Well shiver me timbers I'm back again.
I found this old post of mine and thought it was as good a place as ever to spill my guts and vent my spleen a little.
again where to start the beginning the end? Start in a random page of another book all together.
i did the study. I got the piece of paper to prove it. I earnt my CERT IV in mental health in 2016, I got a job in the field, first disability/ mental health support in a group home and support independent living facility. Then I started in community support supporting people to access community and working towards personal recovery goals. I encountered politics and less than great working environments with an unfortunate situation with an outspoken manager and their thoughts about peer workers.
myself having a lived experience of mental health decided that that workplace was no longer right for me.
I did set sol soon after and bounced around for a bit from smaller companies working within mental health support and community outreach.
i ended up landing my dream job with the organisation I had always pointed at and said that's the one, thems the ones I want to work with. I was hired as a mental health peer worker in 2020 my first full time job ever.
and there was a moment there where I actually believed I had it all down. There was a sliver of time I stole away that was everything I always thought it would be. Where I was doing it and handling it and was on top of all aspects of my world.
this didn't last unfortunately.
i have been out of work since November 2023 it was my choice they tried to move heaven and earth to keep me and I know it was anxiety and depression twisting and complicating everything for me but I saw no other way to move forward than to step away.
it wasn't one thing but the culmination of many.
my son who is now 15 was going through a hard time and is still only managing to just keep his head up out of it, well he was almost expelled and was acting up and acting out across the board. He has been explosive argumentative and physically violent with me and towards his mother too.
he has been hesitant to engage with supports and goes through periods of treatment resistance refusing to take his medication for his ADHD and he has ODD diagnosis too so that has been a whole thing in and of itself
He has since come round to the idea will slow insistant persistence on my part and as I said he is doing better
my health caught up to me at 33 years old. Due to stress at work and at home I wasn't sleeping insomnia beat me down hard I was getting 4 hours tops a night and still juggling a full time job and I child who was getting in trouble each and every day having blow ups at my house or his mums that would end with him just leaving after screaming swearing breaking things hurting himself or me in the process.
I had called the ambulance and police on him a few times as well I know from my own experience of my life and in my work that sometimes hospital is the right place to be.
anyways if it were just that one thing I'd probly have been ok but it was work stress too. I was a peer working in a youth program working with young people 16-25 things were good until we lost a fantastic manager and their replacement not only didn't know how to do our job but also couldnt do their own. All of a sudden things were changing and nothing for the best we had a small team just three of us and a manager and the amount of times we had to go over the managers head and advocate on behalf of the people we support against changes the manager made is ridiculous. Working with young people the focus needs to be on stability and support and there we so many decisions being made that I did not agree with.
the role of manager was beginning recruitment and I was encouraged to apply and I think now that maybe I should have but that's the road I didn't follow instead this temporary manager became our actual one and things got worse all of a sudden our roles were changing and we were having to do more and more of the managers job while juggling our own. My team were all peer workers.
oh and get this the company I worked with have allocated peer work specialist who you can go to when you need to talk about difficulties and the what not... that was this manager. So I didn't speak up when I should have.
my performance never slipped but it was harder and harder to get there and be present when at work. A sick day became a sick week and I just couldn't do it anymore. We trialled dropping my hours to part time.
I was still expected to deliver the exact amount of work the same amount of monthly reviews and the same amount of key worker tasks as I was doing 40 hours a week I was expected to do so in 20 hours a week now. Also my 'other half' the casual worker who was hired to pick up my slack when I wasn't there was never trained to do my job and the manager themselves said for this casual to ask me and that I could teach them... despite the fact that we never worked at the same time because they... were.. the other 20 hours of my role... ffs
but again if it were just this I'd be ok
but I wasn't sleeping either. Depression creeping in anxiety running high. Then I tore a tendon in my ankle... recovered 3 months of lower back pain... managed to get by... tore my rotator cuff... I was falling apart guys... as I was recovering from the shoulder I did the ankle again was in crutches which did the shoulder again.
i was falling apart
it was at this time that I started to just ache and be sore and still all the time. I developed a shake in my hands and random twitch muscle jerk. I was not doing well. I got high blood pressure and my kidney function started to lower.
stress? Lack of sleep? My mental health slipped. The physical just came to join in on the shit show. I would later learn that it was my lithium which I had been taking for 8 years at this point that I had built up a toxicity to and we started the process of getting off em. After stopping the medication the muscles stiffness and soreness disappeared as did the shakes and twitches. My kidneys got better
oh I almost forgot to mention the passing blood that was fun that's how bad the kidneys got.
and anyone who knows my story or pieces of it atleast know that I don't like effing with my meds and this is the most terrifying thing I've done in a long time hopping off the only medication that had ever helped me on the road to recovery.
I've been off them for almost 3 months now and upped my lamotrigine to compensate and so far no great catastrophe but the fear and caution is very real.
and of course if it were just this I'd be ok
my beautiful partner the solid rock who keeps me tethered to this mortal realm she was struggling too depression crept back into her world a response to the turmoil of my son and us having had 2 rental properties in 2 years sell out from under us forcing us to move
work, my son, moving twice, my physical health, my mental health, worrying about my partners mental well-being, struggling with alcohol again, increasing temptation to go back to using drugs.
everything was as they say coming up the very much opposite of Millhouse.
i wish I had paid more attention my first rodeo because it all crept up on me.
its the balancing act whilst juggling knives and I'm not a circus clown.
i couldn't maintain
I stepped away from my job I fricken loved feeling so bad about not being able to be present and deliver a level of service the people I supported deserved. Imposter syndrome I was not living what I was preaching. I did what I had to do but god dam did it feel like defeat.
full time was a good little experiment but I won't be going back to it anytime soon I need a work life balance to maintain self care and manage my mental health and also to be able to manage my son during the hard time he is still going through.
and after being out of work a few weeks I was called by a coworker and informed of the passing of one of my key people who I supported. This broke me. Absolutely destroyed me.
its been months since the funeral my coworkers came too and so did some of the young people from our program who were close to the departed.
it reminded me why I do what I do and why I love to do it to help support people in their own recovery journey and managing their mental health. It reminds me why I will be going back their one day just not today or any time soon.
burnout is real. Carer burnout and professional burn out.
i re engaged with my mental health supports and am trying so hard to get a hold of everything again
the paralysis of analysis
Overthinking
what is a real worry and what is anxiety
when will I be ready
are you ever ready
have I ever been ready
what can I do different better more
I'm honestly lost again
a hundred steps ahead of where I once was but 1000 times more confused. The tight rope is higher and I'm balancing on one leg as the world throws more knives at me demanding I juggle them.
I am trying
I am tired
I am worried
the little bit of hope and confidence is fleeting and I am still not very compassionate to myself.
i demand perfection of myself that I would never from any other I expect myself to be more be better be smarter than posible I do not allow myself to feel or falter or fail and I demolish myself for being human for struggling for being overwhelmed
how dare I have limitations how dare I be human. I wish it wasn't so I truly do and I'm working on it. To show mauled the kindness the care I show to other to give the understanding support and encouragement I show to other to myself.
to just not tear myself down and turn every hiccup into a negative self destructive feedback loop
im trying I'm trying I'm always fricken trying never stopping trying
always tired fed up and stressed
I am lost and confused and defeated and Recoiling
I am recovering and returning and fighting and still going
the world keeps spinning and we can't feel it when we're laying on our backs staring at the inside of our own eyelids screaming internally for a moment of peace and reprieve.
An old head on young shoulders maybe.
