Forced to look at myself

Today I had a long talk with my intervisor whom I met studying for my last degree (not this Masters). Since we don’t do intervision at work and I’m structurally uncertain about how I perform at work and always think if I get criticism it probably is my fault because I’m the one that needs to change, I really like these moments to evaluate work and myself.

After a crazy busy month at work in which I desperately tried to get everything done but (of course) failed in that goal I needed someone who’s not involved to look at things and me before going back to work.

Surprisingly she wanted to look at this last year and what happened to me first. The following is what she made me realize and showed me. I know it isn’t very Dutch to talk about yourself this way but she forced me to look at things this way.

The year started with a the aftermath of the rejection problem I had last year, which made it necessary for me to take medication that put all the weight I lost back on. Struggled very hard to loose it again, simply accepting the fact that all that hard work had been lost, due to something out of my control. I had to start all over again, again! I never told anyone how much it hurt that people assumed I just missed the will power to keep the weight off: loosing it is easy (no, it isn’t) but it keeping it off is the problem. Never stood up for myself and said: NO. I did manage to keep it off and I’m very sad I put it all back on for this reason. And I feel very bad being this seize. It literally hurts to see myself in the mirror. No, I put on my game face, acted as if I didn’t care and started loosing weight all over again.

After that came the pulmonary embolisms in July.  The fact I came this close to dying hit me late and has been having a bigger effect on me as I suspected. I was back at work in no time and returned to full time work in 5 weeks, just seven week after literally being 5 minutes away from death. I never even though about not resuming work that quickly, its just who I am, I don’t complain and keep going (as I am told today by my intervisor). When my lung doc told me I wasn’t allowed to fly to Austin for the Challenge, it really broke my heart. I ventilated a bit how bad I felt about that but no-one realized how much of an impact not going had on me. I felt awful coming back on my word to be there for my mentees and I missed seeing all my friends from LIVESTRONG and CCC and the inspiring staff from LIVESTRONG HQ. As my intervisor pointed out, I did what I always do, don’t complain or feel sorry for yourself to long, there are worse things in live and find something else to look forward too. So I decided to go and spend Thanksgiving with my American sis Sue Lohle and her family. And than my money got stolen….. So, no visit to Sue either.

Accepting that as a fact, I went on as usual. Meantime I was looking forward to getting rid of that exhaustion that was with me ever since the pulmonary embolisms that damaged my heart. It never stopped me from working fulltime, all out, and doing my two LIVESTRONG Spinning classes per week and two LIVESTRONG volunteer shifts at a hospital each week.

Then came that bad day that I went to see my lung doc for my last check-up and he found a large spot on my liver.  He assumed it hadn’t been there before and was very alarmed.  I just kept thinking that liver cancer doesn’t appear on its own often, so if it was cancer it also was metastasized already. The next two weeks where horrific but I kept on going (thanks to some amazing LIVESTRONG friends like Anne Matterne and Anne Chen  and a great shoulder to lean on at work Ruud Jellema): never missed a day of work, did my LIVESTRONG activities and acted as if all was well. Tried to be my usual self but didn’t even react when told I didn’t need to react grumpy every once in a while. As my intervisor pointed out today, I should have answered I was doing all I could not to fall apart and let my fear get the better of me. Of course, my character ensures I need to see proven its malignant first but I was scared at times too, and that was why I reacted as I did. Reminding people of that isn’t something I do, I just apologize for “my behavior” and try even harder to be the ”perfect machine’ (amazing how someone else sees that). 

Luckily I was diagnosed with three malignant hemanglioma. But in the same conversation my doc told me the exhaustion I had been experiencing would be chronic. Leave it up to me to take the positive news and ignore the bad. As it set in I did mention it to some people and got good advice, among others form Jody Schoger, who send me the spoon story that I used to explain to people what this chronic exhaustion does to me. As people in The Netherlands aren’t used to that, and certainly not from me, not many people reacted and I never “ forced them” to tell me they got the impact it has on me and my day to day activities. I just tried to work harder and do the same amount of work I always do.

As we talked this afternoon my intervisor tried to tell me I have been doing great, something I will never accept for myself. She wants me to acknowledge that, even if I slip up and can’t live up to everybody’s expectations and even harder, my own standards, I can be proud of myself.

She listed the following (her words, not mine):

- I lost more weight than I put on despite everything going on. I did this by working very
  hard to do so and making the smart decision to seek help to go back to eating normally

  after being on a diet for over a year. Grateful for Manon Schoonbrood-de Haas of DieEet

  Slim. I have a right to be proud of what I achieved in this field, no matter what people

  tell me;

- I managed to do my work again within 7 weeks of almost dying. I manage to do as 

  much as usual despite  my chronic fatigue and added workload this last month;

- I manage to act the LIVESTRONG way, so stay positive, be friendly to people and try to

  make a difference. When people tell me I “snapped” I need to learn to tell them I didn’t

  just snap but have trouble to keep going because I’m  exhausted and am only human.  

  I’m not the perfect machine some  people prefer. I am never unkind to people on

  purpose or for no reason because I believe in the positive, respectful way of interacting

  with people the amazing staff at LIVESTRONG HQ showed me;

- The things I do for LIVESTRONG might not be big or raise much funds and I will never

   be LIVESTRONG Leader of the year but I do live and breathe LIVESTRONG. My office

   has lots of LIVESTRONG stuff in it, because it inspires me and I believe in their mission

   and the way they interact with people. They are my role models. I have to learn to

   accept the compliments of the survivors participants of my LIVESTRONG spinning

 class because for them, I am the hands on LIVESTRONG help and in that way I do make

 a difference. Same thing with the volunteer shifts.

It was very strange for me to be forced to look at myself in a total different way and I’m sill not sure she’s right but I promised to write this down, although it is totally Not Dutch to write in this fashion about yourself.  Now I need to work on believing in myself based upon the positive way this lady sees me.