. Slowly but surely and definitely without my noticing, the squirrel began to drag me down into darker and darker realities. One month, I’d overcome the news of having given myself a brain tumour after smelling my boss’s piece of toast. The next, depersonalisation made me accept I’d never touch reality again.  By this time, every weekend on a Sunday, I’d started having these very low existential lows - the feeling was alien, or so I thought. During all of this, my work responsibilities were piling up, fueled by my increased mental processing speed. I was an anxious force to be reckoned with. The next month, my thoughts about anxiety became so overwhelming I ‘knew’ I had an unstoppable thinking disease that would never let me enjoy reality again. On top of that, I had also, a few months prior, decided this would be the perfect time to buy a house and save 90% of my wage from then on in order to cover it. We were in a promise of sale. The only way out of this hellhole I saw was the acceptance of the thinking disease. I remember distinctly lying on my bed that afternoon having finally resigned to the reality and telling myself the only way to move forward was to except I’d never be able to enjoy anything again. I remember getting these balls of stress in my abdomen that made me feel like I was dying.

That evening we went to a house party and I loved it. I felt like myself. But then something happened - we got a call from the owner of the property we had just given up and were told that he didn’t accept the refusal letter we had given him from the bank and he’d need further proof. Proof which we didn’t have. Knowing my anxiety would make me need to leave work, I felt like the stress was finally insurmountable. I had one last ball of extreme turmoil in my gut and I thought I’d faint.

The next morning, I woke up and couldn’t feel. The energy needed to form a complete sentence was lacking - I could feel the time taken between my brain sending the signal for a word to be said and my mouth reacting. My organs had been swiftly replaced with lead. I was unable to focus on anything my boyfriend was saying. I was pretty sure I was clinically depressed. I told work, we sorted out a final few hurdles with getting out of the house, and was given two weeks off. My psychologist said it was situational depression, a doctor said it might be depression, I had no idea what I was dealing with.

The most striking feeling I had was the realisation that the final blow of depression was actually, for the most part, better than my previous reality. Better than the deepest depths the anxiety had taken me to. The thoughts were completely gone. My mind was still. Void. Peaceful. Dead. It was simultaneously refreshing and depressing in itself. I remember at first feeling extremely relieved I was depressed. Anything was better than the realities I had made for myself over the course of the previous months. I ‘just’ had depression - and I was quite alright - kind of. My anxiety, all that time, had been nothing but a series of lies fuelled by my deepest fears. I couldn’t believe what I had let myself do to myself. I had put my body through the emotional reality of being diagnosed with a different terminal or degenerative illness each month - and my body was about to pay the price. My negative thoughts, conditioned by stress hormones, had destroyed me. I realised that the perception of stress - wherever we perceive it, whatever we let it feed off - usually our long-held false negative beliefs - can kill us simply through lies we keep believing - people kill themselves over self-told complete and utter lies. The reality was harrowing.

Over the course of those two weeks full of 100% recovery-focused energy, I went from moderate to severe depression 4 days a week to mild depression twice a week. Hurrah! I was almost cured and ready to go back to work! I restarted work promptly, with all the verve and energy I had had, this time on half days. That weekend the relapse was just as bad as the first time it hit. I was concerned, to say the least. I went on a previously planned 10 day holiday to visit my niece in the Netherlands and felt more or less fine on most days. I was so happy - it was almost over (right?).

I returned to work on half days - acutely aware of the 3-hour lows I’d have from waking until around 11am - but this time remembering my brother muttering the words ‘burn-out’ and not being quite sure what I had. Was it burnout, situational depression, full blown depression, mild depression? No idea.

At work on most days my processing speed was almost inexistent. I remember my brother saying not to expect to do more than one hour of work a day for the first few weeks. Of course, that wasn’t me. I managed the first week, rarely more than 1-2 hours. Although those 1-2 hours of work still took all the mental energy I had. The next week, I went up to 2-3. The next, 3-4. I was finally getting better, but slowly. I felt like this all was a cruel trick on my hypochondria. Someone who previously held the golden standard for feeling physically perfect - I had requested an MRI over an unfamiliar smell of a piece of bread - had now been given mush for brains and was tasked with not freaking out. 

Miraculously, my cortisol being fully depleted, I had no anxiety for the first wonderful few weeks. The depressive lows, I could handle - as long as they didn’t bring anxiety. I had peaceful and positive thoughts whenever I wasn’t in a low. My mind felt like it was changing. My boyfriend Mark and I decided that, nevertheless, due to the lows, it would be best if I called it quits from work for the time being. I knew that being there was not aiding my recovery - and a hypochondriac is nothing if not hell-bent on recovery. I didn’t want pills unless they became unavoidable. For once, my health-obsessed nature was put to good use - despite having to recover from something brought on by itself. Ironic.

