I’m Not Type A, I Just Have Anxiety

Those who have read my blog for a while are familiar with the fact that I’m an overachiever. I am a classic workaholic. Every personality test I’ve ever taken has told me I have a “Type A” personality.

I excelled at school. I’ve exceeded expectations in all of my jobs. I have a reputation of being highly efficient, learning fast, sacrificing whatever is necessary, going the extra distance, and raising the curve for my peers.

Being a teacher came naturally to me because I can multitask like crazy. Someone on twitter once said that teachers make 1,500 decisions per day. I have no idea if that number is true or not, but it feels like it is. I am definitely competitive, a perfectionist, critical of myself, impatient, energetic, and aggressive when it comes to getting the job done. All of these qualities are necessary when you are trying to appear “highly effective” on paper for your district and the state, make sure all students actually have an equitable chance to learn, and mentor each individual student through the hardest three years of their life.

I took pride in my Type A personality. It made me excellent. I got honors. I won awards. I gave speeches.

I almost killed myself last October.

Honestly, our society values Type A personalities. They make someone highly efficient and productive; two things that fuel capitalism. What I’ve recently learned, though, is my Type A personality was made possible by unbridled anxiety.

I was a professional multitasker because I was obsessed with others’ approval. I literally felt like the approval of others was the only thing that gave me worth. I felt like once I had that approval, I had to continually prove I deserved it by earning it over and over again.

I lived on a hamster wheel, in constant fear that I would lose everything I had earned if I dared to stop and take a break. I told myself that every mistake was a failure, and that failure could kill me. I embodied the Talladega Nights “If you’re not first, you’re last” mentality.

Basically, I allowed my extreme anxiety free reign to run my life. I caught myself in the trap of constantly feeling worthless, not good enough. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders when no one asked me to in the first place. I was miserable.

And, at the same time, why would anyone assume anything was wrong when I was doing so well? On the outside I was perfect. I was doing “it.” I was achieving my goals, supporting my family, and gaining approval from the people who “mattered.”

Isn’t that what success looks like?

Unfortunately, yes. This is what success in our society looks like. The narrative of the Type A personality is a convenient way to encourage at-all-costs productivity. As long as someone is productive, they are successful.

By explaining my extreme behavior away with my Type A personality, I was able to hide my mental illnesses. I could avoid dealing with any of my problems and my trauma by adding more work onto my plate and being rewarded for it by my superiors. If I just kept going, and never stopped, I would never have to face my anxiety for real.

I was winning awards based on my performance. My performance was fueled by my ability to pretend I wasn’t constantly on the edge of cracking, while I took on more and more work.

And then I finally cracked.

And I’ve finally realized my Type A personality was really anxiety. And my need for the approval of others was trapping me in toxic cycles of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. So I’m officially letting my Type A self go.

Type A Renea is gone. I put her to rest in the name of mindfulness, happiness, self love, and stability.

I am already grieving her absence. It’s hard to let go of excellence. It’s hard to accept that living a healthier life means giving up what once made me great.

I am definitely going through a major transition right now. Living a mental health-focused life forced me to make a lot of changes. Living mindfully and focusing one day at a time isn’t conducive to success in a capitalist sense, but god damn am I much happier as a Type B.

Brain Dump: All of This is Probably Bullshit

How am I to create

Out of sawdust

And ruined plans

When these four walls hold me

Static

I’ve been thinking about history a lot lately

And the patterns that form

With the revolutions of

The earth around the sun

A sense of history

And womxnhood

And how when it feels like the world is coming to an end

It’s that, which has often been considered “womxn’s work” which will have to pull us back on track

That which has been considered “womxn’s work” due to the incorrect assumption that womxn were the only ones capable of being feminine.

Caring. Living communally. Feelings of connection, belonging, sharing, warmth. Banning together as a village to make sure everyone rises.

It is the work that, since the beginning of Western industrialism, has been considered less valid

Less relevant

Less valuable

Less worthy

But it is the work time and time again that salvages the world from the scraps left behind by the conquerors

Squabbling over resources that languish under abuse

And gives us a fighting chance.

Because the “us” is a living organism

Just like the individual.

I’ve lived a life feeling that industrial capitalism

was the only way to contribute anything of worth to society.

My worth would be measured in productivity.

My productivity measured by dollars.

