Things I want my kids to know

I was once sat on a train in London, waiting to leave the station, when a big family group got on. There were nine of them, a mixture of adults and kids. They had booked tickets so that eight of them could sit together around two tables, and then there was one left over, whose seat would be behind everyone else, right next to me.

They had clearly had a lovely day out (been to see some rugby I think) and there was buzzing and excitement. Everybody got seated and it was one of the mums who made sure everyone else got a seat at the tables, before saying that she would be the one to go and sit on her own.

They had brought with them a big fast food order, all in paper bags. They all started to work out whose was whose. The woman sat next to me got up again, She knew everybody’s order. It turned out that there was an error in the order, so she gave hers to one of the kids and said that she would have the erroneous thing that nobody had ordered, no problem.

When she came and sat down again, the whole family were chatting away, and she was craning herself out into the aisle to try and join in a bit, but it just wasn’t really physically possible. So, eventually, she turned to me instead.

She asked me what I had been doing in London and I told her that I had been giving a talk on cognitive behavioural therapy skills. She was very polite and genial when she said:

“But, don’t you think that all that stuff is unnecessary? Don’t you think that people should just sort of get on with it? I mean, I didn’t even have a single day off when my mum died.”

She said this in a way that was not dismissive of me or my work, just genuinely interested in something that she couldn’t get her head around. I paused and I smiled.

I said to her that in my experience, most of the people who came to see me had a sense of confusion and frustration with themselves. They often felt that they were being weak or pathetic for feeling the way that they did, but that once they told me a bit about what had been going on, I would sit there and think “That is a lot for one person to deal with. No wonder you are feeling the strain.”

I said that actually, the expectation that you should be strong and be able to handle anything made a person more susceptible to burnout, not less. I gave the example of a person carrying a backpack and going on a long walk.

The person who has the expectation that they should be able to keep going, regardless, would say yes every time someone asks if they could carry a little more. They might notice themselves sweating and straining, but they would ignore it. If someone else needed help, they might offer to carry theirs for a while, despite the creaking in their legs and back. They might not take a rest, even if the opportunity was there, because there was walking to be done. They might not drink enough water, because there just isn’t time and they were just too busy.

Yes, this person would be pretty effective for a while. They would carry a lot and take it a long way, but when their back eventually goes, it would go badly.

That, I said, was more representative of the people I ended up seeing. Not weak, not wilting. Carrying too much, too far, and struggling to give themselves a break.

She said that made sense. Then I asked her if she minded if I made some observations about her. She was interested, so she said yes that was fine.

I said that I noticed that she had been the one to organise everybody and make sure they were OK, settled and comfortable, before thinking of herself, and volunteering to be the one who would miss out on sitting with the group. I said that I had noticed a similar thing with the food order, too. I asked whether that was a usual pattern. She said she hadn’t thought about it like that, because that is just how things have always been and that she sees it as a part of her role.

I said that this was admirable, and I imagine served her very well in many ways. But then I asked her what it was like to always look after everyone else first, to be the one who is so busy organising, and also be the one who maybe misses out on the fun. She said she wasn’t sure, this is just how it is.

I asked if she felt tired at all.

She said she was exhausted all the time.

We sat for a moment and she considered this. She then said that she could get all of this, but that she still didn’t see what the point of taking time off or talking to someone would be, because that wouldn’t change anything, and it would put others under strain too (she was a teacher, as it turned out).

I said that I could get why it can seem pointless and that this is because she was right. Taking time off doesn’t necessarily mean recharging, and talking doesn’t change our losses. Time off can be helpful if it gives you time to get your head around things, catch up with yourself or do some things that help you recharge your batteries (that might be resting, or it might be being active but in a way that helps you feel replenished). It might not be that she does need time off work if she really doesn’t want to, but if that’s the case, then prioritising her own batteries outside of work is a must, but the challenge with that is breaking a habit of a lifetime: putting her own needs at the bottom of the pile.

I said that she doesn’t need to talk to someone about her loss if she doesn’t want to, but that everybody needs time to process grief. That might be talking, or it might be giving yourself time to go and think about the person, to remember them. Sometimes keeping busy is how we try to avoid it, but it is still there, consistently sapping your energy. Even on a very basic level, understanding that grief saps your energy is a helpful way of thinking about why it might be necessary to look after yourself.

And then I asked her what she would want for her children. If her children were adults, and they lost her, would she want them to feel that they weren’t allowed to be affected by that? Would she want them to squash their grief to one side, pretend everything was OK and just push through? To not take a day off even if they were exhausted?

She said that of course she wouldn’t. She said that she would understand if they were struggling, and she would want them to be able to be kind to themselves.

We sat with this for a moment. And then we reached my stop. We thanked one another for the conversation and we waved to one another through the window as the train pulled away. Me on the platform. Her sitting on her own, behind her family.

I think about this conversation a lot, so I wanted to share it with you.

Burnout is not for the weak.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. It's not weak to need to put the backpack down sometimes, or to need some help in carrying it.