31/05/2025
Hi friends!
It’s been a minute! I hope things are going well with you!
Things around here are… well, they are. 🤣
It’s interesting how life takes us on these journeys and the way we expect things to go is very often not even close to how they end up going.
I know it’s been a while since I wrote… and I’m starting to write again for my own mental sanity so HI!!
Just to recap, towards the end of last year I ended up taking a day job here in town after shutting down Board & Batten.
Being self employed can be pretty stressful, not to mention very inconsistent, and I was having some health issues and couldn’t design much, so I was looking forward to the steady hours.
I figured my life would simplify a bit, and I could start thinking and focusing on my next project, whatever that may be.
But… it isn’t playing out that way.
And I could never be anything less than honest with you. And at the risk of sounding like a complainer, I’m going to be honest with you again today.
Working this job is kind of destroying my soul.
I like what I do, and I like the people I work with… and while I am not a huge fan of the company I work for and the work environment they create, what’s really killing me is what it’s costing me.
I never knew just how much the flexibility of my self employment was contributing to the sanity of my household and the mental health of not only myself, but my children as well.
I have always been a hard worker, and I am dedicated and focused.
But working for myself was completely different and I am finding that my job just leaves nothing left of “me” for the rest of my life.
I have NO idea how so many other single parents do this!
To say that it’s been a difficult adjustment, would be an understatement.
We are growing apart as a family, my children have begun acting out, and the work environment leaves me so exhausted and brain dead at the end of the day that I have almost nothing left for my family to try and patch us back together.
The hardest part is that I am torn between the mental decay this is causing me, with the challenges of trying to parent and run my household in just a few hours each evening, with spending quality time with my children… but also wanting to make the situation BETTER.
And of course - the challenge of trying to better the situation when I’m so brain dead I fall into bed every night.
I don’t have any… energy, or whatever it takes… to do the things that make me “me.”
And it’s dumb, because I’m doing all of this and even still just barely making ends meet.
Recently, my parents came to visit me, and my parents both expressed concerns that I am not myself.
My children tell me I’m not myself.
Even my ex husband recently asked me if things were ok because I seemed like I wasn’t myself.
Truth is, I’m NOT myself.
I don’t have any time or energy to be myself.
I recently went to my doctor because I’ve been experiencing episodes of weirdness with my brain that made me (and others) concerned there may be something wrong with me physically.
She listened for a bit, and when I was done telling her what was going on she just looked me right in the eye and said “You need a new job!!”
And then she told me I have a severe case of neurogenic burnout, and I needed to take it very seriously.
It’s like occupational burnout, but bad enough that it causes your brain to freeze up at inopportune moments, causes random moments of confusion, emotional shutdown, apathy, and the weirdest one for me - I just go completely blank for some moments, sometimes mid conversation.
I was recently asked if I’d been tested for early onset dementia… so yeah, it’s become noticeable.
Imagine how bad that could be if one of my “brain shutdown” moments happens while I’m driving… yeah. That’s scary.
Interestingly, it has also caused in me a complete inability to dream and plan.
Which is SO SO SO not me, at ALL.
If anything, I have always been a dreamer with a million different plans and ideas up my sleeve.
I told my dad that I knew it was bad because I realized if someone came to me, handed me $50k and told me to use it to start a business, I would have ZERO clue what to do.
Me, the "I always have a million business ideas and things I want to try" Bethany.
Me, the "I have enough things on my bucket list for three lifetimes" Bethany.
That’s pretty much the opposite of who I am! That’s not me!
And I won’t accept it. Even if my brain is being weird right now.
That’s actually why I’m writing this right now.
It was originally my plan to just work a job until my kids are grown and gone, and then go back to some form of self employment.
A wise person recently told me “but this time right now is when your kids NEED you to be present. They won’t need that as much after they are grown and gone” and they were right.
So, I need to find my way back to working for myself.
I do have some ideas!!
My issue is actually not being sure how to pull it all together.
👉 I can’t do design work - there’s burnout there, plus the industry as an SVG designer isn’t the same anymore due to AI and resellers.
👉 I love the baking, but it wouldn’t support the family without massive volume which I don’t want to do because… more burnout.
👉 I love working online too, but I’m torn with the what and how. I do LOVE bookkeeping (I’m a total numbers nerd) so I may try to do some of that.
👉 Oh and a podcast like I’ve talked about for years, talking about life? Yes!
👉 I also kinda want to start something that talks about marketing local food businesses, because not only have I had my own (I have since temporarily shut down production for my own sanity)...
…but I am also heavily involved in the local food scene and am very close with a lot of local food truck owners, producers, etc. and I would LOVE to do some case studies with them on how to amp up their marketing.
👉 And I love just writing these long newsy notes to you, talking about life.
👉 Oh - and I ALSO want to eventually make occasional food videos where I try out recipes from old old vintage cookbooks.
I figure… somehow, I can roll it all into one project but I don’t quite have the brain capacity right now to figure out the how just yet, and how to make it “cohesive.”
So, I write this message in the meantime.
Writing… I can write for now.
I’ve been taking steps to make some big changes in my life… and while I desperately wish I could just walk away from my job, that isn’t quite in the cards yet so I’m working on what I CAN do.
At least I haven’t lost the “fix it” part of me! There’s still hope!
I’ve been talking to a therapist and reading a few books about simplicity.
It’s funny, because I crave a SIMPLE life, but it just always ends up being anything but simple.
Now that summer has begun, my kids are with their dad for a few weeks which will give me some mental white space - I love my family and I miss them terribly, but I need some “no responsibilities” time to figure out my next steps.
A lot of the things I’ve been learning through this have been very profound for me, and I’ve been taking notes on things I would like to share with you.
So - the fun part is that you’ll be my companions through all of this!
Now - before any of you ask, I am being monitored, checked and tested by my doctor on this to ensure there aren’t any actual brain problems.
But everything seems fine physically, and in all honesty the last few weeks since things all really went down, I’ve been taking some steps to make drastic changes to help me and I’ve been noticing a difference.
One drastic change, for example, is that I'm going to sell my home, in order to downsize and simplify.
For these next few weeks while my kids are with their dad, my non work time is going to be split up into just a few simple things.
First, time writing, planning, and figuring out my next steps with business… writing or maybe recording something, I’m not sure.
And then preparing my house, packing and cleaning it to sell, and 3. RELAXING AND DOING FUN THINGS. Lol!
I know it’s probably dumb but I hardly ever take time to watch TV, so I’ve decided I’m going to make myself do it for a bit here and there. And reading books for fun, not just self improvement.
I figure - when you have such severe burnout it starts to affect you neurologically like this (but you can’t just eliminate the cause at the drop of a hat), the way to fix it is to try and mitigate what’s causing the burnout.
So for me, that means relaxing and joy and keeping things low key and low pressure.
And I know it might seem silly but writing to you really helps!
I appreciate you - ALL OF YOU who have been with me through all these years and really truly do care about me.
You are all so important to me and I honestly don’t know if I could get through this time if I didn’t have you all to talk to about it.
I can’t explain it - but it’s kind of like an entrepreneur thing… I have family, loved ones, and therapist to talk to, but the entrepreneur in me desperately wants to talk to YOU.
Being able to write these messages is therapeutic and is one of the things I know will help me progress through my situation - and it’s a whole lot nicer to write something like this if there’s someone to read it!
So thank you for being here with me and walking through this with me.
😘 Love,
Bethany
