Goodbye, at least for now… (or, “Why I can’t answer your question right now, no matter how small it is.”)

Since I tend to bury the lede, I’ll get right to the point with the big news:

I am taking a year off.

This post and announcement has been a long time in the making. I’ve avoided having to do it every way I knew how. As I write this, my blood pressure is kicking in with the whoosh-whoosh sound in my ears. My inboxes are overflowing. My voicemail is completely full. My eye is twitching, though I admit it’s been in a constant twitch for the last six months. I know I should be ashamed to admit this, but it’s true… I broke out the alcohol before noon from a stash that has gotten dusty because I rarely drink. I am halfway into a margarita right now; but in my defense, that’s how this post finally got around to getting started.

At the same time, I feel a sense of incredible liberation in pounding these words out on my keyboard and releasing them to the universe. I just wish I had done it sooner. 

I tried. Many times. Right here on this blog. But none of those times really sunk in for people reading it. So, it’s time to get drastic and set some very clear boundaries.

So this is the deal:

As of June 1st, I will be going into my own version of a witness protection program. I am unplugging as much as possible from all the things that tethered me and kept me from living life the way it was meant to be lived.

I won’t be spending all day every day attached to a computer or a smart phone; I won’t be answering emails unless I initiated one to begin with; I won’t be answering questions via Social Media – in fact, I won’t be ON social media the way I have been for all these years; I won’t be answering the phone, either, but I tend to let it go to voicemail anyway. Gone are the days of catering to other people outside of those within my own four walls. 

The only place you will likely find me is here, on this blog. You see, I’ll be documenting my journey along the way. (At least that’s the plan!)

Then, on June 1, 2015, I will be back. With any luck, I will be rested, renewed and refreshed enough to deal with others and their needs. With any luck, I’ll be caught up by that time in taking care of my own needs. With any luck, I won’t be an alcoholic this time next year.

That’s the short-and-sweet take-home info you need to know. If you are interested in the blathering back story or want answers to the questions running through your head, read on…

Why are you taking a year off?

First of all, I am coming up on my 10th year of being a caregiver, writer and advocate. TEN YEARS!

This responsibility has been an incredible honor. It changed my life in ways I never could have imagined. I gave everything I had to fulfill my duties and saw many ups and downs along the way. I found strength and inspiration in me I never knew I had. Through it all I met some incredible people along the way. For that, I am truly blessed.

It is a job I’ve loved doing so much that I did it too well, too much, and for too long.

Now I am burned the fuck out. 

I spend each day responding to a torrent of incoming emails, tweets, PM’s, tags, comments, phone calls, texts and SOS signals. I research, bookmark, file, link, convert and upload data. I provide answers to people about complex issues. Sometimes I answer the same questions multiple times a day. I share my hard truths, being as transparent as I one can possibly be. I lay it all out in hopes it will help someone, anyone. Even if it is just one person. I’ve hit my mark over and over again, but it’s not sustainable in any way.

This is all done in between my regular responsibilities of taking care of my husband and family. I do this all day long, people. All day long. Then, at night, when my family is asleep and I feel like I’ve finally caught up for the day (or not) a new torrent of incoming messages come in for the late-night crowd. I can’t find the time to write anything thoughtful for more than 30 seconds at a stretch …so my blog and my book writing are done in short spurts. The quality and frequency of my writing has declined over time. I feel like I am stealing time in order to write or find time for my own needs.

I enjoyed doing these things or I wouldn’t have done them to begin with. I love engaging others in meaningful conversations online. I love encouraging people when they are down. I love to quip, get snarky and otherwise laugh. I love seeing someone have a ‘lightbulb’ moment when I tell them how I overcame my own obstacles. I love teaching people the things I know. The feedback I get about the things I write has been overwhelmingly positive.

But the lifestyle I live has its drawbacks. I don’t get enough sleep, ever. I don’t have any hobbies. I’m always at work, which has always been done enthusiastically and for free. I am vetting people’s stories over and over again, day in and day out. I find hustlers along the way. I get angry and discouraged as a result. Then someone comes along with a real need and I start the process all over again. As a result, my own to-do list grows exponentially to the point of having a backlog dating back five years. Other than hanging out with my family (which has decreased in frequency over time), it’s pretty much all I do — sit at a computer, immersing myself in the news cycle, taking the occasional hour out to read long clinical studies or oversight committee reports. I pass along the information I find as I move about the internet. I’m never disconnected.

And it’s doing something to my brain. 

I dream and think in status posts now. I get twitchy when I am away from my phone for any length of time. I am afraid that I am missing important breaking news feeds if I take a moment to shave my legs. I often catch myself taking my phone to the bathroom in case I get bored. Let’s face it… I know I am not the only one posting on Facebook in the bathroom. I used to criticize those kind of people, but now I turned into one of them. That’s worse than realizing you’ve become your own mother!

Since I live in a remote area and rely on the internet to reach the outside world, slowly …over time, the outside world became more important than my real world. Now I have to figure out where I fit into my own real world.

So how did this happen?

When Dan was injured in 2004, there were NO programs out there to help us. We lived 5 to a tiny room with two double beds. I was washing our clothes in the bathtub by hand with free hotel shampoos. That was about the only ‘free’ thing I could get my hands on to defray the costs of being Dan’s caregiver. Some days I was lucky to get a box of Girl Scout cookies that were donated so I could have something to eat for dinner. I left my job to care for him and nearly went bankrupt. I didn’t get paid a dime for my three years at Walter Reed. I also didn’t get reimbursed for the expenses I incurred to take on that huge responsibility.

