Written By: Lauren Howard
No one told me that it wasn’t just me.
I mean, not like they could have because I kept to myself this crushing feeling that life would never be better than it was.
I never said to anyone that I felt like my boss was dismissing me while accepting my ideas from my male colleagues.
I didn’t say out loud that no amount of rest was enough and that no matter how hard I worked, I felt like the work just continued to pile.
I was terrified that someone was going to find out that I was miserable and take everything away for being so ungrateful.
Actually, I don’t even know that I realized I was miserable. I just didn’t think I deserved better. I thought that was what life was, even at its best. I wasn’t someone who got more. I thought this job that was tolerating me as much as I was tolerating them, was all there was.
So I whined to my husband about the leadership and the hours and the constantly changing priorities, but I never considered for even a second that I deserved something better.
I just thought that was what life was.
Until one day, after doing all the hours and the unending pressure and dodging yet another weaponized comment about how tight-knit of a “family” we all were, I sat down on the couch and couldn’t get back up for weeks.
Because my body had enough and was not going to tolerate my brain refusing to listen anymore.
No one told me that that could happen because, as I found out, we just don’t talk about it. We are told to feel lucky we even have jobs, and just take whatever comes with it.
My body physically couldn’t anymore.
Isolation lies. It tells us it’s just us.
It’s not just any one of us.
Image by Artem Kovalev via Unsplash.
Founder & CEO at elletwo
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