Friday, April 8, 2022

Recovering From Burnout

A Walk in the Park, 10x10" mixed media on wood cradle panel. 

For the past few months, I have stepped back from many of my usual activities. I'm hardly online these days, I'm not doing any shows this year, I'm not painting nearly as much or as often, and I'm certainly not doing as much work to drive traffic to my website. 

It's been a few months now... I think I started to feel this crushing overwhelm around November or December last year, and just chalked it up to my usual Winter Blues. This time it was different though. I'd spend my visits with my mom obsessively cleaning her apartment instead of visiting (it needed it, so I wasn't wasting time, but maybe avoiding the reality that she wasn't managing well). I'd not answer my phone when my friends called. I was spending my work days with my headphones on so I wouldn't have to talk to people (ok, I'm still doing that, but in my defence, there are a few people in my space who spout utter nonsense that I just don't want to hear). I decided to cut myself from slack and just let myself be a slug for a few months. It's been a stressful few years, and the last thing I wanted was for my body to give out on me because I was pushing too hard. 

My day job is in what's called a "deadline driven" environment. Basically, when I get handed a job, some invisible timer starts ticking... the amount of time I have varies depending on the client and the contract, and doesn't change no matter how many changes the client makes. For instance, last week I spent the better part of a day adding labels to a large number of product images only to be told to remove them all the next day. And the following day I added revised labels. The deadline didn't change. I changed jobs a few years ago because I had gotten to the point of having panic attacks when I had to deal with particular people. Realizing that wasn't a sustainable state, I left a job I'd been at for close to 20 years to something related but considerably less stressful. And the covid hit. FML.

I'm in the office a few days a week, because some tasks require me to use these large photographic printers. Since I was there anyway, I got loaded up with tasks that were usually done by other people so that they could work from home. Add in a few people (also coming in to the office) who believe every bit of right-wing propaganda going around and feel it is their responsibility to convince me its truth, a couple sales people who believe my time is best spent running around the building hunting for something their client may or may not have sent, and a couple coworkers who believe the best way to make what they want a priority is to call me on Teams and harass me until I do it, and you've got my current circumstance. Hardly the low-key, no stress job I though I was getting. 

Add in the general stress of a parent with declining mobility, a child trying to launch a career in the worst economy since the depression, on top of a GOLBAL PANDEMIC, and that sense of crushing overwhelm became my life. 

So... I've spent the last few months watching way too much TV and trying to reframe my circumstances. There's not much I can do about my job, but the volume of work has slowed down enough that I can take breaks and maybe not work quite as hard as I have been. I have a co-worker who has been loaded up with the work of another who has moved on, so I've decided that I will no longer be trying to do the work of two people so that she can focus on her 2nd job. If she moves into that position they can hire someone to replace her, if she doesn't she can decide for herself how to handle the expectations. My tin-foil hat wearing co-worker can talk about whatever he likes, but I've made it pretty clear what I think of his opinions. One 15 minute conversation (some would call screaming match, but whatever), and the onslaught of emailed links from fox news "stories" to Tfucker Carlson videos have stopped. We're civil now, but controversial topics of conversation are now off the table. 

I've also gotten back into my studio. I've decided low pressure is best for right now, so I'm slowing working through a series of 10 small collage pieces, and finishing up a sketchbook project I started last fall. This work helps, because when I'm trying to solve a visual problem, I am so focused on what I'm doing that time just slips away. It's frustrating that its taken me a month to complete one small painting, but I'm trying to focus on the process and how it makes me feel, rather than the finished result.

And I've even started being more social. I spent an evening last week with a small group of artist friends... actually in person, talking about art/life/covid and how we're coping. I discovered I missed that sense of community. I will be going back online, though perhaps a bit less often than I was. I won't be doing the mindless doom-scrolling and getting into comment wars with my extended family, but focusing on art, friends and mental health. I'm sure I'll be making good use of the "mute" function. 

I'm feeling better, and I don't want to get dragged back into the mud. 

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