Depression: It Saved My Life!
A little over 3 years ago, I received the diagnosis: " burnout "... Phew, me! You know, the strong girl, the girl that everyone looks at and says: "But how does she do it?" However, this girl had just failed.
And yet, I had been feeling exhausted at work for several years. I remember regularly telling my boss: “I don’t even know how I’m going to get to my vacation. I’m exhausted!”
I had a job in the government at the time. I had everything many people dream of. A good pension fund, a stable job, a good salary, a great schedule and good benefits. With my seniority (14 years, that's not nothing after all!), I even had the vacations I wanted.
BUT (a big but): I was very unhappy! There were no opportunities for advancement. There was no room for creativity. And we must not forget that in the health field in recent years, replacements for staff who left did not come automatically. That is to say, very often the tasks were simply reshuffled and redistributed among the remaining members of the team. Thus, a full-time employee could easily end up with the tasks of 2 or 3 other people who had left, but had not been replaced. This person therefore covered his job, and often 2 to 3 more.
When I went to see my immediate superior to tell him that I needed help, I needed rest. That I was simply exhausted. I often cried in his office because I was no longer able to continue. The answer remained the same on each occasion: "Sonia, you can do it YOU!" Well no! Because Sonia also ended up giving in. Both knees buckled and I fell, I had reached my limit. I couldn't take it anymore.
I then understood a very strange notion: the telephone could sometimes give the impression of weighing nearly 600 pounds! It's crazy how much, taking a simple telephone to make an appointment with the doctor can become a heavy gesture when it is then a question of asking someone for help. Of asking for help from the person who can really give it to you.
I was put on sick leave immediately. I was BURNED OUT. Yes, me. The right term is actually: professional exhaustion. I couldn't believe it. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. The overflow of the accumulations that I was living and that I had been accumulating for too long. I reached the overflow at that moment.
How was I going to explain this to my children, my husband, my family, friends and colleagues. But, why was I thinking about them, when in fact, it was my life that was affected.
My doctor suggested that I go see a psychologist. My first reaction was more like: see a shrink! Hahahaha, uh no! Then, I thought of my friend Josée who did hypnosis. Maybe she could help me. And, in fact, she did more than help me. She helped me save myself. Help because I was the one who had to make the decision to live, she was just giving me the tools to do it.
It was up to me to make the choices, and take action with what she handed me.
Josée and I worked together for a long time. On several occasions during the sessions we cried together. And I am still crying today as I write these lines. She made me realize that I was important. That I was worth her taking the time for and that I was also worth taking this time for myself. Josée knew my story well, we had worked in the same place. She had experienced this suffering and this fatigue too. Basically, the fact that she knew where I was coming from was one of the reasons that pushed me to go see her.
Every night, I took the time to write down what I felt. There was a date that came back, day after day in what I wrote, without understanding why. Then, deep down I knew it. It was the date on which I would be free from everything. The only end that could allow me to no longer return to this place of negativity, suffering and lack of humanity. This job in which I could no longer be myself, but where I was only an employee who goes from one task to another without being anything more. I finally had to think about myself and my happiness.
But, only one thing was holding me back, and preventing me from taking this action: my family (my husband and my children). So, if we are logical, they will support me and I know it. Because I will be lighter, happier, more present for myself and for them. The pain that I have inside me is heavy and intense, but the closer the date gets, the more I feel that I can breathe, that I am getting my head above water.
About ten days before THE date I had set as a goal, I went to have dinner at my parents' house with my husband. We talked about everything and nothing and during the discussion I learned that the tanning salon where my mother worked was for sale. The owner still hadn't made the public announcement, but it was a matter of time. A sudden click went through my mind. I felt like I had just pulled my head out of the water for too long and my lungs were filling with air. A glimmer of hope lit up inside me and I simply said one word: "I'm buying."
Then it all came together. The next day I called the owner and in a little less than 2 weeks I became the owner of the salon. And on THE date that everything was supposed to happen and end, I signed the purchase of the tanning salon. I want to mention that at the time I was a girl who hated tanning salons.
So I owned a salon, but I only went there occasionally to put a smile back on my face. The good mood of the customers, the atmosphere that reigned there, did me a world of good. Even my doctor told me to continue, because it was good for me.
But, I was summoned to human resources (my job that I had), and without going into details, I had to hand in my resignation. I was in a conflict of interest, and in a position to be accused of fraud: I could be the owner of a company, but I was deemed unfit to work. According to them, I was defrauding the system. I tried to argue. I explained that I did not manage anything at all, since the company was running by itself. The operations were done by themselves with the employees present and in addition, the previous owner had remained in her position.
I had good arguments, a good case to fight. I had the support of the union who assured me that my cause was already won. But I did not have the strength in me to start this fight nor the desire to do it. I was still sleeping almost 18 hours a day. And the rest of the 6 hours I cried. I decided to hand in my resignation. I cried so much to see how I was thanked for my services after 14 years in this company. A company that helped people with addiction and mental health disorders. How could they not see and realize the harm that an employee, one of them, was suffering so much? They were blind to my own mental health while they advocated helping others.
It was my clients, and my salon that saved my life. Their good humor helped me smile a little more each day that passed. It's really not for nothing that I always say that I have the best clients in the world. I don't think they know how much I thank them for being in my life.
Today, a little over three years have passed. I am happy, I am strong. Deep down, I carry the hope that with what I do I can in turn give a moment of hope to one of my clients. Depression will have saved my life, because without it, I would never have thought of buying a tanning salon. Depression made me realize how unhappy I was, how much I was fading away a little every day. It will have led me to make changes in my life to find the happiness of being and living again.
