How do you plan for the future amidst uncertainty?
And what happens when it all just stops?
How do you plan for your future, and I mean even the near future, when you don’t know how you will be when those plans roll around? While this is true for health in general — shout-out to the spoonies in the chat — for this post I want to focus on mental health as it’s the part of health that influences my day-to-day the most besides fatigue. (The joke is on me, though: My physical health decided to humble me and caused us to push this post back a week so I could recover!)
Navigating dual modes
Many times I’ve described myself as somebody with two modes: being at 400% where I am able to make progress and find clarity and courage in whatever it may be — chores, projects, general life-ing — or at 5% where finding the drive to feed myself and make sure my dog’s needs are attended to may be the only things I can spend energy on that day while my thoughts spiral away.
The part of me that’s done extensive work in self-reflection knows to give myself grace on those 5% days and to pace myself on the 400% days so I don’t crash and burn out. And while that’s all great in theory and a personal guidepost, at the end of the day I’m a human with a mood disorder and it’s… well, it’s hard.
When my mental health is great, I’m able to make all these plans and I can think through them clearly so they’re well-paced for my average energy level. Sometimes those plans come and go during that state and I’m truly unstoppable; it makes me feel good to achieve goals and explore opportunities and feel like I’m really living life. When my mental health isn’t so great it’s like everything…
Stops.
The thick cloud
My ambition, my feelings of self-worth, and my life in general just stops. There’s a thick cloud that surrounds my brain that I must wade through to simply exist. It means I’m throwing away or pushing back those plans that fill me with life, with passion, and it hurts. I find myself at a vulnerable state where all the things that make me feel better are suddenly impossible to reach.
It means even when I’m feeling good and on top of the world, it weighs on my mental health to know that a shift is always possible. And to be clear, I have treatment that’s working for me but mental illness is never cured even though it can be managed and symptoms can be reduced. Speaking from my experience of bipolar disorder, there can be factors that trigger that shift but it can also be random, and either way the feeling is all-consuming. Meaning that unlike when I’m in those highs, when I’m in those lows I can’t see the brighter days ahead, the full picture of who I am as a person, or what I’ve accomplished. I can’t see that those good days will come back around.
But then those good days do come back around.
It can take me a few days — sometimes weeks — to slough off the clouds and the heavy blanket of ick that covers me as the cycle shifts once again, but I know it will. And that’s why I continue to fight for my mental well-being when I can, why I still make those plans and dream big — so I can remember how good life feels when I feel nothing at all.
This has been the latest question. I am taking a break from my career to recover. Then I hope to set a new path of work-life balance. Dealing with Autistic burnout, hypermobility and POTS as well as ADHD has now in my late 30's all come to a standstill. Think it's the first time I am really putting my health first. It's hard though, you want to do more and even asked to do more when you know you literally have a limited number of spoons. My brain is really slow at the moment and both my physical and mental fatigue is real and deeper then I have ever experienced. The Autistic diagnosis only recently came about, too.