Lots of folks tell me that I’m strong. They mean well; it’s kind and supportive of them to say that; but I don’t really buy it. On the contrary, I’m able to embrace my weaknesses. What I do accept is that I am determined. In particular, I don’t give in easily to my mental illness. For instance, I have just come in from a run; I went out on my own despite feeling really scared; that’s just the usual course of events for me. (Yeah me!)
Intriguingly, that determination of mine isn’t uniformly helpful. Occasionally, it’s my foe. I experienced an example on Sunday and decided to share it here.
The background: I was tasked with putting together a nomination document for a very deserving doctoral dissertation which I co-supervised. (Shout out to Dr. Andrew Tweedie for an amazing piece of work!) Western can only forward on one nominee to the national-level; and only one student Canada-wide will win the award. So, it’s a longshot. I should also mention that the dossier isn’t due until mid-May. Both facts will turn out to be relevant.
My task was to write a cover letter, and then fuse it with half a dozen other documents which had been submitted by various people: an Abstract composed by the nominee Andrew; recommendation letters from his External Examiner and the other co-supervisor; etc. Those documents arrived in a range of formats (Word, pdf), they contained letter head and signatures, and so on. Still, combining it all seemed like an easy task. Unfortunately, I kept running into little problems. The formatting would randomly change. The pagination would disappear. I couldn’t insert certain files despite putting everything on my desktop. Over a period of about half an hour, I encountered one petit frustration after another, until I was in an absolutely tizzy. It was so frustrating: here I was putting in so much effort, despite the fact that the student was very unlikely to win the award.
The resulting state was very like that of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Anita tried to lend a hand, but I was beyond help by that time. (She told me multiple times, ‘Calm down’, but I just couldn’t. Indeed, hearing her say that just annoyed me further. I was inconsolable.)
Here is my thought in retrospect: What I should have done, at about the ten-minute mark, was to take a break – go do a meditation or a run, let myself settle down, get some distance from the task. After all, I had two weeks left before the compound document needed to be uploaded. Yet I felt compelled to keep going. I stubbornly insisted on getting the darn letter finished. I wouldn’t let myself be “defeated”: not when I was so close. Here then is a case where my determination served me ill.
It matters that I find a way to avoid this kind of thing. To begin with, the incident ruined the whole rest of my day. I fell into a self-doubt spiral: “What’s wrong with me that I can’t do this simple task? I must not be so competent after all. I’m getting sick again.” That brought in its train despairing thoughts of suicide. I wasn’t myself until the next morning. More importantly, I can’t be throwing grown up tantrums when I am on my own somewhere, with important tasks to complete urgently. The experience was no fun here at home, with Anita by my side, but it would have been disastrous if it had occurred, say, while I was at the Pacific APA on my own.
The trick going forward will be to distinguish cases where determination helps me get better, and cases where that same stubbornness is simply foolhardy.