Burnout Bambi

When the body says no to almost all things

OFFLINE BLING is a free newsletter of offline life musings and some personal essays. If you would like to become a paid subscriber, that's cool. If not, that's also cool. Thanks for your support and for taking the time to read.

Taken a week ago in our front yard, sporting my new pink bucket hat from my lovely MIL and Adidas pants, similar to the ones I had as a 12-year-old kid. The 90s are back, baby, and that makes me feel a few ways. I will write on that soon.

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Since my book Love Notes to Grievers was published, I haven’t written much. So, starting a newly themed newsletter, OFFLINE BLING (the title will make more sense as you read on), is my way of getting out of a writing rut.

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In the three years since my late ADHD diagnosis, a heightened self-awareness has roused every inch of my life. Going from being semi-unconscious of your neurodivergent traits to becoming acutely aware of them has resulted in a mid-size identity crisis, but a good one? I think other neurodivergent people like to call that the missing piece of their puzzle.

Combining that with the trauma/grief therapy over the past three years and the profound changes to our social landscape as a pandemic persists, the trauma and unprocessed grief people are experiencing collectively, how that has manifested into mass nervous system dysregulation, wildly delusional beliefs of some that once laid dormant now blatant, the fearful attachment cries sing loud, once my own and people playing grifter Whac-A-Mole as an act of community care.

It's a lot. It's been a lot for all of us.

I'm also accepting the defeat of my unhealthy relationship with social media and some people on it. I want to explore this more with you because I know I'm not alone in feeling that. Platform or not, social media apps act as faux community microcosms and, at times, make you forget that you have legs, a real live partner, or that being glued to your phone 24/7 isn't that healthy for a person of any age.

To add to all of that, I'm dealing with significant burnout resulting in all the ways I have overridden my body's signals that have kept me on a stress loop for so damn long. The fawn response is strong in this one. It's hard to admit because it sounds so silly; with the state of the world, it's hard not to belittle yourself with your woes, big and small. Yet the copious amounts of grief and loss in my life these past years spotlighted it. I can't ignore it anymore. My forty-year perimenopausal body was screaming for me to listen deeper; now I am.

Beach at East Sooke that I absolutely love

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Social media worsens this and my ADHD symptoms, especially impulse control. Nature improves it, authentic connections, making good food, picking up knitting again, playing records, ocean walks, and doing my daily somatic exercises. Being offline more often has increased my ability to feel my body, recognize when my body is going back into freeze and observe how it's affected. Being offline allows me to listen to my body's cues better.

I have made many beautiful connections on Instagram. I am grateful that I have the skill of finding the gems on there, some of whom are good friends and have been for many years. It's also the reason I got a book deal, that doesn't go unnoticed, but here are a few examples of the ways it grates on me:

1. Receiving direct messages from the people who follow you or acquaintances is totally okay. It comes with the territory of having a larger platform. But when the parasocial relationship gets weird and becomes a trauma dumping ground, or you receive a dissertation in your DMS about how wrong you are about something, nine times out of ten, they aren't looking for feedback or a conversation. I've tested this. 

2. Waking up to negative comments so off base that you find yourself angrily crafting something to say back in your head all day but never sending it because they have already "left the building." I call that the dump and run, similar to point 1 but public. Fielding people's projections for sport couldn't be less fun. If I hear someone try to use one more false dichotomy to make a point, I will scream.

3. Don't forget the lack of nuance or dehumanizing things happening daily. I haven't found a way to be there in nourishing or useful ways lately. I've gotten much better about it over the years, and yet it still grates, grates, grates.

4. Another, you are scrolling along and see some of humanity's worse and vile acts, dead children wrapped in white sheets and their mourning parents holding their lifeless bodies. Getting the word out via any means necessary is essential. Still, I also need more control over that so I can process these horrific images in a way that I can be with what I have just seen and take action in a way that is helpful and not grow desensitized to seeing this on my daily feed. Again, we need to witness this, and it's important not to turn away. To watch an entire population be starved to death is not what you expect to see on your supercomputer and then return to work as if nothing happened. Me witnessing it that way feels like a disservice to these children and their families. This doesn't make me a fragile person. Choosing the time of day to be with that kind of grief and still do my day job on the other side of the world when you don't have much capital in your life doesn't negate concern or care for the collective. Acting intentionally around this helps—the black-and-white thinkers on the left demand you show up precisely how they see fit. We need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. 

