The argument for deep rest
It's been a week, eh? I know that I want and aim to write more often but unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. Some days I'm barely getting it all done. That's ok, I am human. I will post when I can.
My ego took a bruising this week, on top of the health things I dealt with. Had another rejection letter and sometimes they sting more than the other times. External circumstances dictate how well I recieved the news. If my basic needs are met and I'm doing ok, then the news isn't so bad.
But if I'm struggling, if things need paying, and the future finances looks uncertain…then the rejection letter stings harder and the negative thoughts anchor themselves in.
I deleted the letter immediately, then dug it out and saved it. The words were kind and I'm hopeful one day things will fall into place with furthering my career. It's neither horrible or embarrassing to have the work rejected. It's just a part of the journey. A Shitty part of it.
I'm grieving too, I'm feeling the loss of my mum and my aunts lately. I'm working through that with art. It's hard to draw while the tears are filling your eyes. At the same time it's so cathartic for the tears to fall on the illustrated page of anguish.
A comment made by the older generations is that "depression is a luxury only few can afford".
That retort has always confused and irked me. Let's break the feelings behind it all down.
Back in the day it was ideal to ignore how you felt, for the better good of the family, work unit or whatever you belonged to. Keep marching on they would say. Pull your adult panties up and carry on.
But the downside to that attitude is the eventual breakdown of that person. We are only now seeing the effects of the previous generations “bootstrap” mentality. As we age, the body just physically slows down. The mind stays sharp, and keeps thinking. It gets tired of thinking the deep thoughts. It learns that staying busy prevents deep thoughts.
Injuries, illnesses, catastrophic losses, and things like pandemic lockdown, force people to think.
The heavy exhaustion needs to be let out. By not acknowledging the issue, the person turns to ways to distract those feelings and thoughts. Maybe it leads them to heavier drinking, drugs, shopping or other addictions. Maybe they start breaking things and hitting people in a way to release their pent up exhaustion, that is masked as rage now.
The exhausted feelings need expressing some how, be it through tears or rage or bouts of insomnia.
When we force ourselves to march through continuously, the burn out is inevitable. It gets hidden behind other issues that result from the snowball effect into the break down.
By forcing yourself to keep working, to keep going at the pace you're accustomed to, the looming exhaustion demands that you cut corners. So the phone calls don't get made, important appointments are forgotten, and the emails pile up. Frequent sick days happen and the person doesn't realize their immune system is low as a result of the exhaustion. Now the person is frightened. The Exhaustion has caught up with them. Their body won't move out of bed. It's demanding they stay in bed and face their reality with no more distractions.
And so, when the mentality back then was to push yourself through and not acknowledge your pains, the people who GOT THE HELP for depression were seen as lazy. A fucking luxury really, to lay in bed day in and day out crying because you've been blessed with a brain that thinks instead of works on autopilot.
Content warning, the following is a descriptive paragraph of a loss of a parent. Feel free to skip the rest of the post.
There is a person walking around the store right now that woke up to a thunk sound in the night. They ran and saw their parent having a heart attack on the floor. They called 911 and performed CPR on their dying parent. Had to wash the blood off the floor after the ambulance left. Came to realise that the ambulance didn't put the alarms on when they left, because their mom is dead and therefore no rush to get to a hospital. And that person who dealt with all that traumatic life changing shit and loss, doesn't believe they need to talk about that to anyone. They're "fine".
But they suffer from serious anger issues and mysterious unexplained physical pains. Did you know that holding onto trauma and rage for long periods of time will cause your body to act out. You're literally holding onto poison. Let that shit go somehow.
It's a hyper specific story because I know someone like this. I know a few situations similar in vein. And a lot of people don't realise what others may be going through. Some people have a belief that if they acknowledge their depression/exhaustion in any way, they've somehow failed in life. That it's some kind of trap that makes you lazy.
No.
It makes you evaluate your life and realize how much you were giving away of yourself, your time, your energy. It makes you realise you cannot be everything to everyone. No one is perfect and the strive for perfectionism ends with disorders and diseases because you pushed yourself when you should have rested.
I wrote this as much for myself as anyone else who reads this. Change the stigma behind depression. Look at it as a need for Deep Rest. Many thanks to Jim Carrey for his discussion on deep rest. Look for it on YouTube. It changed how I view and work with myself. 💜
