(*)

Well, dang.  It looks like mental fatigue is a beast I still haven’t licked yet.

That’s the thought that crossed my mind last year after I’d been hammering away at assembling a formal code update and found myself (once again) feeling extremely mentally rundown.

Except that ‘mental fatigue’ and ‘run down’ really don’t cover what it feels like, and, taking another look at that sentiment from this perspective of a year later, there’s also this whole extra layer of weary on top of the whole thing.  From the perspective of now, ‘Well, dang’ sounds pretty optimistic.  Actually, it sounds obnoxiously optimistic.

But I should back up, because I know I have a bad habit of talking in circles about things sometimes.

For many years, I’ve been aware that certain types of social interactions can be really exhausting for me.  When I first started my job, back in 2013, the times when we had two meetings in one day completely wiped me out.  And often even after just one meeting I’d go away with that weird headachy feeling that made it feel like I’d been crying for an hour, rather than sitting in a meeting for an hour.  This had absolutely nothing to do with how the meeting had gone, good or bad or boooorring, productive or unproductive.  Although it was more likely to crop up the more involved I was in the meeting.  Or maybe it wasn’t a meeting.  Maybe I’d been happily chattering away with a friend for an hour.  And during the meeting, or chatting, or whatever, my energy levels would be quite great.  No problem! Here we go!  It’s just that after the meeting…OIY.

So, yeah.  I’m an introvert.  Very definitely.

Problem is, I also like to be organized and keep track of things.  Like, way too many things.  And when my department was down a manager a few years ago, I reluctantly volunteered to run the weekly meetings, because it was driving me crazy sitting in meetings where we sort of drifted uncertainly from topic to topic.  But that of course lead to me running more than just the weekly meetings.  There were lots of other sub-projects that needed meetings, too.  And meetings with individual coworkers to start them up on new projects, or check in with their progress on old projects.  And so many emails!  And, And, And!

The long and short of that is:

a) I did learn some things about management (it’s a lot like being a parent, at least from my, often exasperated, perspective).

b) My tolerance for meetings did improve a little bit (though now I’d say it’s debatable whether that was improved tolerance or simply creeping numbness).

c) I eventually managed to convince my boss that I really don’t like management, and that he really needed to hire someone else, so I could get back to my regular job, which I was still on the hook for, please and thank you!

But, I was the acting quasi-manager for my group for nearly two years, which ended now a bit more than a year ago.

So, around a year ago was when I was sort of, kind of getting into a new groove that involved fewer meetings, and also way fewer meetings that I had to be in charge of.  (I think I’ve only had to run two meetings in the past year – Yay! (YayYayYayYayYay!)). 

So, coming back around to the start of this post, around a year ago was when I got to discover that, very unfortunately, the brain melty exhaustion could be triggered by things other than direct interactions with people.  For a bit, I had been doing quite well (I thought), and then I had to handle this really intricate, many-layered, way-too-many-components-and-things-to-keep-track-of code-package update.  (Aside: One of the problems is that I’m good at that sort of update (that sort of project generally), which means I let myself get into that situation more often than I should…)  And putting that update together clobbered me, in a way that I’d become familiar with, but hadn’t previously associated with the sort of work I really like to do and am actually good at.  So that was a little disappointing, and a little frustrating.  But in theory I should at least have more control over how often I get stuck in the intricate brain space.

And then the year proceeded to unfold, and It Was A Doozy (some of which I referred to a little in a previous post).

So.  Anyway.  Where are we at now?  Nauseous-brain syndrome.  This thing that crops up if I have to do intense social interaction, and/or if I’m just working on something really complicated with a lot of things to keep track of at once, and which, it really turns out, doesn’t play awesomely with job burnout.

I’ve already said that it’s kind of like that sort of headachy feeling like you’ve just had a good, long cry.  That’s probably the mildest version.  More often, my go-to is to describe it as ‘Like your brain wants to throw up.  But it can’t, because it’s a brain, not a stomach.’  (Hence, the title of this post.)  More recently I’ve discovered that in its really acute form I would better describe it as: ‘Like you’ve just run a marathon without training for it first, and now you just hurt, and you can’t do anything to ease the hurt except wait it out, except it’s not your muscles, it’s your brain, and it just hurts.’

