as spring approaches
written on February 26, 2025If you’re familiar with my previous posts, you might notice that this reads more as disjoint thoughts strung together in a stream of consciousness rather than a cohesive post. That too is indicative of the level my brain is currently functioning at, so although it leaves more to be desired, I’m not sorry <3
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On Sunday, I shared a testimony on stage to the entire church. Today, I went to a cafe in the morning, had a picnic, was productive at work, and had a very good time at community group. But if you ask me my greatest accomplishment for the week? It’s that I ate yesterday.
It was nothing fancy. I took a frozen bagel, put it in the toaster, then ate it. No cream cheese, no toppings, no add-ons.
You see, having meals was such a given part of the day that it wasn’t even on the radar for things that I did today, but yesterday was a completely different story, a very different baseline. I took a sick day for mental health reasons, which I’ve been doing every month without fail, because it was just one of those days where I felt like I absolutely couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t brush my teeth, couldn’t sit in front of a computer, couldn’t hold a conversation, couldn’t articulate how I was doing, couldn’t hold enough thoughts in my mind to journey to the kitchen for a cup of water.
Sick time can be used when you are unable to work because of a physical or mental health issue.
It’s taken me multiple instances of forcing myself to roll out of bed just to lay on the ground for hours or staring at an open laptop for an hour before realizing that I’ve comprehended none of what’s displayed on the screen to acknowledge that I am unable to work, but since then I’ve become pretty good at recognizing when a day is going to look like this and allowing myself to rest and recover.
It’s the last week of February and my lows are still low, but I also have more bandwidth than just for survival. I can now listen to someone share about a difficult time and cry with them. I can participate in a conversation ranking spouses by silly standards and laugh along. I can come, be present, and engage. That… makes me happy.
Spring is coming!
Spring isn’t my favorite season, nor do I really think it’s special, but I look forward to it eagerly because it marks the end of my depressive season. I’m fairly confident that I’ll continue to be depressed into spring, but it’s a different flavor of depression, a “lighter” one, if you will. One that will feel like paint staining my life instead of a black hole consuming all of it. There’s a clear lesser evil.
When depressed, I want to quit everything. I don’t want to do anything and I’m convinced that I’m doing a terrible job/it won’t help/it doesn’t matter/whatever the related lie of hopelessness is. Because I’m aware of this though, it also takes a very high level of confidence for me to make a change of actually quitting something during this period of time.
From late October until now, I’ve been wrestling with questions and doubts about work. I don’t regret the way that I showed up (or didn’t) at work during the past four months, and God has used me through my ups and downs, inviting vulnerability and humbling me by showing that it is only through His power (not my ability) that His will is done. However, I’ve wrestled with the idea of taking a medical leave for mental health purposes (which was highly encouraged by my therapists) and struggled with the question of whether I can actually survive in a corporate setting when it feels like mental illness takes me out for a third of the year. In either case, I never got far enough in the dilemma to come to a concrete conclusion or decision.
Having looked into the leave process in detail, I’m confident that it would be very easy/straight forward for me to go on a medical leave to take yet another step back from life and take care of myself. However, the leave process is not intended to be a recurring solution.
I checked all the right boxes to be on medical leave for these past four difficult months, but
what if I check all those boxes for another four months in the next year? and the year after that? and after that? what happens then?
does my performance and image just continue to suffer as I take the “reasonably granted” leave?
I can’t just go on leave every time I have a mAjOr dEpReSsiVe ePiSoDe. or can I?
maybe that’s alright for immediate solutions, but what if I want to consider career longevity?
does being majorly depressed for a third of all time mean that I just have to accept that I will always be ‘lesser’ to the company than my coworkers that do not regularly manage debilitating mental illness?
will I become one of the many that were laid off after their performance suffered during their leave?
how am I supposed to survive in the corporate world?
do I even belong in the corporate world? (yes, because the Lord has called me here.)
To be honest, I haven’t found the right people to explore these questions with. I am incredibly blessed to have the job that I have now, both in all the normal benefit-related ways and also because it allows me to be wildly flexible with my productivity, covering for my non-productive days. And these unanswered questions still float around in my mind and I’ll occasionally entertain them, making no progress towards an answer yet unable to abandon the topic entirely because it will inevitably return.
It’s been a hard season. I’ve learned that I’m bad at showing my depression because I share in detail about the highs, briefly skim over the lows, and I don’t know how to share without a smile. But I’ve also noticed that people are learning how to read me better, even when those signs aren’t as blatantly obvious. They notice. It was also a good season (with no crises).
The Lord is doing exciting things and has invited me to walk with Him. So I’ll see you soon.
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