Stressed...overwhelmed...anxious... No. FRIED.

Once again I find myself in the somewhat...okay, TOTALLY...embarrassing position of having to write, "It's been a long time since I've written last..."

I look back on the last seven months and wonder how the heck I am still even somewhat coherent, let alone vertical.

Not that I mean to be whiny and annoying or anything, but recently when I went to breakfast with one of my best friends, Annie, here in Maine, she listened to my update, shook her head, and said, "You need to write a book. I can't believe you're even still able to stand up after all you've been through!"

It does seem like a lot. At least to me it does.

Let's see if I can do a short list. Just for kicks and giggles.

1) Six moves in 2 years, 7 months:
   a) Our house in Maine to my sister's in California (everything we own goes to storage)
   b) My sister's to my in-laws' summer house (stuff still in storage)
   c) My in-laws' summer house to a one-month apartment (still in storage)
   d) Apartment to our California house (movers arrive, we get our stuff back after 6 months)
   e) Our California house to my in-laws' condo in Maine (everything goes back into storage, 7 months)
   f) My in-laws' condo back to our house in Maine (and finally everything out of storage...but not out of boxes...yet...)

2) Unemployment despite 21 months of active job hunting.

3) Four bouts of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)

4) Plantar Fasciitis and Posterior Tibial Tendonitis at the same time

5) Repeated episodes of subacute rhinosinusitis (subacute because it lasted less than 5 weeks each time) requiring multiple (sometimes concurrent) doses of "nuclear-grade antibiotics" over several months

6) A job where my boss' final evaluation stated, in part, "I always worried about her ability to teach reading" (yet she only observed me one time for one hour...in Februrary) and "She failed to develop a rapport with her class" (the same class that gave me flowers during the graduation and half of whom cried on the last day, saying it was the "best year ever!"). This is the same person who, before I was even done with the paperwork on the last day, tracked me down and took my keys and name tag so that the latter could be destroyed. Her comment, "Don't mean to hand you your hat and say what's your hurry..." Thank heavens I planned to be done that very day and to walk out and never return...because I wouldn't have been able to in any case.
 
[...Okay can you tell I'm still stinging from that one? I console myself with the fact that multiple staff and teachers at that school's reaction to my frustration was, "Whoever said she was fair" and "Oh don't worry, she hates everyone." Despite this, I am still reminding myself to B-R-E-A-T-H-E on a daily basis. Annie said it best: "I hate it when people are unjust!"]

7) A washer that conked out and didn't work for four months, starting in March, which forced my husband and myself to go to the aforementioned condo to do our laundry--or to the laundromat. (More on that later!)

8) Weight gain.

9) The untimely and shocking death of my father-in-law, Jerry, after just 26 DAYS of Pancreatic Cancer.

10) A husband who was beyond stressed after over two years of total financial insecurity...he's a good hubby and dad and takes himself very seriously when it comes to supporting his family.

11) Poor food choices due to the above.

12) A daughter diagnosed with anxiety after literally 14 months of trying to get her the help she needed...the first 8 were in California, where our family doctor told her, "You just need to behave yourself" and sent us home. The good news: no more meltdowns. The bad news: a gallon of paint all over the condo garage. I will spare you the details.

13) Insomnia, depression, anxiety, burnout.

14) Random anxiety attacks striking at 3 a.m. when it seems that life is finally starting to settle down. By the way...did you know that anxiety attacks exactly mirror heart attacks? And that when they hit, it can take you and hour or two to come down off them, which means you won't sleep any more that night? And that when you have one of those, and you tell your doctor, they will stick you on anxiety meds that knock you out (at least you can sleep!) and then run EKGs and blood tests to make sure it really WASN'T a heart attack? And that as soon as you think, "Whew, I won't ever have another one of those, the stress is gone!", you will have another one, precisely because of that release of tension? Yeah. That was me two nights ago.

OK. So apparently I also have a bit of an anger issue going on here...!

Anyway, so that's what life has been like these past months.

But what does it all mean?

Well, when you get to the stage of stress and anxiety that I was in, and then marinate around in that for a prolonged period of time, what happens is that you achieve burnout.

It's no small achievement, either. Burnout, or being "Fried", is essentially the stage in which one has lost hope. Nothing feels like it matters any more. Some people call it depression, but depression is really a clinical disease, and burnout is something different.

Dr. Barnet Meltzer, author of the book Food Swings: Make the Life-Changing Connection Between the Foods you Eat and your Emotional Health and Well-Being, states that there are three stages of burnout. They are as follows:

First Degree: A person in what he calls "first-degree burnout" is inconsistent. Sometimes you feel fine, other times you suffer from lethargy, mood-wings, and so on. A person in first-degree burnout may be able to partially manage things; for example, you might start the day thinking you'll be OK, and you actually feel like you have some energy and ambition. However, as the day progresses, you fall apart, make poor choices, and lose your energy to deal with your obligations. You can suffer mild weight gain (10-20 pounds).