There’s also this really ‘great’ variation that is less acute and doesn’t hurt as much, but is never-the-less quite bad, because instead of hurt or simple vague brain nausea, you have a hard time making coherent words come out of your mouth, and very much good luck with coherent sentences.  Considering that this happened to me near (i.e., before) the end of the day of at conference I was attending recently, I think this one tends to crop up when you’ve been pushing through past the limit of the adrenaline or whatever pretend-energy-boost normally carries you (me) through the actual meeting or whatever.  This ‘encounter’ is too long.  No more words for you.

Anyway, back to the question of progress.

The progress, and the problem, is that melty brain, or nauseous brain pairs super funly with long-term stress.  (Remember, last year was really a doozy, at least work wise.)  And even though I’ve escaped management track, long-term stress is a thing I’m still working on.  (One could say, since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been exploring long-term stress, but I’d rather not say that, because I do still have one or two optimistic bones left in my body, so I’d rather say I’m working on it (and making (some) progress).)

But the progress is admittedly less than I’d like, and, unfortunately, has recently cropped up with the last and worse variant of this thing, which I’m going to call stress-collapse.  Stress-collapse is what happens when I pair my melty brain with long-term stress or burnout, and seems to (still) happen about twice a year.  Weirdly (but I guess from a survival standpoint it makes sense), stress-collapse seems to happen after a period of prolonged stress, when the general stress state has finally let up just a little bit.  I basically become mostly nonfunctional and wind up mostly in-bed for most of a week, with an elevated temperature to boot.  Last time I went to the doctor about it, they called it a ‘malaise’.

‘Malaise’ really sounds like a made-up sickness, though, doesn’t it?  A this-is-all-in-your-head sort of sickness.  Which is very nearly the opposite of how I experience it.  Most of the time that I’m super stressed I go around unsure of whether I’m tired because I’ve been doing a lot, or maybe it’s a virus, or maybe it’s depression creeping in just making me think I’m tired but if I get something done or get some exercise I’ll actually feel a lot better…  That state of things feels very much all-in-my-head.

Whereas when my stress-collapse ‘malaise’ comes along, this is what happened most recently:  I was mentally exhausted from very long meetings plus other stuff, hadn’t managed much exercise recently, but it was a Thursday, which is my TaeKwonDo night, so I was definitely going to go to class so I could get some exercise and hopefully feel better.  Then I’m in class, and find that my legs are literally wobbly, I have to leave class early (or risk injury) and go home, and when I get home I basically collapse on the sofa, physically struggling but eventually managing to get a temperature reading that says I have an ‘elevated temperature’.  I go to bed with a Tylenol and a book.  Stay in bed all the next day with my elevated temperature and the feeling of being very wobbly if I’m up for more than five minutes.  And then over the next couple of days continue to have smaller, shorter bouts of those symptoms.  Those, very undeniably physical symptoms that are really quite distinct from the I’m-just-really-stressed-and-maybe-this-is-all-in-my-head usual state of affairs.  When I have ‘malaise’, I don’t get to argue with my body about what’s going on.  I’m just sick.  (But, you know, not because I’ve caught the most recent cold that’s going around, but because life is stressful and I am really burned out.)

And that’s about all I can say about that.  I should add that my boss is generally supportive of me trying out different things with my schedule and trying to set goals that have the aim of reducing my work-load long term.  But, it’s also hard to walk the tight-rope of those goals and that really-long-term work plan while I’m also getting literally knocked down by exhaustion.  However, the week I’m finishing typing this up is a Development week (as opposed to Operations – I get to alternate weeks to help break up the mental load), which is usually my funner, more relaxed week.  So (fingers still crossed) here’s hoping I’m a bit more chipper and a bit less stressed by the end of it.

Onward!**

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*(a) Yes, I mean ‘nauseated’ rather than ‘nauseous’, but that’s too many syllables – it throws off the rhythm of the statement.  Also, objectively, nauseous in general makes more sense than nauseated.  My brain very well might be gross enough to make someone vomit, but it is in fact physically incapable of vomiting itself.  (Which, FYI, is one reason the sensation is so distressing.  You can’t just expel whatever the toxin is.)

*(b) Also, I’ve stolen the title of this post from a Calvin & Hobbs cartoon, only in the cartoon Calvin is in school and his actual complaint is: ‘My brain is full.  Can I go home now?’

** And that’s a quote from Journey Quest.