Any time I found a solution to our own problems, I passed it along. When other people hurt, I hurt. I would lay awake at night brainstorming ways I could have a better impact. I started getting creative and solving a whole lot of problems. I became the go-to person for anything and everything.

However, as the resources increased, an interesting thing happened… the demand didn’t decrease. In fact, around the 2010-2011 mark, I noticed a shift in our community. We had TOO MANY resources, which meant people started acting entitled. Others got greedy. Many became demanding.

Nowadays, there’s so much free stuff out there – homes, cars, vacations, toys, etc. that one could quite literally have every unmet need addressed within a short period of time. All it takes is a computer and a simple Google search and you are well on your way to solving your problems.

But people didn’t want to solve their own problems. They wanted ME to solve their problems, and got very creative in convincing me to do the work for them. And those that I helped would hoard the information I gave them instead of paying it forward. They were afraid that someone else would get what they wanted or didn’t yet have, and it then became a competition.

No one was in it for the greater good, it seemed. Everyone was in it for themselves.

This made me angry, bitter and resentful. The very people I had been dedicating my life to helping were the very people I was screaming at to back the fuck up and get some perspective.

I feel bad about that. There are waves of new people coming into the wounded warrior community full of needs and preventable crises. They are going through the same process of discovery I went through. I have tried to provide them with perspective and context, insofar as I’m able, but lately I just feel like yelling at them to get off my lawn. That is unfair to them and unflattering to me. I don’t want to become a bitter person.

I need some time away from all of it: from the caregiver and wounded warrior community, social media, the news cycle, the endless battle for a livable future. I need to clear my head.

So I’m going to. As of the first of June, I’m going offline for all things relating to other people and their problems. No more news or VA doom or memes for me for a while.

Also, just as a bonus motivation, I will be turning 45 this year. I’m ready for my mid-life crisis, but I don’t want to have an affair or buy a sports car. So why not this?

What made you snap?

A lot of things, really. It happened over time. In 2012 I started to realize that I was burned out. Thinking it was all on me, I read a gazillion self-help books. I wrote a few series on my blog about how I was revamping my life. I tried to multi-task better. I tried to manage my time better. Every little bit of time I carved out got eaten up by someone else, somewhere, for some important-to-them reason. I begged. I screamed. I cried. I figured I just needed to embrace the suck and find smarter ways to keep up with the demand. I hired an assistant with money I didn’t have to spare, and after a year my situation was only more complex as a result.

Then in 2013 I created boundaries, which people creatively bypassed. Like the time I said I was taking my first-ever weekend off and I would resume my ‘duties’ of helping on the following Monday. Would you believe that people hunted down my daughter-in-law that weekend to ask her to ask me questions? Or how about the time my father passed away, and in the course of announcing I was taking time off to grieve and be with my family when they needed me the most… I had to deactivate my Facebook account because people had no respect for my needs. What really got me was this: within two minutes of coming back online, prefacing my post with a “I am only here to wish you a nice holiday” post — someone demanded that I text them and call them because they had a problem. It was past midnight their time; yet, somehow it was my job to help them instead of enjoying my family and my holiday.

And that was the beginning of the end.

I told people I am not a suicide prevention specialist. I told people I was not a bereavement counselor. I felt like an asshole for turning people away. But I had to.

And people got angry with me.

A fascinating thing happened. The less I made myself available, the more demanding people became.

And then I realized *I* created this problem. I had conditioned people to expect me at a moment’s notice, because that’s how I responded up to that point. I conditioned people to expect turn-by-turn instructions instead of asking for a compass instead. I was enabling the very people that needed to learn how to do things on their own. If they truly wanted the help, they’d be willing to do the work necessary to get where they wanted to be.

Because *I* was where they wanted to be.

Despite all the demands on me and my time, I was doing a damn good job of having (and keeping) a strong marriage. I had made incredible progress with Dan’s care and navigating the VA system. I was finally getting the support services he needed. My kids were thriving. I lived in the most heavenly place on earth. Our finances were stable. I had a great home, a great community, great friends… on the surface I had it all.

And people want that. They want to know how to get that. They want to know how to keep that.

And I was spending my time guiding each person individually to help them get to that place. But this meant I was constantly stuck in THEIR place, reliving my past instead of looking toward my own future.

One day I was lamenting with a friend about how hungry I was to get to the next level of my life, to start living it again. I said:

Have you ever wondered what would happen or what it would be like to turn your back on ALL of it (outside of family) and left anything and everything behind that caused any form of stress… and just started living our damn lives for a change?

She could definitely relate. I went on to say:

I want to know what bored feels like. I can almost taste it if I try hard enough to imagine what it would be like.

I want to know what it would feel like to look at Dan over breakfast and say “So, what are we going to do today?” and then just go do it.

I want to get lost in a book in a comfy chair on a rainy day.

I want to write. GOD I want to write.

I want to ride the horses that we feed.

I want to have people over for dinner. And not feel stressed about how lasagna is going to blow the budget.

I want to go to the doctor for a change.

And get on the floor and play with Larraine without feeling rushed to get to the next thing on my list.

I guess I want too many things. LOL!

I think it’s not so much what I want but how I want to feel. I need peace and clarity of where my life should go because I can’t stay in this place another damn day. I am losing “me” somewhere in this chaos.