Second Degree: If it is not treated, first-degree burnout becomes more pronounced. In this stage, you're not only physically tired, you're psychologically tired as well. Overload has made it harder to concentrate, you get more irritable, and and you start to notice memory losses, insomnia, stomach troubles, apathy, and even sexual problems. Even though you can drag yourself through the day and manage to keep moving, it takes a lot of effort. This can cause you to start depending on alcohol, sugar, caffeine and so forth simply in order to feel like you're surviving. Dr. Meltzer states that at this point, you're going to start suffering "relatively minor infections" such as sore throats and so forth, and that these will be "hard to shake". Weight gain is "moderate"--20-50 pounds (yikes!).

Third-degree: Dr. Meltzer calls this "one step from the bottom of the staircase", and he adds simply, "it hurts." In that stage, you're exhausted, have feelings of extremely high stress levels, low energy, severe weight gain (50+ pounds), depression, anxiety, mood swings, memory loss, insomnia, negativity, illness (blood pressure, bronchitis, infections, arthritis, and more), and sexual dysfunction.

I know, you probably think, "How the heck do you come back from all of that?" That's what I was wondering. And that's why I started to read his book. But the first thing I did, which you can probably guess from the title of his book, was to start making better food choices.

The day I left that work environment for the last time, it felt like bricks had been taken off me. Not just that a weight had lifted--it was gone entirely. That actually inspired me to make a radical change in our eating habits. We haven't eaten out at restaurants or fast-food since--not even when we took a day trip. We're eating whole, healthy, real foods, including lots of fresh, organic vegetables and fruits. We're getting our milk, meat, and eggs from pastured animals. We're buying as much as possible that is local and organic or no-spray (since not everyone can afford the cost of organic certification). We've cut out processed, boxed, or bagged foods. If what is on the label of a box, bag or can isn't something I would have in the kitchen, I'm not buying it...after all, do you really want to have some chrysoine resorcinol with your dinner? What about ethyl para-hydroxybenzoate, or some good old-fashioned formaldehyde?

I've also made more of an effort to stretch and walk, especially since the plantar fasciitis kicked up again when Kent went to California after his father's diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. Yep--the car did it to me again. What had turned into a one-week trip to help his Mom and Dad after the diagnosis turned into a month away from home. Kent flew home and fought with his father's insurance company and the medical establishment in his parents' hometown. He did this all while watching his formerly robust, healthy and fit father fail completely, passing away just 26 short days after his diagnosis. Meanwhile, I stayed home with our girls, and all that driving with our stick-shift Honda brought on a recurrence of the PF. I know what to do to beat it back into submission, Dr. Noah taught me that in physical therapy, and I will share his ideas in another post.

So good food choices, more walking and stretching, a release of tension from a difficult work environment, and suddenly I'm feeling incredibly better. In fact, it took only two more days of using anti-anxiety meds to be able to go to sleep...after that, I relied on melatonin for an additional two, but I've managed to remove both of them by this point. No more sleep issues. I'm not waking hourly, nor am I having difficulty falling asleep to begin with.

I've gone from 2nd-degree (truthfully, I was one foot into third-degree!) down to 1st degree or less. I won't kid you--there are days I can't handle some things. For example, it took me a week AFTER I had started to feel and eat better to finally make myself call someone about that aforementioned washing machine that had broken down in March. Yes, March. I had so little ability to cope that it took me four months of inactivity, PLUS finally finishing out my one-year teaching contract, to be able to even think of dealing with that problem!

I promised you the story earlier (in item #7 of my "kicks and giggles" list up above), so here it is:

Originally, when the washer first inexplicably stopped working, we had called a local applicance repairman, thinking local = faster. The guy came out, literally only looked at the washer (meaning he didn't actually try to do anything to it), and then pronounced that, since it was lighting up but not doing anything (including filling with water), clearly we needed a new computer part. That two-minute diagnosis cost me $79, and the computer part would be another $400. He offered to order it on the spot, and said he'd even take the $79 off the next service.

I got suspicious. I asked him to price the part and call me...then I refused the service when he did call back with a reaffirmation of $400. I couldn't do more than fuss, though, due to the stress levels at that point (that was when Kent went to California). Eventually, during April break, I summoned the energy to look it up online. It was then I found a blog post from a woman who had the same thing happen to her, but it was a fairly new refrigerator. Her solution was to call an authorized repairman and get a second opinion. He found the real problem, solved it for $50, and she was saved hundreds. I decided I needed to do the same thing...but again, my resolve failed, and I couldn't drag myself away from the couch to actually do it.

That's how bad I was.

Finally, a week after leaving school, during which time my body and mind started to heal and recover a little, I called the company (Frigidaire) and got the name of our authorized repairman. I then called the repairman, and he came today.