My aggressive masculinity (separate from my biological sex) was the only side I felt comfortable showing to the world.

My individualism

My competitiveness

My desire to be the best, the favorite

The one with the most social currency

And everything else felt weak. Felt pathetic. Left me vulnerable to colonizers, conquerors, rapists

My femininity (separate from my biological sex) felt weak, felt unworthy, felt disposable.

My biological sex felt weak, felt vulnerable, felt ravaged, felt numb

So I grew a shell

And I tried to operate within an institution that I thought would allow me to use my

Magic

Connected to my

Femininity

And

Womxnhood

To still be excellent

In a capitalist sense

But that’s not what teaching is anymore.

I Freaked Out This Morning: Here’s why

I freaked out this morning.

Like full on, forgot all of my anxiety coping skills, spiralled into hopelessness, freaked out.

For the most part, I’ve been doing surprisingly well coping in a world with Covid-19. I’m not bragging, I just have done so much therapy I was weirdly prepared to put my head down and trudge through this type of trauma, rather than being thrown off my axis.

But this morning… Man, I freaked out.

I have officially been in quarantine for 57 days. That means 57 days of very little physical movement, very little physical contact with other human beings, no social contact outside of a screen, limited access to new experiences, little to no reason to groom myself, and increasingly similar tasting meals with decreasing nutritional content as rations dwindle.

Additionally, social media has become the center of what-feels-like-everyone’s social lives as it is really the only pandemic-approved way to connect. But even social media is fruit of the same poison tree as it is saturated with death counts, protesters demonstrating how little they care for their community, and the stress and depression of billions of people undergoing collective trauma.

I’m not here to complain. You know all of this. You’ve been in quarantine too.

I am also not looking for your pity, your sympathy, or your help as I have a lot of privilege that I am not trying to ignore. I have an income. I have a home. I have health insurance. I am white. I have lots of privilege (as usual, scroll down for links if you want to read more about how the impact of Covid-19 is imbalanced across communities and identities).

But even with my privilege and my skills, I have not been safe from this collective trauma. And I’m assuming you haven’t been either. And I’m here to tell you that it’s ok.

It’s ok, every now and then, to take a look around you and freak the fuck out. This is scary. This is stressful.

I, as it is, am on mental health leave from work because I recently tried to kill myself. I am having a full on identity crisis about my career at a time when the future of the economy is uncertain. I’m taking risks on a writing career that is the opposite of a “sure thing.” I am one individual going through so much shit and I’m also surviving an international pandemic.

And on top of it all: we.are.going.through.collective.trauma.

We all already have a whole lifetime’s worth of bullshit, and stress, and trauma. We have hard things in our lives that are already difficult to cope with. Racism still exists. The patriarchy is still out there. We are still holding a presidential election in November. Not to mention, all of these landscapes are shifting as well, because of the pandemic.

If I’m being completely honest, I’m writing this piece to try to make myself feel better about freaking out this morning. Since the start of quarantine, my main line on the situation has been “It is what it is. As long as I’m doing everything to help within my control, obsessing over the stressful parts will achieve nothing but a negative impact on my mental health.”

This is still absolutely true. I still believe that practicing radical acceptance is the only mindframe that will help us survive this mess with our sanity intact.

And, at the same time, there needs to be allowances for moments of weakness. For times when we just have to freak out. We need to be gentle with ourselves when it is just too difficult to accept and we need to spend our day under a weighted blanket.

Covid-19 impact across communities and identities:

Racial Disparities- The Washington Post

Racial Disparities –The Atlantic

Domestic Violence

Homelessness

Something Simple to Meditate on: Saturday afternoon edition

I used to have intense conversations with myself in the shower.

I thought about them in my head as speeches.

I would stand there in the steamy jet, meditating on someone or something that had really been lighting my fire lately.

I would get out my imaginary soap box. I would gather, in my imagination, the people who I wanted to hear my words the most.

I would prepare my most dramatic and emphatic stage whisper – so my family and/or roommates wouldn’t think I was a nerd – and I would

Speak

Heart

Out

(I own up to my reputation as a too-long shower-taker. It’s my most shameful vice).

Until one day I realized I wasn’t giving speeches.

I was speaking poems.

So I got a waterproof phone case and started bringing my phone into the shower with me so I could write my thoughts down in my notes. And I’ve done it every day since.

How did I never know I wanted to be a writer?