Dear Reader,
If you have been living life at full throttle but feel as though you are slowly running out of gas, this article is for you.
Because I have a story to tell that may make you reconsider how hard you keep pushing yourself, even when you’re overwhelmed and exhausted, particularly in midlife.
I learnt the hard way, a very debilitating hard way. And if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t be here writing this article asking you to slow down and listen.
That’s the funny thing about hindsight, you can’t have it when you need it most. But it can definitely help prevent you from falling into the same predicament once again.
The predicament in my case was, capacity won and tenacity didn’t!
For as long as I can remember, I wore overextending myself as a badge of honour.
Because when people would say to me “I don’t know how you do it” or “I can’t believe you’re still doing all this” I took that with pride and you could almost say that those comments made me push even further, harder, and for longer!
But why?
Why would I torture myself like that for very little or literally no return on investment?
My investment was time, energy, attention and pain. For what?
That is the question that I am still figuring out. Why would I keep pushing so hard and keep saying yes. Continuing to pile even more onto my plate?
Adding another ball to juggle while the 10 balls I already had up in the air were too much to handle and sustain.
When I was 48, in January 2023, I dropped every single one of those balls. Not by choice, but my body, my nervous system, my mind and my brain stopped still.
My world around me kept spinning just as fast as it ever did, but I was completely frozen.
It felt as though I was standing outside of my world looking in, and I wasn’t in it. I was entirely bedridden, unable to function or barely communicate.
The consequences of the situation were huge! I was forced into taking a long period of leave and eventually having to give up my job, my career, my financial independence and my identity along with it.
For someone who was so capable, the fixer, the mediator, the go-to person… I became an empty shell of the woman I once was. Totally incapable, confined to a permanent state of bed rest.
Some had to step up to the plate or take over, while some simply kept carrying on as though they didn’t really need me anyway.
Over the months and years that followed my initial collapse, I kept reliving it all in my mind, because I just couldn’t understand why this happened to me.
I kind of knew something wasn’t right for a long time, possibly even years.
The overwhelm, constant exhaustion, poor sleep, racing mind, increased anxiety, heart palpitations and irritability were all the beginning warning signs, the signs I had brushed aside.
I started getting sick a lot, everything that was going around at the time, I caught like a pro!
Then came the onset of migraines and really bad indigestion…
It seemed to me that my body was fighting against me! But as it turned out, I was fighting against my body.
Not long before everything fell apart, it felt as though I was struggling to keep my head above water. Something had to give… something had to change.
I couldn’t keep treading water like that forever.
You see, the thing was, I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t know what the hell was happening?
I always knew how to push through, find a way, and keep going.
But this was different, I simply didn’t have it in me to keep going.
And I suppose that is what scared me the most.
So why did this happen? Why couldn’t I keep going?
I was asking myself all these questions, over and over again.
It wasn’t until I started recovering a year or so later that old instincts had begun kicking in again.
I would try to do more, try taking on more, only to become frustrated beyond belief.
Because now I had another problem to deal with. One of the most debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS — post-exertional malaise (PEM).
I call them crashes, and that is exactly what they feel like.
I would have a good week or two and begin returning to where I had left off, and boom! Bedridden again for a week or so.
And this would happen time and time again, I would honestly sit there and break down and cry.
Feeling trapped in this new world of mine, I could either totally give up or try working it out.
My Doctor kept saying to me “You’ve got to learn to pace yourself, something you haven’t done very well in the past, only now, you really have to learn.”
That stuck with me… pace myself? What does that even mean!?
Google and YouTube became my thing, and I listened, watched and learnt as much as I could and one lady said something that also stuck with me, something along the lines of:
This comment is what made the penny drop for me.
I began to see that by trying to achieve so much, trying so hard to be everything to everyone else, and all the while treading water, that I had been borrowing energy from more than tomorrow…
And my body obviously had a huge debt to collect.
So, does this mean that it was never really about my capability?
And was it more about my capacity?
For many women, particularly high-performing women, we get used to the hustling way of life, it becomes our normal. Until things change, and then to keep up with yourself requires even more effort. So, we push harder.
But what I needed to know is what changed?
So back down another rabbit hole I went! And what I discovered was that changing capacity is something many women may recognise, particularly in midlife.
And that’s when I started to understand something.
My tenacity hadn’t changed. But my capacity had.
Three and a half years later, I am still learning to pace myself! Because I never want to have to live through that experience again.
I am getting better at it, and I am still recovering to some degree.
And knowing what I know now, I can’t help but think “Why did I do that to myself in the first place? Why was I so relentless in pushing so hard?”
Was it something expected of me, or something I felt I needed to prove?
Was it to prove my capability, strength, drive, independence, importance and value?
Or was it so I could feel needed, respected, proud or recognised?
To be completely honest with you, I think it was all of that, and the reasons behind all of this and the need to validate my self-worth is very personal. But I can categorically say that I have learned a lesson out of this.
And the way I am learning to live my life today looks very different. I only wish I had realised all of it much sooner.
There’s a lesson in other people’s stories, and that is why I wanted to write of mine.
Because if you can see some familiar patterns, behaviours or beliefs, in what I have written here, and if you too are struggling to tread water or are feeling overwhelmed, constantly fatigued, and beginning to feel bodily signals that something isn’t quite right, then I’d begin by asking yourself a few things:
Have you too become so accustomed to pushing through that you barely recognise you’re doing it anymore?
Are you afraid of disappointing others, or are you more afraid of disappointing yourself?
If you stepped back and looked at your life as a whole, how much are you actually carrying? And how much of that is yours to carry?
Have you considered whether the demands of your life still match the energy you have available?
What health circumstances may be affecting your daily capacity? And have you made any accommodations for these?
Are you continually borrowing energy from tomorrow just to get through today?
Has your capacity changed but your tenacity hasn’t?
Because my tenacity hadn’t changed, but my capacity had changed.
I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.
My wish for you from reading my story is that you may now become more aware much earlier than I did.
I once wore overextending myself as a badge of honour…
I now wear self-preservation as my armour.
Ang xx