He looked at the washer, poked a few buttons, leaned back, but his hand on his chin and thought for a moment, then suddenly leaned forward and pushed the "options" and "settings" buttons simultaneously. He held them for about four seconds, and then all the lights flashed once. He poked the "Start" button, and the washer started immediately.

I am so not kidding you. He apologized for having to charge me for the service call, but I told him that it was $90 well-spent. I said, "You just saved me a $400 computer part, or the cost of a new washing machine!"

All that stress, all those trips to the condo to wash laundry, the time and money and gas spent taking it to a laundromat, and the initial $79 misdiagnosis (or intentional misdiagnosis?) was solved by one man who knew what he was doing...and all it took to get him there was the energy on my part to look up and call two separate phone numbers and talk to two different people.

THAT, my friends, is exactly what burnout does to a person.

I have a total newfound appreciation for what people in the throes of depression, anxiety, and burnout go through. It's absolutely paralyzing. I would not have believed it, had I not gone through it myself. Dr. Meltzer makes the point that in this country in particular, we're expected to buck up, deal with it, get on with our lives, stop yer whining, and so on. We look at it as a badge of shame if we can't snap out of it, and look down on others as somehow less if they can't, either.

Well let me tell you, I had the energy, the motivation, the fitness, and the health. I could run 20 miles and still wish I had time for more. I had incredible cholesterol and triglyceride levels. My blood pressure was wonderful, my lung functions beautiful, and I had all the motivation in the world. And I lost it. It started with illness, segued into injury, backslid into stress, and then bottomed out with a toxic work environment. And I am not as unfit and fat as I was before...but I'm pretty damn close.

The point of this is that no matter how much you want to change, no matter how upset you are with yourself, it boils down to this idea: the human body can only do so much, and it can only bounce back so often before it starts to get a little fragile, and even start to break. Dr. Meltzer blames oxidative stress and what he calls "stressition" (as opposed to nutrition) from poor food choices, but those of course can also come from the stress itself. It's a vicious cycle, but when you're in it, it's so much easier to go after the convenient choices, most of which (unfortunately) are anything but healthy OR whole. And once you do that...well, unless you can pull out of it, you're looking at a flat spin into rock bottom.

So what's to stop it from happening again? I guess for me, it means holding myself to a higher standard for food, as a first line of defense. Not eating junk food (which is, if you think about it, truly "garbage" food) is a huge help. I discovered that a McDonald's $1 double cheeseburger may taste good--I swear they put addictive substances in those darn things--but the salt and fat in them make me feel bloated and gross the whole next day. It does take time to make a salad or some poached eggs with avocado, sprouts, and Ezekiel bread toast (my latest favorite), but actually it takes more time getting in the car, driving to McD's, getting the burger, then driving home. And when I've eaten real food, I feel so much better.

I also need to keep with the walking and stretching. I'm not consistent, but I also know it took me a long time to get to this point, and like before, slow and steady progress will get me where I want to go. I am trying to be gentle with myself and understand that as many months as it took to get here, it will take that much (maybe more) to get back. Being understanding of and forgiving of myself is honoring that inner child who, right now, is cowering in embarrassment over what the external adult might say to her.

Finally, when I'm tempted to look at the scale and swear (which is pretty much all the time right now), I just have to close my eyes, breathe deeply a few times, and remember that my mind and body went through a hell of a beatdown. I taught my students the phrase, "When you know better, you do better." In the throes of burnout, my emotional side just didn't know better. It does now. There are still stressors--where the heck am I going to work next year, how will we make it financially if I don't get a job, how can we afford two houses since the one in California not only didn't sell, but also is worth even less than it was a year ago--but without the daily one, I feel like instead of cursing the rain, I can find a way to dance through it.

I can highly recommend the book Food Swings. I am still reading it and have, already, in the first four chapters, gotten so much out of it. I don't think I necessarily agree with him about meat and milk, though...he says they are bad, but I tend to agree with Nina Planck (author of Real Food) that they are fine if they're from pastured animals, as opposed to factory farms. Still, it's got some interesting information in it, and all that is helping me to understand the journey I've been on.

Another book I'll be reading is Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive, by Joan Borysenko. I didn't originally intend it to be such a good companion to Food Swings, but it turned out to be one nonetheless. I read a few pages of Fried already, and am already noticing parallels.

So there you have it. I'm back, I'm back on track, and I am making new food and health choices. My goal is to start writing more consistently here. I'm so motivated (love that good food!) that I've actually started a new blog dealing with the food aspect of things, which is called A Year of Eating Real. I wanted some way to keep myself accountable, and to explore what Real Food means. So not only  am I going to get this blog up and running again, I've gone off the deep end and am going to try to do two...simultaneously.

Yeah. I'm nuts. But hey, I do have energy once more! Woo hoo!

Have a great weekend (starting tomorrow)!

--Karina