No Rest for the Wicked

I'm not ashamed of the fact that I hit a lot of milestones early in my life. I met my husband when I was seventeen and married him when I was nineteen. I was twenty when I miscarried a baby at eight weeks. That happened on a Sunday. I saw my doctor the following Monday morning. He performed an ultrasound , confirmed the absence of a heartbeat, and told me miscarriages are really very common and I was young. He cleared me to return to work the next day, and so I did. I worked at McDonald's at the time, for $4.30 an hour, and I had already violated the rules by calling in sick the day of the shift in order to go see the doctor. I couldn't dare take the next day off. Any mourning I'd be inclined to do would have to wait. Interestingly enough, the doctor never even mentioned my mental health, never pointed me in the direction of any resources for how to process what had happened to me, and at the time, the internet wasn't yet an alternative for information and support communities. So I just worked through it by working through it.

A few years later, I was working as a licensed sales assistant to an insurance agent when my family experienced a horrific tragedy; a newborn niece succumbed to SIDS at nineteen days old. I was twenty-two, and my son was sixteen months old at the time. My brother-in-law and his family lived three hours north of us, so when we got the call that the baby had been hospitalized and we weren't sure yet what the outcome would be, we decided we needed to be there to support them. This involved me taking a Thursday and potentially Friday off with short notice, and my employer seemed to understand but was not extremely supportive. They had a daughter who was getting married and the emergency in my family was most certainly an inconvenience.

On one of those inconvenient days off, I watched from outside of a pediatric ICU room as my sister-in-law held her baby in her arms while a nurse disconnected all of the machines that provided life support.

I don't remember the exact details, but I was in the office on Monday, working as if life were normal and informing my employer that the funeral was going to be that week. I would again need a couple of days off. I will never forget the reaction I received from him and his wife, who worked in the office with us as well.

It's important to note that these people had become like parents to me at that time in my life; I'd been grateful for the opportunity to earn more ($4.75 an hour) and after receiving my licenses to sell insurance, the fact that I earned an extra $5 for auto policies and $10 for home policies over a base number each month made me feel like a true young professional. This couple had steered me to church with my husband and new baby and working for them felt like a privilege.

So they fell extremely hard and a long way down from the pedestal I had them on when they expressed that an infant niece was not "immediate family" and told me that, and I do accurately quote: "In life, people will die and you will have to learn how to deal with it."

Learn, I did.

They allowed me the time off to go to the funeral. At the end of the very same week, the agent called me into his office for my annual review. I was not going to be entitled to a raise that year because I'd let my personal life come before my job. I remember vividly the heat swelling in my cheeks, the tears from the stress of the moment cascading down my face and onto my hands which were shaking uncontrollably. I wasn't mad at him... no. I was mad at myself for letting him down. For being less than. For not being strong enough. For not knowing how to be in two places at once. He had also taken that opportunity to point out that I had been dressing less than professionally- after having my son, I'd gotten the Depo Provera shot and after the second dose, woke up one day twenty pounds heavier. I had reverted to wearing some of my maternity clothes until I could get the weight off or afford to go shopping.

After his harsh review, I applied for a credit card and went in to debt in order to look more professional. In fact, from the Monday following that raise review, I wore dress suits and killer heels practically every day of my professional life. (Until COVID, of course.)

Nevermind the mental health, the grief of heavy times, the family pulling together to get through an unspeakable loss. Come back to work, and do it dressed up.

I internalized this criticism so heavily that three years later, when my daughter was born, I did not take a single day of maternity leave. By this time, I had moved on from employment within an agency and had my own with a different company. I was now twenty-five and an entrepreneur. In my mind, that meant no days off. Not really, not ever.

My daughter was born on a Friday, a week earlier than her due date. I was supposed to be at a meeting at 8:30 am that day and she was born at 5:15. I called the manager around 7 am to let him know I wouldn't be making it... and thinking back I was totally planning on being there, at 39 weeks pregnant. It didn't occur to me to not show up, unless, of course, she showed up.

I brought her home with the increased pressure of making sure I still made money- my husband had two jobs at the time and I was just coming to the end of a training allowance with the company I worked for, so residual and new commissions would be my only income. I had to make sure we could pay the medical bills from her birth along with all our other obligations. So, for the first three months of her life, I decided the prudent thing to do was take back my old gig at McDonald's a few nights a week so I could make sure I was bringing in at least a couple hundred dollars a paycheck.

I took closing shifts, so I'd go in around 4PM, and when it was time for my twenty minute break, I'd go sit in my car and pump breastmilk. And cry.

Fast forward what seems like a million years...

That brand new baby girl is about to start college, and I'm examining my mental health. I need a day to breathe, a day to just feel things and process things and maybe just .... be. And to be with her.

I don't know what the balance is between ambitious work ethic and mental health. I don't know how people take mental health days and what they do with them, because any time I've tried, I feel intense anxiety that people and things are waiting on me and I can't let them down. I work on vacation. I tell myself that the good and bad of being your own boss is that I have control over my time, and I do get to do a lot of fun things. But I never quite shut down, I never close the door on work and walk away.

I do know that when I was young, I could have benefitted by being allowed breathe, to mourn, to be with my family for important moments without guilt. I do know that I've tried to instill a different paradigm in my children, one that doesn't overly-emphasize the selfishness of self-care, but at the same time gives them the latitude to understand that life isn't about work above all else.