5. Next square: a perfectly curated living room and an influencer doing a "get ready with me." Next square: someone's plate of food. All this after seeing those dead or starving children and people in Gaza. There are many ways to stay informed and take action. Maybe people in your life are entirely checked out? You may be that person. Ask yourself why, and if you can reach them personally, open their hearts to collective suffering. If you are that person, ask yourself why you're shutting down. There are different ways to meet this moment. I get the rage and frustrations around people with influence and capital who are silent; I clock that, too; what seems more valuable to me is building relationships with people who align with your morals and ethics and finding ways to make an impact together. 

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My highly aware human self sees how being attached to my phone all the time causes soul micro-tears and births stress hits disguised as connection or that it's perfectly ok that I don't want to be yelled at in all CAPS by someone I don't know. Then, having to return to work within 30 minutes of seeing and experiencing all that. When you're recovering from burnout and other health issues, it's not the place I want to be. I don't want to feed my trauma responses; I want to heal them, and I don't want to be a landing strip for other people's trauma either, not on social media. I am aware of the pain of others more prominent than the sun, the cruelty of genocidal behaviour taken on as debate, Earth screaming her songs, waiting for us to listen, and heaps of unprocessed grief coming out in destructive ways. I am a writer who writes about grief, personal and collective. I am paying close attention to this moment.

We need to get better at holding many things at once. I am having health issues but not life-threatening ones (Well, let's see how my MRI goes), and innocent people in Gaza are being killed daily; both statements are factual and probably shouldn't be in the same sentence out of respect; one more urgent and categorically more devastating on a larger scale than the other. One doesn't cancel out the other. Both are true and need not be compared.

The same goes for the devastation of the people massacred on Oct 7th, the hostages taken, and their families. I sincerely feel for that kind of tragedy and trauma and for all the Jewish people who feel unsafe and overwhelmed with grief. Those who died on Oct 7th are deeply held; there isn't enough pause or break in a sentence for the immense trauma here, AND the treatment of Palestinians for decades is inconceivable and hard to fathom until you see it with your own eyes. It's not so complex after you hear the people of Palestine share their dehumanizing stories. There is power over another here. There is nuance within those statements, but that is what is lost over social media; it may be lost here, too.

I heard Rachel Bernstein, a cult expert and therapist, say on a podcast the other day say that scared people are scary people, and that hit deep. As a reflective person and a reflector by human design, I regularly sit with that and disappointment.

Many of us are grieving for what could be better, what should be given, and in that, I am thankful to those who can see us out of this kind of despair or at least teach us ways to live outside systems and fight against ideologies that are killing innocent people. Such people pit people against each other for political gain/power grabs. That looks like manipulating vulnerable people into culture wars they don't fully understand.

Imagine a world where people acknowledged their grief and trauma and minded their business. That means human rights would be a given. Maybe our trauma goblins wouldn't haunt generations to the point of destruction and create narcissism so profound and call that leadership. Maybe people would be a little less lonely. Let's call that God's work. Let's teach how destructive ideologies become beliefs that become systems that punish one group and praise another. Let's teach the gospel of feeling the sensations in our bodies and making choices from there. Let us see, we are no different. We are bodies, bones and breath.

My body says no to most things these days. Every no, my body thanks me. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more musings on healing, burnout chronicles and offline life.

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Ange asks CHATGPT:

The reasons why some people might not seem to care about the situation in Gaza can vary significantly from person to person and can be influenced by a multitude of factors:

1. Geographical Distance: Some individuals may feel disconnected from events that happen in distant places, especially if they have no personal or cultural ties to Gaza or the broader Middle East region.

2. Lack of Awareness: Some people may not be fully informed about the situation in Gaza due to limited exposure to news or misinformation, leading to a lack of understanding or concern.

3. Political Beliefs: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of which Gaza is a part, is highly politicized. Individuals with certain political ideologies or affiliations may downplay or ignore the suffering in Gaza due to their support for one side over the other.

4. Desensitization to Conflict: In a world where news of conflicts and humanitarian crises is constant, some individuals may become desensitized or fatigued by the ongoing violence and suffering in places like Gaza, leading to a sense of apathy.

5. Perceived Complexity: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply complex, with historical, religious, political, and territorial dimensions. Some individuals may feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation, leading them to disengage or avoid involvement.

6. Personal Priorities: People have diverse interests, concerns, and priorities in their lives. Some individuals may prioritize issues that directly affect them or their communities over global conflicts like the one in Gaza.

7. Bias or Prejudice: Unfortunately, biases or prejudices against certain groups or individuals can also play a role in why some people might not care about Gaza. This can include biases based on religion, ethnicity, or cultural background.

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