My Year of FAILURE
January 3, 2011
I have not posted in over a year.
This has been my year of FAILURE.
Not FAILURE in the sense that I have lost anything. Well, I have “technically” lost many things: I lost my mind; and my career as a professor of art history here in the Bay Area, and possibly in the state of California. If I ever want to return to that, I will need to do a serious geographic.
All I have really lost is my pride, my attachment to perfectionism, and maybe a lingering sense of embarrassment.
What I have gained is the knowledge that, no matter how bad it can possibly get, I can certainly get back up, brush myself off, and look through the lens of shifted perspective.
And proudly added FAILURE to my CV.
After the familiar refrain of yet another dressing down, in yet another director’s office, at the end of July 2010, I finally admitted defeat to the increasing flashbacks, panic attacks, anxiety, and inability to live an integral life post-9/11. Yes, it was nine years later, as one of my supervisors snapped, but what this person did not understand (many do not), is that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) does not have a time-line. Sucking it up is not an option. And, as a recent study has shown, many of us 9/11 survivors are developing latent PTSD symptoms several years later (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/study-finds-post-traumatic-stress-from-911-increasing/?scp=1&sq=ptsd%209/11&st=cse). During the previous year, I had prepped and taught 11 classes between 2 institutions. And my breaking point: I had just been pink-slipped from the one institution where I had just qualified for health benefits. How was I going to afford to continue taking care of myself, as a 9/11 survivor? Prime fodder for losing it.
So, I include a couple of photos of the primary place I spent the majority of my time for 5 months: Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, French Campus, Psychiatry Department. Getting acquainted with FAILURE.
After consulting with my therapist and psychiatrist, I filed for State Disability, and checked myself into an outpatient psychiatric program in August 2010. For 5 months, I was in treatment 5 days a week. They even let me out—briefly—at the end of September, only to return 2 weeks later.
For a driven, perfectionist academic—this was the end of the road. The opposite of SUCCESS.
The dictionary definition of FAILURE is: a state of inability to perform a normal function; an abrupt cessation of normal functioning; a fracturing or giving way under stress; lack of success; a falling short.
Yes, that sounds about right. It was difficult to function normally when it felt like my life was taken over by flashbacks of events that happened 9 years before, in a place 3000 miles away. When it was not flashbacks, it was consuming panic attacks that left me paralyzed in public and calling friends to help me out. I literally felt like I was fracturing…under stress.
This was the culmination of a two-year fall, during which I experienced most of my greatest fears: losing not one, but three jobs I absolutely loved—all because of my 9/11 injury or PTSD, losing connection with my meditation practice, experiencing that feeling of exhaustion from physical and emotional burnout, and total depression and isolation. Completely broken.
What I have learned over the past half a year is, I am not in control of my own life. Something much greater and wiser is. Failure did not come often in my life before this. I drove myself fast and hard, and I have a ruthless inner critic—deadly. It is inevitable that we all fail at points in our life—so I could benefit from some failure, right? But seriously?
I have been busy deconstructing myself the past few months. The benefit of 5-day-a-week therapy. Certainly a better alternative to suicide. While I went in to this wanting the PTSD and depression to diminish, I have come out of it learning that I lack essential communication skills, and possess emotional dysregulation—all probably stemming from childhood, and setting me up for eventual FAILURE. If I continue working on those areas, they will help my PTSD and depression. Brilliant.
FAILURE has allowed me to build a new, stronger foundation on which to rebuild my life. I am learning to form trusting relationships, something very new for me—again, the communication thing. I am still working on the emotional regulation puzzle. That one may take awhile, and much assistance. One of these days, I will cry when it’s appropriate, and isolate and shutdown when it’s appropriate (like, never!). I’ve heard it said somewhere that there are no failures, just experiences and your reactions to them. That has certainly been my experience! C.S. Lewis once said, “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievements.” I want more of that view.
The greatest opportunity I’ve had in this time is to experience many different forms of healing. There have been physical forms of healing: walking and other exercises to tend to my vertigo, yoga—which has been essential to getting back into my body which I have felt disconnected from, and soon I’ll be exploring acupuncture. Emotionally, I have continued with psychotherapy, a 12-step program, and continuing to keep myself out there with my new friends. Spiritually, I have slowly returned to my Buddhist practice—which I abandoned as a workaholic—and has been a practice in patience.
I have also gone back to my art practice, another practice in patience. I hope to chronicle that path here. I’ve heard someone say that there are two benefits of FAILURE: 1. If you fail, you learn what does not work; 2. The failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach. That is equally true of art as in life.
