Dear Cary,
I’m a long-time reader, since the Salon column, and a first-time writer. I’ve always appreciated your willingness to empathize with the people who write to you, observing the human condition alongside them rather than talking advice at them. It’s a beautiful thing to do.
I’m writing about a frustration that no one I know–including my spouse, family, and friends–seems to understand. Perhaps the setting is too great of a contrast with the problem.
The (privileged) setting: I have my dream job. My career means a lot to me, and in a metaphorical sense, my current work might be the thing I was put on this Earth to do. It’s emotionally fulfilling, it satisfies my interests, it has social gravitas, and it pays well. It’s in a field of work where positions are notoriously difficult to get. I’ve been lucky.
The problem: It took so long to get here that something in me feels broken.
Even in a cutthroat sector of the job market, my journey was still far more difficult than any of my colleagues. Take the typical time on the job market in my field and multiply it by five. I previously spent years in temporary positions, and then years in a toxic work environment. No one can relate to the magnitude of my struggles or give me a good explanation for my bad luck. I feel like I was banging on the door of opportunity for a long, long time before someone opened it, gasped at me, and asked naively why I looked so frustrated.
Even as the instability and the worst times recede into my past, they continue to weigh me down. Sometimes I close the door to my office so that I can cry, letting out an emotion that I can’t name. Other days the emotion drags at me like a tired, drunken feeling, pulling at my thoughts until I lie down for sleep at night.
People don’t understand why I’m frustrated, and I feel isolated in my pain. The idea that everyone has their own pace isn’t reassuring to me: this wasn’t my pace. I still have goals that will take all the time I can give them. When I think about milestones that should give me joy or relief, I only feel frustration at the ludicrous amount of effort it took me to reach them. I’m also aware that people take their cues from me on how to react to good news, and I don’t seem to be inspiring them to be happy for me. Sometimes I want them to want me to celebrate when I accomplish something, or to at least ask how I feel.
How do I get past this? I appreciate your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
You sound exhausted.
Exhausted,
exhausted,
exhausted!
How did this happen?
(Before we go any further, I suggest that you listen to the podcast of this column. It says many things that I do not say here, true things, things that come out in talking but not in writing.)
You worked and worked and worked and struggled and endured times of famine and wandering in the desert and running toward mirages that disappeared as you approached, and having office doors shut in your face and then finally a door opened and you went in.
But then, once in, you had to work even harder than before! You never had a chance to rest. You never had a chance to sum up what had come before, and to adequately prepare for your next arduous journey. You never had a chance to take stock, to rest up.
And why might that be? Why did you not take the needed time?
I have an idea about why. I suspect that you framed the situation in such a way that to rest up might mean falling behind. In a more general way, I hypothesize a life pattern, a set of assumptions that you have followed about what is the right way to be, about what you are supposed to do to prove yourself, about how to achieve success and what success would mean once it was achieved. I hypothesize that this set of assumptions was correct up to a point. Now, however, it has led you as far as it can take you. Now, emotionally and spiritually this set of assumptions is exhausting you, killing you, strangling you, taking the life out of you. Because it is a set of assumptions about how to get there, not what to do once you arrive.
You have arrived. So now you need a new set of assumptions. (Also, as I say in the podcast, I think you need to go up in the mountains somewhere and sit in hot water and get massages.)
This emotion you talk of, the one that makes you cry in your office, that tugs at you, that wears you down, I recognize that. I experience something similar, I think. I sometimes will feel a jolt. An emotional jolt out of the blue. Something will come over me, something like tragic gratitude, a feeling of relief mixed with sadness, almost grief, but also wonder, and humility, and love, all at once, with such power it can bring me to my knees, and at such a moment, unaccountably, I will be thinking of my father, his beautiful sad funny life, so much of which he dedicated to me and my siblings’ well-being, and I too will have tears over this.
Such things come over us humans. Like a summer storm, all the elements at once, the wind, the rain, the lightning, out of nowhere. These strong sudden emotions to not worry me so much in your case. What worries me is that you are exhausted and if you keep doing the same thing without rest, without changing your habits, you may end up sick, or depressed, or in a spot you don’t know how to get out of.
So a good therapist could help. A smart and empathetic therapist could help you identify, as if for the first time, this pattern you have been following, which has been your ally up to now, but which now is no longer serving you, which in fact is now causing you such pain, and putting you in danger.
A good therapist can be an ally, someone who looks at what you have been through with you—like the way you describe what I do in my writing (thanks for that, by the way!). A therapist can also get to know you well enough to point out things about yourself that you yourself do not really see. That is the great value of a therapist. “Tell me something about myself that I don’t already know.” That is what a great therapist can do.
Among your unexamined assumptions may also be the assumption that your good fortune is a tenuous fortune that may disappear at any moment. You may therefor feel you have to hang onto it and defend it at all costs (including the cost of your health and happiness!). A good therapist can help you find a new set of assumptions, or axioms by which to steer.
One more thing: I also had a long period of frustration and wandering, not getting my due. I know what that feels like. It can at times be crushing. I spent years being a small-fry and acting like a big shot. I thought acting like a big shot would get me where I wanted to be. The paradox is this: Only when I genuinely tried to be of help to my coworkers did I finally get a shot at the bigtime. When I got that shot, I held onto it as long as I could. It couldn’t last forever. But it lasted long enough.
Then, when it was taken away—the Salon column, I mean—that was a sign that I had to accept it and move on.
That’s how I ended up in Italy.
Take care. I do think spending a year or two with a good therapist could help tremendously. I also think you need some serious rest. And a revised set of operating principles for this new journey.
Dear Frustrated, I think your problem is as you mention “it took so long to get here compared to others.” I feel envious of others who didn’t have a struggle in their lives. They had it easy. My family life was filled with turmoil. I struggle now with PTSD. I hope I can heal but it’s taking a long time and I’m closing in on 70. Take a brake. Sure you struggled and feel like you came later in to your game but it is what it is. Just take a break. Go on a vacation, tell people your story and see what happens. More than likely you’ll meet someone else with a similar story and sharing your experiences really helps you get a better grip on things.
That’s great advice, Cary. I also wonder if it might be beneficial for “frustrated” to do Julia Cameron’s “morning pages.” It’s helpful to get those feelings OUT and on the page and to keep writing until they’re exorcised. “Frustrated’s” angst, guilt, fatigue and seemingly lifelong climb to the top was harrowing to read about and his/her anxiety was palpable. Your words are a balm, as always, Cary.
Sometimes when you work so hard for something for so long it’s a big letdown when you get it. Cary’s advice is certain to help, I’ sure.
And seriously, consider getting acupuncture – many sessions over many months and then once a month forever more – the human body holds trauma and body therapies have been designed and then perfected for thousands of years, to release the stagnated stress-out internal organs, calm overstimulated neurological systems and release emotions lodged in muscle memory due to overwork and the trauma that causes.