Stress

For reasons past and present, this is a subject close to my heart.  It ties in with the current crisis as so many of you will be working from home or putting in extra hours to help others in your jobs.

I have unfortunately both seen the results of stress and burnout and experienced it myself.  The first instances I saw left me shocked at the shell of the person who remained, but it was not until later that I realised the path that lead to there.

The stress I am referring to can start when work load exceeds your capacity to do it in the allotted time.  But it still needs another trigger, something to nudge you onto the downwards spiral that leads to real despair.  This can be an off the cuff comment by another that implies you should work harder or faster, or it can be self inflicted by an unrealistic promise to deliver.  In my case it was the later, but that is almost irrelevant.

The start of the spiral is so gradual that no one will notice.  A few extra hours here and there that you think need not be mentioned.  This is the fatal step ... hiding the fact you have given up your time.  You get no recognition for the extra you did, but due to expectations you feel you have to do more each time.  As time goes on you really don't want to mention the work you are doing as it becomes an admission of failure to yourself, you think others will believe you are not up to the job or wimping out.

The start of this spiral can be slow or very rapid.  I have recently been with a friend where this occurred over years.  In my own case it was oh so quick but then my life was so fast and hectic it didn't take much to tip me down this horrible hole.

As you spiral down your world closes in.  You take on more and more, your home life, which should be preciously guarded, is eaten up by work.  Your social life disappears.  You have nothing except your work, and in that you start to question your own ability.  This is where the horrid self-destruction starts to occur.  You lose belief in yourself and your own abilities.

Good managers will hopefully have picked up on this by now and offered to take some work away from you, or tell you to take a break.  If you have remote managers, or a manager who doesn't know your work, they are likely to respond in ways that really don't help.  Offers to help you track and plan your time, offers of courses to improve your abilities or efficiencies often come out.  These are so often the path taken, but increase your self defeating belief that you are no good.

Sooner or later something has to give.  You can not get by with no friend or family time, with the minimum of food and sleep, with no break from this.  The first thing to suffer is your health, you feel tired and drained, the headaches start, the unexpected tears when a friend asks if you're ok.  This is such a hard time, you have reached a point where you can do no more, there is not an ounce left of your body or soul or time that you can give up.

With luck something will happen that will make you realise where you are and what has happened.  Maybe a kind word can restore your self belief a little, or a friend that needs some help in a change in their life gives you something else to focus on for a while, or someone sits you down and points out exactly how much you are doing and how little time you spend with you and yours. The thing that shocked me out of my position was a second colleague who was a wonderful bright and cheerful person spiralling down faster and harder than me.

My response to this once I realised where I was - I ran away.  I quit my job, I sold my house, I moved to a location hundreds of miles from everything where I knew no-one and had no friends or job to go to.  I took since months out from the world, quite literally Lost In Norfolk.  During this time I started a new hobby that I had always been interested in - photography.  Some of my photos can be found here : https://www.flickr.com/photos/lost-in-norfolk. This led me to many quiet deserted places to spend time alone with my thoughts and start believing in myself again.

Was I found after these 6 months - no, not by a long way, but well enough recovered to start again and being careful to take on a role well within my abilities so as not to take on too large a load.   After a few years I was recovered enough to start taking on more and to rejoin an enduring friendship from my time before my collapse.  It's taken a lot more years to reach a point where I was willing to form a relationship, and then a few more before another close friendship came along.  Unfortunately this friend seems to be going through this very same thing, and I am so sorry I spotted it so late.  I hope this friendship can survive when they decide the time is right.

How to help people in these circumstances - this is hard.  The nature of the beast is that is self-destructive, and hidden for fear of people thinking less.  At the time I went through this I had no belief so my emotional conflict at leaving colleagues with all the work I had taken on was not such an issue for me.  For those who truly believe the ethical and moral trauma of leaving your colleagues to pick up everything you did just adds to the burden and makes it even harder to take the step they need to make.  If you can make them see that it is something that has been done to them, that they have a greater value to Jesus, God and humanity than the amount of work they can do it is a start.  If you can get them to admit that this a problem, they they need a break, that they need to recover there is hope.

Once a break is made the hard path of recovery can begin.  I have just been reminded that if you are helping someone through this then try and find where their boundaries are, where their safe space is that should not be breached.  I'm so sorry for the trespass I committed in this respect, and I pray I have not bumped them off the path to recovery that they had only just found.  I also hope that they will forgive me.

So recovery is lots of space and time away from the the thing that caused the stress.  Lots of support, and friends that understand this is what is required.  Heading back to where you were before you have climbed back out of the spiral of despair you were in is liable to head back down into the darkness, probably harder and faster than before.  

If you are going through this my friend then my thoughts and prayers are with you for it is a long hard path with many storms. But you can endure, it will get easier despite set-backs and falls.

If you now someone to whom this applies, please help them where you can, hold them in your thoughts and pray for their recovery.  A lot of healing has to be done, and it can take some time.  The comfort and healing found in God and Jesus and the Bible was not there for me, but if it is there for you reach out, remember not to show how big your problem is to Him, but to show your problem how big your God is.  Do not run away from everything and everyone you know and love and trust, seek those that will help, find something to head towards, some distant goal that He can help you with.  No path is easy - but the run away option may seem easier but it is a long and lonely road. Turn toward something, it will be hard and this is one of the harder paths you will travel, but call on His strength and courage and you will come through stronger than you were before.

You may be wondering how this ties in with the start of this post.  Well, as I mentioned, many of you will be under extra pressure if you are in a critical and caring role, so watch out for each other, look for the signs, give each other support and help to lessen each others burdens.  For those that work from home, take care you do not do those extra hours that would normally be used for the commute, use the time to be with your loved ones in these troubled times.  And remember that one day we will emerge from this back to some new normality, you will be expected to keep up with the work you have created for yourself, and you will no longer have those extra hours you thought had been gifted to you.  Remember, the trigger may be some silly remark by someone, you may not realise it at the time but, like a virus, it can and does hit indiscriminately.

Take care all.