That same week we closed on our second flip house, which added another huge project to my already overflowing plate. Friends and family came out of the woodwork to help in every way imaginable, but the bulk of the responsibility and the mental load was still mine. Administrative tasks being my forte, I seemed to juggle the busyness with relative ease, checking things off my to do list almost as quickly as I wrote them down. I was proud of how I managed it all, especially while facing a tragedy that could have made our household crumble.
I knew at the time that cancer is the type of trauma that leaves a lasting impact, but I (stupidly) believed I would come away unscathed. After all, I was doing so well! I was hitting every curveball thrown our way and knocking it out of the park. As I watched everyone else in my family fall apart emotionally at various times over the last couple of years, I took it upon myself to “manage” their breakdowns just as I had any other task. For someone who readily buries emotions, this was exhausting work but a job I felt I had to do in order to restore peace to our family and return to the normal we once knew. [News flash: you never return to the same “normal” after cancer.]
Four months after Levi finished cancer treatment we adopted Owen, a 2.5-year-old boy with his own trauma experience. The timing wasn’t ideal, but we had prayed for this to happen, and the doors were being thrown open for us, making it clear he was supposed to be part of our family. An answered prayer! Who were we to question the timing? After all, we were used to living a high-stress lifestyle after the last year. It would be fine!
We’re so glad we took the leap of faith it took to add Owen to our family, but the first year wasn’t easy. His own trauma showed up in the way of behavior issues, including being kicked out of mother’s day out (twice!), making our home life extremely stressful for everyone. Nora & Wyatt’s bond was disrupted by a new person wanting their attention, Wyatt was no longer the baby of the family and now he had to share his room, I worked to get Owen every psychological and behavioral evaluation possible and get him in counseling, therapy, anything that would help.
[Side note: I’m glad to report that a year later Owen is happy, thriving, and doing incredibly well in school.]
I worked overtime to “fix” everything trauma caused for everyone but me. After all, I was fine. I just needed to make everyone else fine, too, so we could just. move. on. I saw this quote earlier this summer and it resonated some with me; after all, it was only halfway through the year and I had already bought and flipped a third house, read 21 books and planned and executed three major vacations. Maybe I was overworking as a trauma response? Life had begun to settle; yet I continued to move at 100 miles per hour. It’s what felt comfortable, and I sought out tasks to complete even when nothing was pressing to get done. I brushed off the feeling that maybe this quote rang true of me, and instead kept marching on at my regular breakneck speed.
It wasn’t until yesterday, appropriately in August (apparently the “anniversary effect” is a thing), that it hit me how out of control my productivity had gotten. We sold our flip house on August 9th, and within the following three weeks I built and installed bathroom shelves, built TWO loft beds FROM SCRATCH, refinished a vintage desk, and built a bookshelf from plans I found online. I did all this while managing the regular home tasks of childcare, school prep, grocery shopping, errands, appointments, etc. I think maybe I have a problem! I guess trauma got me, too.
In an effort to better understand what had happened to me, I did some research and stumbled upon this article. It makes so much sense! I seek out projects that I can control (unlike the uncontrollable life I’ve been dealt), and I overfill my to do list in an effort to produce more adrenaline, that strangely comforting hormone that I became addicted to after it propelled me through two years of trauma.
It feels sort of like defeat to admit that the trauma of the last two years has affected me. After all, I was so proud of how “well” I was handling everything. But at the same time this realization is freeing. I don’t have to find ways to be productive every minute of every day – in fact, I shouldn’t! And while that’s uncomfortable, maybe I can put that energy into working through the grief and lack of self-care that’s accumulated over the past 24 months. Can I do this without approaching it as a task? Ask me next August.
