Where I'm Calling From

It’s hard for me to say exactly when it started happening, but I think it was around November of last year. Perhaps it was the cold, rainy winter we had here in LA. Or maybe it was the news of short sales, foreclosures, and job loss coming from friends in a seemingly endless stream. Then again, it could have been my total inability to get a single response or call back from my many job applications and phone calls. Whatever it was, last November, I started feeling “not myself.”

By nature, I am a very upbeat, positive person. Oh sure, I have my down times – everyone has. But when I started asking myself the question, “What’s the point of even trying?”  I knew something was really awry. Then I started noticing things. While on my runs, my head was no longer filled with creative thoughts, ideas and inspirations. There was nothing. I mean nothing. And I found myself completely disassociating, “waking up” to find myself 3 miles into my run with no memory of how I got there. The joy I normally associated with running was gone and it became a chore (and one I deeply resented) to lace up my shoes and get out into the cold gray.

For the past three years since being laid off from my job I have been working off and on for a wonderful small business. I have freedom because I work from home, but this has kept me (read: I allowed myself to become) quite isolated from friends and colleagues. I suspect this was tied up in the shame I have felt for no longer being able to support my family. My current job pays a fraction of what I used to make in the corporate world and this puts enormous pressure on my financial situation. We somehow manage to scrape by every month, but the pressure is enormous and constant. It’s scary.

By the end of January a reprieve came – one I have always taken in times of trouble. I received an additional line of responsibility in my job and I buried myself in my work to hide my emotional distress. I found myself rarely leaving the house. Day after day I confined myself behind my computer, getting up only to eat and go to the bathroom. Many days I didn’t bother to get dressed (my record for going without a shower currently stands at 5 days).

Soon, I began to develop physical symptoms. The hours on the computer started to get to me and the tendons in my right hand became enflamed and painful. My left leg (the one with the ITB injury) started to go numb and throw sharp pains at unexpected moments. By March I relinquished the money I had saved for Traxee development and advertising to the needs of my household. My shame and sense of failure increased.

Strangely, while I could barely look at Traxee without an overwhelming sense of sadness, my mental acuity and ability to learn the technical aspects of my work increased. The more focused on work I became, the more isolated I became – and yet, I kept on running, “black-outs” and all. In some ways I felt like my connection with running was a tether that was keeping me in this world and the disassociation was a strange kind of comfort – a way to stop the emotional distress and anxiety – if only for a little while. And then something changed.

I’m not really sure how it happened. Through my work I spend a lot of time in Twitter communities geared towards job seekers. I began connecting with people in these communities and slowly but surely began to realize that this experience of mine – this sense of losing my personal worth – is one that is currently being shared by (literally) millions of people.

These folks aren’t losers. Many of them are highly accomplished people whose principal mistake was thinking that their paycheck would always be there if they just kept their noses to the grindstone (mmm…sounds familiar). Those who best survive are those that stop taking it personally, who know who they are and what they’ve done and are able to love themselves even when the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be loving them back or want what they have to offer. The blessings of family, good friends, small personal triumphs – these are the things that make life sweet and worth living.  You can’t put a mortgage on that and its not in the bucket of the “everything else” for which there is MasterCard.

So what then, is left? Human connection.  And I realize that the worst possible thing anyone in personal crisis can do is to isolate herself in fear and shame. There is no harsher critic than our own internal voice left alone to talk to itself. 8 long months I have endured this self inflicted lashing and finally, I have gotten myself to the place where I can say, you know what? SHUT THE F*CK UP…YOU LIE!  Sorry about that – I just had to say it out loud.

Yesterday morning I had the best 5 miles I’ve had in a long time. I was fully present, my heart was wide open and the inspiration just flowed. Somewhere around my 3^rd mile I decided I would share this with all of you – a kind of affirmation of my own authenticity and a trust that you would understand. Perhaps there are even some of you out there feeling the same way and the telling of my experience might help in some small way.

I received an email yesterday afternoon from my favorite ex-boss. The organization has received a grand award for excellence and he emailed me to say that he wanted me to know because he felt that I had made a contribution to the company’s success. He may never know what that meant to me. And then, one of you reached out to me and simply asked if I was OK. Oh, that was so sweet and it meant so much more to me than you will ever know.

So yeah, I’m OK. In fact, I think I’m better than I have ever been…and now I just want to keep on running.

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