I'm going through an extremely difficult time of my life. And this is nothing that just started a few weeks ago. It has been ongoing now for many years. And every time I get back on my feet and recover a bit, the next crash follows. Because I am still doing what makes me crash. Not resting enough. Forcing myself to be productive - and the list goes on.
My state of health is critical. And in the past I just ignored it and pushed through. Until I have reached the point that I just crashed again and again and keep on crashing again and again until I finally sit down and rest.
All that stress caused that I clenched my teeth at night - I completely destroyed my upper jaw with that. But it is not a surprise, unprocessed feelings, anger all got swallowed and found their way out through teeth grinding and jaw clenching.
Needless to say that my Hashimoto's autoimmune disease and years of disordered eating are not beneficial for good dental health.
And that always pushing through does something to your body and soul after years of doing so. The bill that I have had to pay for it is panic attacks. Yes it got better for sometime but the more I push through, the more they come back.
It leaves me shocked of who I have become. The girl who traveled the world solo - Iran, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, India, Moscow, Jo'burg - just to name some of the places I went to and some are probably too frightening for the average traveler. Well, not for me - in the past.
I was the person who drove long distances by herself - at day, at night - and now we are back to a short drive giving me panic and anxiety.
And i come more and more to the conclusion that living in my home country Germany is not doing me any favors. I have ongoing battles here with authorities and bureaucracy - because those institutions made life for me as a freelancer miserable. And ridiculously expensive. And when I lost my freelance teaching income, it was completely over.
Now one might say 'hey Phyllis, you can always find a normal employee job again'- spoiler, I can't. With my CV it is impossible. All I get is one rejection after another if I apply for jobs. So this obviously is not an option. It seems that a decade of freelancing makes you unemployable and unhireable in this country.
Which leads to the next point. I don't even wanna stay in this country anymore. Because the burden of bureaucracy that I have to deal with, the hostility for merely existing as a person who chose to earn money not as an employee, the bad weather, the green-leftist politics are only a few things to mention that certainly don't contribute to me feeling any better or getting healthier again. Quite the opposite.
I won't even go too much into detail with it but it is worth mentioning that thousands of highly qualified people are leaving Germany exactly for those reasons and some more.
I don't even have a real life here anymore. I stay away from pretty much any city center because of the horrible condition they are in. Because if I go there, I honestly wonder in which place of hell I ended up with - this is not anymore the country I grew up in. It became something completely different that feels estranged to me.
And my social circle shrank tremendously as well. That must be the consequence of having distanced myself from people who only saw me as their armchair therapist or mindset coach whenever they needed one - free of charge of course because I am a good friend and my time and ideas are worth nothing obviously. But not anymore. now this exists as a service for people who wanna book me and work with me. Over are the times of 'coaching for free'.
If I had the money to leave now, I'd be gone immediately. But here is the crux. I am still broke as fuck. And a major burnout that has the unpleasant side-effect of some extra fun with panic attacks when I don't slow down aren't really of any help here either.
And leaving without a stable income stream makes no sense either. Then I am broke and miserable just somewhere else. I worked a bad employee job in Spain and I worked in various bad employee and freelance jobs in Germany. The only difference was that I had better weather, the beach and daily seafood tapas in Spain.
So I have to stay here until I succeeded in having created a stable income stream myself through selling products and in the beginning as a bridge coaching services until a solely product / email marketing based business is funding itself.
And yes, the environment here made me very sick and sometimes I doubt if I will ever be able to recover again while being here. But right now that is the only option I have. I am trapped. When you have no money life is incredibly hard on you because you are trapped and fighting back is also more difficult because when you have money you can hire the experts to do the work for you.
Once you really lose everything, you also realize who your true friends are and who was just hanging around as long as you were beneficial for them. And most people here failed I gotta say. I have some dear friends left but I can count them on one hand.
There won't be a big farewell party once I finally leave this country. Also I feel like my body is already preparing me subconsciously for leaving. I went through several rounds of decluttering. I decluttered furniture, clothes, books, old memories, photos. Also things that broke down never got replaced since I'm feeling that leaving is maybe closer than I think right now. I had gorgeous christmas lights on my balcony framing my plants - this light chain broke and never got replaced. Why bother I thought.
I ended countless paid subscriptions i was paying for, I unsubscribed from shops and newsletters I was following along. Sometimes I feel like I unsubscribed from my old self and my old life and now that in-between-transition-stage feels very uncomfortable.
I am not anymore the people pleaser who is saying yes to everyone and everything. No, I am quite the opposite now. I became ruthless in saying no, blocking, deleting phone numbers from people I no longer talk to and so on. I am not hiding myself and my skills anymore shrinking myself into the identity of the freelance language teacher as I did in the past - because it was the only thing that came up for me to earn money in this country in a way that did not completely shatter my soul - until I gradually lost that income and then this also started shattering my soul.
Or maybe I am not super honest with myself here either. Yes, that freelance teaching had some aspects I enjoyed about this job - like the teaching - but also tons of things I hated. Like all the government harassment that came with it, people pleasing my way through in order to financially survive, being ghosted by students who did not give a shit that this meant losing my income. So the downsides were obvious as well but it was still better than my desperate attempt of financially surviving through working on weekends in the low-wage-sector where I was treated like a dumb idiot.
Anyways, I am ready for a fresh environment to heal my bruised body and soul. Because here I don't see anything getting better for me.
Also I never expected that burnout recovery would take so long. But I have to accept it and adapt to it. Maybe the hardest part for someone who is hyper-self-controlled. Oh that is probably also why I am so prone for panic attacks and anxiety. Yes it is something that hits the ones of us with control issues.
So now I will do my best just to rest. And tomorrow. And on Sunday.
Maybe eating breakfast is a good start here. I got up even before 4 am and now it is almost 9 am - and I have not eaten anything yet. Milky collagen coffee and that has been it.
And as cliché as it sounds, maybe sometimes we have to completely fall apart in order to reconstruct our broken souls again - but this time the best version of it. Maybe and just maybe it was not possible before.
So here I am. Reconstructing my broken soul and my body and nervous system that are still far away from great health. Being back at doing the things that made me happy as a child: cooking, baking, being surrounded by animals, being creative, designing, illustrating, ballet, spending time with my mom, driving to the Rhine river (once my nervous system permits again), flying to Spain, swimming in a hotel pool - those are the things that brought me joy as a kid and I still love them all.
If you made it to read that far, congrats! That's a real achievement in the times of goldfish brains and short attention spans when one instagram reel may not exceed 20 seconds.
Thank you so much for reading and following along!
With love.
Your fave babushka Phyllis 😘🪆
P.S. if this resonates with you then subscribe to my babushka letters - my newsletter that is absolutely fun! It's short and sweet, 1-2 minutes read landing in your inbox with some inspiration to eat well and enjoy life!