Nothing to Blog About

What to journal on? I ponder on this idea alone. Is it when we feel we have nothing or that the brain actually has endless ideas and we are so bound up mentally that we just can’t sort through it all?

Personally I have so much that I’d like to “journal” on, but so much I’d like to work through and keep to myself. At the same time that stuff is so relevant to me getting to the next step. How do I keep a journal, be honest to myself, be a team player and not hide my mental and physical struggles?

This past 10 days I’ve been engaged in a push-up challenge, initiated by Toudai Nigel Bauer. I thank you for this Nigel, it was put on my heart for more than one reason. The challenge is in support of mental health and to raise funds for this great concern/ cause. 

If you pull some statistics through your Google machine, you will come up with anywhere from 55-65% of people struggle with mental health. I personally don’t agree with this value. I believe we all do to varying degrees. I feel this is absurd that we feel we have to “raise awareness”. This is a real world wide issue and should be addressed and recognized on all fronts. Again my opinion, and my opinion because it’s very real to me and the same time seems so apparent everywhere.

Okay, the on my mind topic is surfacing…I’m not sure how surface or short I can keep this topic. 

I went through major burnout near 2015 or at least that’s when it became more evident in me. I wasn’t just over worked and tired of work, I was tired of life. I was totally to a point of being unaware, literally didn’t have a rational or logical thought  process. Absolutely everything was stressful. Simplicity in every aspect of my life was a must! I was literally done. I didn’t know who I was, where to turn or what was going on in my head or around me. Literally my life through my mind was over, I cognitively felt or understood no point of return.

Just a few months prior to my final breaking point, I had actually made an appointment with our family physician. Nothing was identified. Here I was literally loosing my mind and nothing was identified by my doctor. I mentioned to my doctor, that when driving home from northern Alberta after my 3 week stint that, as a semi drove towards me I had no desire to swerve in front of that truck, but at the same time had thoughts thats I did not care if it swerved into my lane. When I write this out, it’s a 100% red flag. Yet, how did I slip through the cracks!

From that point on, I spent the next 3 years trying to sort my head out and I had no idea that I had a problem or if I did what it was, I just felt like I was living outside of my own head and could honestly hardly wait for this to be over, and by “over”, it meant over in whatever fashion. Very hard to explain. I had no one…I had no one in my life that picked up on my mental struggle, not even a nurse that was directly in the family circle. 

I wasn’t able to sleep…I was getting about 3 hours a night. Every aspect of my life was getting to be more and more of a struggle. This all went as far as selling everything we owned and moving from an acreage that guaranteed we’d still be at today,  to me isolating myself for the next 3 years. Somewhere in the last part of those 3 years, I recognized that I needed to research how to learn how to sleep again…then researched how to build energy again through eating and this went on and on.

Don’t get me wrong I was already a person who took care of all the physical attributes, with exercise and eating…

This mental burn out (adrenal fatigue - level 4), took me out mentally and physically. My hair seemed to have turned grey all in a one year span (I was told it was “silver fox” and looked good, lol). I lost about 20% of my total muscle mass in about a year…super depressing in itself as I took pride in the physical appearance that I’d maintained. Fatigue and continued brain fog was next level.

Moving ahead to today. At 57, and having to rebuild my mental and physical being for nearly the last 10 years on my own without recognition of what I had gone through or the validity that my struggle was real is a daunting thought. I was even pushed from the family to a certain degree and it was said by a couple family members that they’d never forgive me. 

There is so much underlying my story that goes back to the day I was born, that lead to and contributed to the end of my first life. 

I can say today that it’s been the best thing I’ve ever gone through (for me directly) because it has made me who I am today. Even though some of which occurred seems unmendable, I believe due to the ignorance and lack of understanding of the mental health realities…this I still struggle with. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy. This mental and physical challenge has made me learn how I work and has given me the push to rebuild and it’s given me the extra desire and strength to never want to be where I’d been. 

That was a lot of personal stuff. It was not shared to collect pity, but to provide awareness of the many who may be slipping through the cracks or walking past you in the hallways at work or in school. I personally believe that there are many people on or heading onto the same path that I involuntarily got swept onto.

As a supervisor in my line of work I watch for signs of fatigue, behavioural changes, I stay in tune with workers hydration and food intake, I try to maintain a place of joy and happiness, I also try to keep up communications and openness. I’m not the same supervisor that I was prior to this happening to me. I work with my staff to ensure stress is minimized, I work to ensure they have time with their families and holidays off. At the same time, I continue to work on me with hopes of creating a place with more positivity. 

This push-up challenge for me is more than what it presents itself to be. This cause is way more real than a lot of people realize. After going through what I did alone for 10 years, missed by doctors and nurses, I can say there is a lot more education and awareness required. 

All of that to say, 10 years later I’m still on the mend. A person just doesn’t regenerate in a year or two. Looking back, I figured my decline went back 10 years before I hit the really ugly in my life. Approximately 15 years in total of mental and physical decline does not come back quickly. My research indicates after an extreme burn out a person never fully recovers, the bonus to this is, I now recognize when I’m heading down and I pull myself out before and major setbacks. But mostly, I now live a very purposeful and intentional lifestyle; I live more on a proactive path versus reactive. 

For those that are unaware “adrenal fatigue- level 4”, is all in body change, hormone levels are all messed up, which means metabolism, thyroid, adrenaline, melatonin, all hormonal function are disrupted (depleted and out of balance) which involves all organs, brain fog and confusion, the body goes into survival mode and starts to shutdown one piece at time in an attempt to keep the essential life organs alive and functioning. This was super real to me and is to everyone going through mental health issues. Without people communicating these unfortunate events “mental struggles “ and working past the stigma on mental health, there will be more people feeling like there is no way out and more unfortunate suicidal events.

I have never shared as I have in this one journal. This was put on my heart today for a reason. 

February 19, 2025

Acts of Kindness recorded - 38,  

Push-ups - 3300, 

Sit-ups and or equivalents - 4000,

Kilometres (intentional extra mileage) - 138.7,

Meditation/ inversion table  (min.) - 66, 

Stretching/ rolling (min.) - 94

Sparring/ grappling minutes - 43,

# of forms re-familiarized - 6,

Form reps - 48, 

Form time (min.) - 154, 

“Mastery” recite (min.) - 43

Blogs - 5