Admitting that I couldn’t cope with life at the moment was a long time coming. I’ve been wading through treacle for months. Facing the problem was definitely overdue but ….. It heaped failure on top of failure. For two and a half years, I had been told how ‘strong’ I was. How inspirational, yet all the while I knew that I was barely keeping it together. Cancer had stolen my daughter from me. I needed something to go right once in a while, just to prove that I had value. The little wins that had buoyed me during the difficult times dried up once C19 set in and finally, having put off the inevitable for weeks, I gave in and uttered the words to my counsellor; “I can’t cope with this crap any more”. Life was too much. Work was too much. There was too little energy left in me to continue the charade. I dropped the mask that I wear every day, I took off the body armour that I carry to protect myself. I was just too tired to keep going like this.

I listened to my counsellor, and asked for help from both the doctor and my friends. I needed them to not only take some of the load, but also to do some of the thinking for me. I said on numerous times “Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it”. I couldn’t think properly. I couldn’t work through the simplest problem. So many people said “If you need anything just ask”. I didn’t know what I needed, that was the problem. I couldn’t problem solve. I needed someone else to do that thinking for me.

So, I’ve taken some time off work, to give myself the time and space to rest in the short term. I knew that this was not going to be a quick fix, and that I had to do something radical. But that admission of being unable to cope has made me feel like a fraud. I wake up, feel vaguely okay and then want to get back to work. I should be able to sort this out, I always have been able to in the past, so why can’t I do it now? Then I feel relief. Relief that I can forget the work pressure for a while, ignore the budgets, the plans, the meetings. Then back I go again, feeling guilt that I’m not at work, that opportunities to generate income might be passing me by. Others appear to be coping, so why can’t I?

I know the answers of course. Massive trauma, exhaustion, stress, then pile Covid-19 on top of it. They’ve all combined to make a cruddy situation untenable. Patsy forwarded me a link to an NHS website talking about occupational burnout. I was showing all the symptoms and more. I don’t like this position of being down, unable to think. I want to get back to work; I’d rather have the pain of work and overload, than this feeling of being lost that I am nursing now. I keep telling myself that if I rest, I’ll gain the strength that I need to make a better recovery. It’s the means to an end. That to go back to work early is a mistake and will almost certainly lead to an even deeper dive at some point in the near future. Work was my last prop, the last anchor stopping me from drifting and I am finding it almost impossible to stay out of the work world. The feelings of failure are enormous, as bad as how it felt when I failed to keep Evie alive. There’s no logic in this at all and I know it. I can rationalize the problem easily enough, I just can’t believe it.

So this sick leave is Phase 1. Rest, recuperation and rebuild the coping strategies for dealing with Evie’s death that disappeared because of Covid-19. Relearn the trust I had in my instincts. Relearn the trust I had in my own judgement. Then think about Phase 2 for when I do get back to work. Things have to change. I can’t go straight back to that world as if nothing has changed, because if I do, I’ll be back here again in a couple of months. Maybe I’ll drop to 4 days a week, but the main thing is that others have to carry some of the load instead of standing on the sidelines throwing rocks. During the virus, I sent out 57 Covid-19 e-mail updates to work’s 14 trustees. That’s 798 potential replies even if it’s just ‘noted’. I got 11. I counted them. 11. I leave it to you to figure out what that feels like.

New rules start today. If you want me to care, then it has to be a two-way street.