Reconciling Workaholism with Chronic Illness
I’m a workaholic. There; I admitted it.
I also suffer from a weak immune system, and chronic and mental illnesses.
It’s an excellent combination, as you can imagine. These two realities constantly war with each other: my need to accomplish versus the limits of my mind and body.
As I write this post, I’m sitting in bed, doing battle with a months-long chest infection that refuses to depart my body, possibly not helped by the fact that I keep pushing through it to do things.
Granted, some things must be done—the household doesn’t stop running just because mom is sick. Other things, however, can probably be set aside for now, but try telling my brain that.
Rest has never come easily to me, and I know I’m not alone in that. In our hustle culture, rest is earned, not given.
Ever since we got married nine years ago, I’ve had a practice of reporting to Michael what I accomplished during the day. Without school or work to hide behind, I had to somehow prove my existence wasn’t wasteful or useless.
Michael said to me recently, “You don’t have to give me a list of all the things you did every day.”
“But how will I know I’m useful and worthy?” I responded.
I said it half-jokingly, but deep down, we both knew there was the truth behind it.
It doesn’t matter how many times he tells me I’m valued regardless of what I do (or don’t do), which he does, constantly. The idea is so deeply ingrained in me that not being able to be productive feels like a blow to my worthiness as a human being, as though I need to justify taking up space, as though I have to be contributing something tangible in order to exist.
I could point to a number of things for why I have this maladaptive mindset: religious upbringing, cultural upbringing, toxic comparison, society, hustle culture, etc. etc. What it boils down to is a need to perform.
But if I brush away the whys, hows, and whatnots, at the root of it all is that I don’t believe I have inherent value as a person, and that seems quite a vulnerable thing to admit on the Internet, however true.
If I just do more, I will be enough. Just a little more. Just a little more. Then I will be enough.
When did I get here? How did I get here? And equally important: how do I not pass that on to my children?
One of the first pieces of furniture I purchased for our new home was a large dining table. I wanted it to take up all the space in the dining room and be able to seat all three generations of my family.
It’s a beautiful table, made of real wood—unfinished. You can see the imperfections and feel the roughness of it across the surface. Those flaws give it character. I love it.
“Intergenerational trauma” is a buzzword these days. I see a lot of parents in my generation talking openly about mental health, going to therapy, and doing the hard inner work to make sure their children don’t struggle the same ways they did, to make sure they don’t pass their own pain onto their children.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I have parents who acknowledged the ways they have hurt me, who have apologised.
This past year whenever I’ve been incapacitated (including now), they’ve rallied around me to provide meals or to relieve me of tasks I feel I must do.
They give me the gift of rest.
I still don’t easily receive this gift; the guilt always sets in and makes a home in me, but little by little, I’m learning. Because when the two people who inadvertently caused some of these feelings of insufficiency began showing me they valued my presence regardless of what I was doing, it no longer seemed like such an insurmountable leap to believe them.
My family has sat around our dining table a few times now. It’s become a place to share a meal, talk about our lives. I remember instances when I once thought the cracks and scars in our relationships would never be okay enough for us to come together in such a way. This flawed, grainy table is now a place to rest.
And heal.