Waking Hours

For those of us working full-time, we spend about 40% of our waking hours each week at our jobs. Are you happy where you work? That’s a lot of time wasted if you are not. Maybe you don’t have to be happy with what you are doing at work…. maybe providing for your family or doing what you need to do to pay bills is enough to make you happy. Finding a job is pretty easy for most of us and our motivation to work hard is usually something other than our mental wellness. It is responsibility, family, status, finances, the need for material possessions and our jobs serve as a means to many ends, we desire.

As a young single parent, I thought the most important thing for me to do was to get a permanent, good paying job with great benefits. I did what I had to do to reach that goal and before I turned 30 I was “successful”. By the age of 31, I was no longer a single parent, I owned a house and I was working in a permanent job with the provincial government that came with all the benefits needed to provide for my family. The hard work seemed to pay off. I was glad I finally got the confidence to leave a bad relationship with my son’s father even though I probably stayed longer than I should, I remember when I first wanted to leave him sitting on the landing of the stairs in the house we were renting crying and saying out loud to myself, “but my baby boy, my beautiful baby boy Christopher needs his father” and I gave his father chance after chance for that reason. I was doing what I felt I had to do at the time to provide the best life I could for Christopher. A few whirlwind years after that day on the landing I did leave and I finished university and a second post secondary program as a single parent. Christopher lived in three different provinces, eleven different houses, seven different communities, had seven different child care providers and attended four different schools by grade 5 in order for me to get there. In comparison to my life at that age, one province, one house, one community, no child care providers and one school. Stability versus diversity.

I told myself, lots of kids are raised by parents who have jobs where they move around a lot, kids are resilient, they adjust to change easily, exposure to different environments will be good for him, he always has me etc etc. Even our last move back to Gander in 2001 to our present home was never supposed to be permanent, it was supposed to be for five or six years, have two more kids, get them to school age while living in Gander, let Chris finish high school and then return to St. John’s where I could further my provincial government career, the kids could start school and Chris could do post secondary while living with us so he didn’t have to start his adult life with a huge student loan like I did. Jason could return to university and never leave there once we got back to St. John’s. He definitely should be a professor and have at least one doctorate. That’s his passion…. knowledge, analysis, theories, research, evidence, innovation, new discoveries etc etc. I’ve watched him study and dissect topics and subject areas or skills over the past twenty years to the level of “expert” yet he cares for no recognition. His love of knowledge for knowledge sake is admirable and I am no longer surprised at the depth and commitment he shows to learning about whatever topic is his flavour of the day. I remember the first time I looked at his university transcript and noticed he repeated some courses even though he passed them the first time…. his answer when I asked why, “Because I enjoyed the subject matter and wanted to listen to another prof’s perspective” or “I loved listening to that prof and wanted to do it again”. Basically, he repeated courses for fun. It was always clear to me and his closest friends that he is an academic who should be working in a university setting.

Well, eighteen years later, we never did return to St. John’s, we didn’t have two more kids, Chris didn’t finish high school, Jason is not a prof and I didn’t further my government career. I did maintain my “good government job” and it provides great benefits for my family. Jason advanced in a career he is semi happy in and very proud of. As always, he doesn’t demand the recognition he deserves for his level of expertise but that doesn’t bother him like it would me. He knows he is good at it and is happy with what he is doing. I, on the other hand, have been suffocating in my job. The distractions and turmoil in our personal life from the ectopic pregnancies, cancer, Christopher’s addiction and other normal life stressors allowed me to plug on, keep going, work hard and hold tight to that “good government job” regardless of the conflict I felt with my own desires and values. I also filled my life with other passions to compensate the 40 hours a week spent doing something I wasn’t completely happy with.

The year I was off receiving cancer treatment I reflected a lot on my life and what I was doing with it. I believe no one faces death without contemplating their lives. At that time, I thought I would give up my “good government job” to pursue other passions…. I did not. The cancer allowed me to dream about doing so but it was also the cancer that drove me back. What if my cancer returned? There was a 67% chance it could, if I didn’t have the benefits of this job, we would have a hard time. The benefits outweighed the negative impact in my mind at that time. Was it the right decision? I don’t know. I am off again now for medical reasons as well. Returning may not be an option this time and here I am again contemplating life and what I am doing with it. Our family’s struggles the past 15 months have been traumatic and unique. I do not know one other person in this world who has faced what my son is facing right now. I do know it has affected my own mental health to the point where sitting at the ER yesterday was an emotional challenge where I had to fight off anxiety, frustration, sadness and anger due to our experiences there in the past that lead to Christopher’s present challenge.

I never experienced real anxiety until last year; I will confess I was stupid enough to believe we could all control it easily with self talk and other strategies. Even me, who works in this field, has a son and close friends who suffer with anxiety and is open and non judgmental about mental illness believed it was easily controlled until I experienced it myself. When explaining my anxiety to a close friend last year she kept repeating to me, “Joanne, you are the least anxious person I know” and she’s seen me in some very stressful times over the years. I don’t know why I never felt it before or why I was able to plug on through my challenges in the past but I do know I hit a brick wall or my cup finally overflowed or I hit rock bottom or whatever other cliché you want to use…. I was convinced finally by a great family physician to consider the affects of long term stress and trauma on brain function and the immune system…. I was told even someone without a stage 3 cancer diagnosis would be at risk but with me there is even more risk of further health issues. I still have not accepted that my mental illness is enough for me to give up “my good government job”.  A few months back I realized part of me was wishing my cancer back …. imagine wishing for a terminal diagnosis, that’s what my cancer coming back would mean. I thought if I had a terminal cancer diagnosis, no one would question why I wasn’t going back to “my good government job”. That’s the stigma of mental illness, alive and well in my head, in my head! …. an advocate for mental illness and addiction…. someone whose application for the Recovery Council was good enough to be chosen out of over 200 applicants with lived experience. I know I’m not supposed to use this word but that is CRAZY!

I am not fifty years old yet, I am not ready to stop working, using my brain and skills or stop providing for my family. I have not worked at “my good government job” in 15 months, I think I only stopped by my workplace once, maybe twice since I stopped working and I rarely talk to my co workers or inquire about what is happening there. Does it sound like a good place for me to spend 40% of my waking hours per week? Since I’m using clichés, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.”  Idealistic and naïve?…. Maybe a little, but this doesn’t mean if you sometimes feel stressed, overwhelmed, or even a little tired at the end of a work day that you’re in the wrong line of work. It’s just that if you’re doing something you love then you’ll work harder and feel good about what you are doing with 40% of your waking hours per week; this will benefit your mental wellness and physical health.

Career decisions are hard, the pressure to provide, to make money, to do something your peers respect, to do something to make your family proud or to do something that’s more acceptable than your dreams will always be there. There are no right or wrong decisions, life affects what we choose and we continuously weigh pros and cons. Feeling trapped in a job, even for admirable reasons will eventually take its toll on your health, 40% of your waking hours is a lot of time, if you hate what you do 40% of the time then the other 60% will definitely suffer.