I woke up yesterday feeling a little down. At work, a friend asked how I felt and just followed my thoughts without thinking about it. The main feeling on the surface was helplessness. Earlier in the week, Caitlyn started to get more information on IUI as the next step for fertility treatment, and she had a little tailspin of feeling overwhelmed by all of the next steps for that journey. I couldn’t do anything about it and I wonder if that started to impact me in other ways too.
All I know is that I had this feeling that I wasn’t making an impact. Even though just a day before, I was given a lot of ‘thanks’ from some people for going out of my way to help with something. It’s always the small things that I strive for (and prefer) when trying to make an impact. I wonder if I feel like I need more though. It’s almost like imposter syndrome has taken over and my intrusive thoughts are telling me that the life I created for myself is a lie. I fear that I have become a person like the ones that I ‘look down’ on in some ways. It’s the self-righteous part of myself that looks at these certain people that I have to sugarcoat things to or act a certain way because their version of reality is so skewed. In these instances, I do not try to change their perspective, because they need to live in their reality.
Is it right to fear that? Maybe we all have this skewed version of reality. It’s fallible to believe that I have not made enemies along the way. It’s fallible for me to believe that everyone likes me. It’s fallible to believe that my way is the right way. I beat myself up enough in fear of falling back into old patterns of the more exaggerated self-righteous person I once was to know that I have not regressed to who I once was.
The other part of this is that I feel like my brain is looking for validation. The depression is causing part of my mind to want people to tell me that I am doing a good job in my career, as a leader, as a mentor, as a husband, etc. Yet, even though they do, it’s like I need a long written statement of why I am great because for some reason I don’t believe in myself. This must be some kind of imposter syndrome because I feel like it’s tied to helplessness in my career. I have so much that I am struggling to balance at work and no one is keeping tabs on me. I am in a constant state of feeling like I do not know if I am doing enough. Simply, I am just doing the best I can. Of course, the question that just came to mind – Do I let myself believe that? because there is always more that can be done. Regardless, I worry that I become someone who is all flash and no substance. I am less able to work hands-on with things because of how busy I am. I feel more like a manager or coach that is leading from above, rather than someone that works alongside people. I was challenged by someone at work to handhold a bit more, which also threw me for a loop. It made me realize that my bandwidth and patience to handhold is becoming less and less because of the pressures of having to lead.
I am not too sure what the out is. I think I need to get things on my to-do list done. Maybe I need to help myself see that I am making strides forward. It just makes me wonder how leaders do what they do with the ‘thankless job’, as my leadership professor called it, that leaders do. Maybe they work hard because they strive to get just a small piece of validation or appreciation. Once they get it, it needs to last them for a long time.
This morning I was thinking about Dad’s depression. I am certainly not in as dark of a place as he was. However, I can see how difficult it could become for me if I continued to have this part of my brain ignore my successes and get into a state of fear that everyone was against me for a very long time. I guess I am lucky, in some ways, that I could see how many people appreciated him at the end of his life. The impact is so much more about what is not said than what is said. I know this, deep down, but the ego seems to want for it to be said more.
Maybe I need to go back to the great lessons of Day One. The true impact is letting those around you know how they impacted you. Maybe I can shift myself out of this if I start focusing on how other people impact me. By spending time thinking about how others have helped me get to where I am and appreciate them, I’ll get more insight into how others could view me.
Now it makes sense why the idea of writing everyone thank you cards like I did after my time in the Blue Ocean project at work kept popping into my head lately.
