realization

I wanted to share something that feels really hard to say out loud. I messaged my manager and my therapist about requesting a leave of absence for my mental health. I feel a lot of shame and guilt around it. Logically I know it’s okay to take a break and that mental health counts, but emotionally it doesn’t feel genuine. Part of me keeps minimizing it or telling me I should just push through. I’m trying to trust that needing space doesn’t mean I’m failing. I just wanted to be honest about where I’m at. It’s taken me over a year to realize that life has brought on heavy obstacles and I have not had a moment to process most of them. - I have experienced the loss of my brother. He was in a motorcycle accident and was brought to the hospital I work at. The day I was working. - I experienced the loss of my grandfather. I protected him when he started to lose his memory. I will forever be that man’s side kick. - I dated a guy who left me the day I announced I was pregnant. I ended up having medical complications that resulted in an abortion. - I lost three uncles included with the previous losses stated before. My mother who experiences bipolar, borderline personality disorder, and possibly other undiagnosed illnesses, is going on a bender right now. While she runs away, messages family awful things, and unintentionally ruins everything in her path during these benders, i’m taking care of my dad. I bring him dinners, check up on him, and any chores he needs help with. A lot going on, I know. I am exhausted. I used to love going into my hospital job. I’m the kind of person that never skips a day of anything but my attendance between work at school has been quite awful lately. I wouldn’t admit that my hospital job was taking a toll on me, my therapist would ask me if I would ever think of possibly getting the same job at a different setting in my mind. I do love working at the hospital. I love the people that I work with. I think my mind body and soul now just need rest temporarily and then I’ll be able to go back. I’m also in college trying to keep everything a flow all at once is way too much for me right now, and I need to come back with stronger boundaries that protect my peace because I can’t stress enough that I am overly exhausted, taking care of people at work, taking care of people at home. It has really triggered me that friends don’t check up on me but I’m expected to check up on them. I just would like to change a lot of dynamics in my life so I can start living my life. I was driving to work this morning. I tried to take a slower morning so I didn’t feel much anxiety going in. I tried making myself a good breakfast took care of myself a little bit more than usual to see if that would kinda decrease the anxiety, but it didn’t on my way to work. I just felt like dry, heaving and ruminating on past experiences of trauma everything that I’ve gone through the past year and that’s when I called my husband, and I realize that it was time for me to take a break. I need a lot of encouraging words. I need a lot of support. I’ve never taken a leave of absence before. I’ve been dealing with health problems too. I think because of the chronic stress I had to go to the doctors to get my medication‘s refilled. I did not have my hypothyroidism medication for two days and I could tell that I was already experiencing symptoms so my body has been aching. I’ve been extremely cold fatigued. I had the worst migraine and dizziness. I feel better now, but my body just feels so beat up. I have already planned on filling my days with therapy still going to college and all my hobbies like arts and crafts, reading, meditation, and creating better habits for myself. I’ve always thought that since I work three days on four days off that I would have time to recover and I never was and I couldn’t understand why because in my inner critic tells me that that’s a lot of time off work considering most people work eight hours a day five days a week, but sometimes I forget that I work 12 hour shifts that turned into 16s and the worst day of my patients lives. I also met another nurse that just got back from a medical leave of absence containing to her mental health too. She kind of helped me influence the idea about taking time to myself this morning. She also had a lot going on and needed a month off and came back. i’m going to keep ranting here to let everything out finally all at once because it’s all coming up with my previous post. I’ve been feeling lonely and obviously going through situations. I did a value exercise yesterday and therapy and it made me realize that there’s a lot of dynamics that I would like to change number one being boundaries with other people and not letting my energy be so overextended all the time I can’t keep being the protector, the nurturer, the supporter with nothing to fall back on. I keep obsessing over the fact that I messaged my manager about taking a leave of absence so I keep overly checking my messages. I put my phone on do not disturb, but I still keep tracking them to see if she replied because it gives me anxiety I don’t want it to be shameful and I told her that I was sensitive about everything and was very transparent about how I feel about everything she’s understanding about mental health, but she’s very direct into the point, which can come off harsh to me so I know that’s a personal problem other than that I just really would like to have other people to talk to.