Radically Accepting Chaos
How I am learning to accept that life is just tough.
This has been a difficult week. As I shared on Wednesday, my head has been filled with thoughts of overwhelm, intense sadness, and fear. We made the difficult decision to readmit our daughter into a partial hospitalization program. While she experienced a year with marked improvement and showed signs of increasing clarity and joy, the careless words of a school bully seemed to somehow wipe that progress away.
While I don’t want to make her experience about me, it is difficult as a parent to not question whether there is anything we could have done differently. My thoughts are on overdrive with replaying the past several weeks. I’m reviewing the signs I observed, the steps I took in response, and I’m second guessing what if any other actions I could have taken. Since I am a person who processes by sharing my experiences out loud with others, I reengaged our community when I learned our family was headed back into crisis because I’ve learned in therapy that it is important to ask for help. Unfortunately, asking for help has only seemed to add to the internal self-doubt.
This was a week where work demands and meetings with our daughter’s mental health providers left little opportunity for internal processing. I had to cut my weekly session with my long-term therapist short so I could meet with our daughter’s psychiatrist. While I also receive individual therapy through my dialectical behavioral therapy program, this week’s session was focused on administrative tasks like assessing my suicidal ideation risk and updating my own treatment plan. I spent time not meeting with my daughter’s providers in work meetings or working early and late on the deliverables we discussed in those work meetings. I then went home to shower, sleep, and do it all over again.
My nervous system is in overdrive. It feels as if there is a five alarm fire that I am trying to extinguish alone and the only resource available is a single bucket and a leaky faucet. For this reason, I have decided to use this space to help me unpack the numerous thoughts swirling in my brain with the hope that it may resonate with someone else so that they don’t feel as alone as I have felt this week.
The intricate balance of work and life is a never ending juggling act that inevitably results in dropped balls if we do not set boundaries and learn to ask for help. There are times when it may even be appropriate to drop those balls intentionally so that we can juggle higher priorities.
Lately, I have been feeling as if numerous facets of life have required immediate attention. These facets include children, parents, work, my personal health, our aging house, and my personal relationships. It’s exhausting! I have been craving time to catch my breath so I can find peace of mind and think strategically on my appropriate next step. It’s interesting how life stressors appear to surface in tidal waves.
Today, I woke with the goal of mapping out a plan to help clear the chaos and create the breathing room I am craving. This requires clarity around everything on my plate so I can triage my to do list into priority tiers, schedule time to action those priorities, and say no to whatever isn’t one of those priorities. The problem is that actioning can be difficult when stress, anxiety, and the fear of disappointing others depletes energy reserves. My brain is just wanting to curl into a ball under a bench and sleep until the latest crises have resolved themselves.
I am grateful that we achieved our first priority of identifying and implementing a therapeutic plan that increases our daughter’s mental health care. We are moving to the next phase of finding a nurturing school environment that has a zero tolerance for bullying with the resources and proven track record for enforcing that policy consistently. We also are aligning on a structured schedule she can buy into that leaves little time for her to engage in numbing activities that deplete her mood and energy.
The challenge that remains is me. Intellectually, I know that I need to be resourced to support her and that this looks like setting boundaries so that I too can practice self-care. That’s easier said than done given that my mental health was already on shaky ground as long-term readers are aware.
My daughter’s previous bout of depression was the impetus for my mental health decline. A child’s suicide is the unimaginable. No parent wants to face the loss of a child, let alone losing a child because they have lost the will to live. It’s impossible to not blame yourself when your child loses the will to live. Our daughter’s past suicide attempt triggered my own childhood emotional trauma from losing a first cousin to suicide and the inevitable question of “why”.
Unfortunately, her attempt was not the only foundationally challenging event that led to my own suicidal ideation. Life has thrown multiple curve balls such as medical ailments, work pressures, family medical crises, lost best friends, and the death of a mentor all in quick succession. I am lucky to have a strong marriage to help support me through these storms.
Yet, I have been forced to “radically accept” that life has just been incredibly hard. It’s sad to admit, but the recurring curve balls have resulted in me losing hope that things will improve. I recognize that I need to create the glimmers where I can. I need to say “no” as much as possible. I am getting comfortable with disappointing the people around me and facing that never ending fear of “failure” head on.
I’m done with waiting for it to get better. Instead, I am accepting the discomfort for what it is and recognizing that I can be intentional in creating any semblance of joy, peace, or breathing space. I’m also learning to trust my instincts, ask my higher self for guidance, build my own life raft, or float when none is available.