And yet, I had been feeling exhausted at work for several years. I remember regularly telling my boss: “I don’t even know how I’m going to get to my vacation. I’m exhausted!”
I had a job in the government at the time. I had everything many people dream of. A good pension fund, a stable job, a good salary, a great schedule and good benefits. With my seniority (14 years, that's not nothing after all!), I even had the vacations I wanted.
BUT (a big but): I was very unhappy! There were no opportunities for advancement. There was no room for creativity. And we must not forget that in the health field in recent years, replacements for staff who left did not come automatically. That is to say, very often the tasks were simply reshuffled and redistributed among the remaining members of the team. Thus, a full-time employee could easily end up with the tasks of 2 or 3 other people who had left, but had not been replaced. This person therefore covered his job, and often 2 to 3 more.
Yet, I had tried...
When I went to see my immediate superior to tell him that I needed help, I needed rest. That I was simply exhausted. I often cried in his office because I was no longer able to continue. The answer remained the same on each occasion: "Sonia, you can do it YOU!" Well no! Because Sonia also ended up giving in. Both knees buckled and I fell, I had reached my limit. I couldn't take it anymore.
I then understood a very strange notion: the telephone could sometimes give the impression of weighing nearly 600 pounds! It's crazy how much, taking a simple telephone to make an appointment with the doctor can become a heavy gesture when it is then a question of asking someone for help. Of asking for help from the person who can really give it to you.
I was put on sick leave immediately. I was BURNED OUT. Yes, me. The right term is actually: professional exhaustion. I couldn't believe it. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. The overflow of the accumulations that I was living and that I had been accumulating for too long. I reached the overflow at that moment.
How was I going to explain this to my children, my husband, my family, friends and colleagues. But, why was I thinking about them, when in fact, it was my life that was affected.
My doctor suggested that I go see a psychologist. My first reaction was more like: see a shrink! Hahahaha, uh no! Then, I thought of my friend Josée who did hypnosis. Maybe she could help me. And, in fact, she did more than help me. She helped me save myself. Help because I was the one who had to make the decision to live, she was just giving me the tools to do it.
It was up to me to make the choices, and take action with what she handed me.
Josée and I worked together for a long time. On several occasions during the sessions we cried together. And I am still crying today as I write these lines. She made me realize that I was important. That I was worth her taking the time for and that I was also worth taking this time for myself. Josée knew my story well, we had worked in the same place. She had experienced this suffering and this fatigue too. Basically, the fact that she knew where I was coming from was one of the reasons that pushed me to go see her.
Every night, I took the time to write down what I felt. There was a date that came back, day after day in what I wrote, without understanding why. Then, deep down I knew it. It was the date on which I would be free from everything. The only end that could allow me to no longer return to this place of negativity, suffering and lack of humanity. This job in which I could no longer be myself, but where I was only an employee who goes from one task to another without being anything more. I finally had to think about myself and my happiness.
But, only one thing was holding me back, and preventing me from taking this action: my family (my husband and my children). So, if we are logical, they will support me and I know it. Because I will be lighter, happier, more present for myself and for them. The pain that I have inside me is heavy and intense, but the closer the date gets, the more I feel that I can breathe, that I am getting my head above water.
About ten days before THE date I had set as a goal, I went to have dinner at my parents' house with my husband. We talked about everything and nothing and during the discussion I learned that the tanning salon where my mother worked was for sale. The owner still hadn't made the public announcement, but it was a matter of time. A sudden click went through my mind. I felt like I had just pulled my head out of the water for too long and my lungs were filling with air. A glimmer of hope lit up inside me and I simply said one word: "I'm buying."
Then it all came together. The next day I called the owner and in a little less than 2 weeks I became the owner of the salon. And on THE date that everything was supposed to happen and end, I signed the purchase of the tanning salon. I want to mention that at the time I was a girl who hated tanning salons.
So I owned a salon, but I only went there occasionally to put a smile back on my face. The good mood of the customers, the atmosphere that reigned there, did me a world of good. Even my doctor told me to continue, because it was good for me.
But, I was summoned to human resources (my job that I had), and without going into details, I had to hand in my resignation. I was in a conflict of interest, and in a position to be accused of fraud: I could be the owner of a company, but I was deemed unfit to work. According to them, I was defrauding the system. I tried to argue. I explained that I did not manage anything at all, since the company was running by itself. The operations were done by themselves with the employees present and in addition, the previous owner had remained in her position.
I had good arguments, a good case to fight. I had the support of the union who assured me that my cause was already won. But I did not have the strength in me to start this fight nor the desire to do it. I was still sleeping almost 18 hours a day. And the rest of the 6 hours I cried. I decided to hand in my resignation. I cried so much to see how I was thanked for my services after 14 years in this company. A company that helped people with addiction and mental health disorders. How could they not see and realize the harm that an employee, one of them, was suffering so much? They were blind to my own mental health while they advocated helping others.
It was my clients, and my salon that saved my life. Their good humor helped me smile a little more each day that passed. It's really not for nothing that I always say that I have the best clients in the world. I don't think they know how much I thank them for being in my life.
Today, a little over three years have passed. I am happy, I am strong. Deep down, I carry the hope that with what I do I can in turn give a moment of hope to one of my clients. Depression will have saved my life, because without it, I would never have thought of buying a tanning salon. Depression made me realize how unhappy I was, how much I was fading away a little every day. It will have led me to make changes in my life to find the happiness of being and living again.