My managers suggested a 3-day half-day week. It was the final frontier. I accepted and we started a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday routine. 

That first Monday I had a low from being home alone for most of the day - but it was distinctly very mild. The Wednesday after, I remember reading a book about depression and then learning that Stephen Fry had something called ‘cyclothymia’ and my cortisol reared its now somewhat alive but severely malfunctioning head. I probably had this. I was feeling happier and happier as the weeks went by - surely this was a sign of early bipolar. This was more rational than the other diseases I had given myself, so it was ‘necessary’ and justified to panic over it, so I told myself. Turns out that post burn-out self takes much longer to recover from anxiety than pre-burnout self - and I had no prefrontal cortex power left - that is, no physical capacity to rationalise health-related thoughts.

That night I didn’t sleep well and work was a blur the next day - I felt these moments of dizziness and confusion and feared the worst. I must have had a degenerative brain condition. I tried to calm myself down but it was almost impossible. Eventually I managed and the next few days the confusion lessened. Phew. 

The next Monday I felt almost fine - pretty much no low at all. I decided to turn a new leaf and start an ambitious exercise program - I attended a HIIT session and subsequently a handstand yoga class and felt very energised after. However, during the yoga class I felt a very funny confused feeling in my brain and knew this time - I had epilepsy. The feeling lingered for a few days and I went to the GP after work - I felt utterly horrid in the waiting room. Having actually had what I believe to be a mild seizure on a funfair ride when I was 18, I actually had the slightest sliver of a reason to think this was true. The doctor was a little confused but gave me a prescription for something called Strezam. 

I went home and calmed down and kept the prescription without using it for the time being, knowing that if needed I would try not to oppose it. My cortisol levels were operating a little more highly now and my body was having none of it. My energy levels plummeted to almost zero. I was confused - my depressive lows were better than ever but my energy was worse. I realised my double exercise whammy, brought on by my desire to be better, faster, and recover quicker, was probably too much and I had fried my Central Nervous System. This was a little disheartening - exercise was a pinnacle of recovery. 

One week later I tried to calm things down, and energy levels were up again - so went to an intermediate yoga class and felt great. The next day I was nauseous, felt feverish without a fever, and was spaced out almost to the extent I had been when the depression first hit, but not quite. It took me five minutes to photocopy something. I couldn’t register what people were saying. It took Mark and a lot of conversation to keep the hypochondria at bay, but I was quite proud of myself for not fully freaking out. Still, cortisol levels were messing me up. Overall though, months ago, I’d have panicked over anxiety alone - now I actually had more symptoms, a worn-out rationality centre, and yet the conversation with Mark kept me from freaking out - definite progress. I recognised I had a healthy anxiety issue and I knew I had to start working on my fears head on. If I was ever going to heal, this had to be dealt with proactively. It could no longer fester in the depths of my mind while I ignored it. Ignoring it made it stronger. I knew this because I had recently discovered an incredible book - “The Chimp Paradox” - which I highly recommend. I gave in my final notice at work - asked when would be the earliest to leave - and had my final work day that Friday. I did some research and found out from everything I had been reading, I was most probably suffering extreme burnout but not full-blown depression. The frequent lows were a ‘part’ of the burnout.

That weekend was the first almost low-free weekend in months. It was great but on Saturday got extremely anxious at a social dinner. Guessing that is part of my body being able to produce cortisol again. I’m going to have to deal with this head-on. Also of course, as every day since this happened, things felt off. In a different way each day. 

That brings me to now. Monday. Had a very mild low in the morning, so mild pretty much unnoticeable. Wonderful. Main symptoms are tired and dry eyes, hair-trigger fear response, mild weird feelings in head, distinct and worrying slowness of my left finger. It feels like using my left hand is a little more difficult than usual - I know rationally and from the horrid internet this is all part of the depressive side of burnout - and have accepted I will, like a rational human, get it checked only if it gets worse. Incredibly, the one thing that hasn’t been touched is my sleep or, on 8/10 days, my appetite. 

Overall, I’m very optimistic about the future. I am going to focus 100% on my health for a while and nourish it to the best it can be. I know burnout takes anywhere from 6 months if treated to 4 years to recover. Some people who never come down from altitude, so to speak, never fully recover.

Giving my body the best shot it has will become my full-time job now. That and working on my anxiety issues - one step at a time - my anxiety being, all things considered, the lowest it has in years. I will start exercising again slowly, finally accepting that this recovery may not be something I can overachieve at. I will work on being kind to myself when I start worrying about recurring or new symptoms. This is my journey - and for the most part, I’m happier than I have been in six months - even before the depressive blow. I’ve started feeling excited about the future again and it’s fantastic. I’m into mindfulness and on the bad days, the limit I expect of myself is enjoying a cup of tea - and I really, really enjoy my cups of tea.