Required to Function

Pondering how to live in a crazy world.

I was telling a dear friend and colleague the other day that I fear I am beginning to be unable to function in the “normal” world. The words just kind of spilled out of me - I hadn’t actually uttered them out loud before that moment. But as I spoke, I felt their truth within: I am having a harder and harder time doing “the doing” that is expected of me. 

That phrase “expected of me” is a loaded one. By whom? It begs the question. I think the harsh reality is that I expect it of myself. 

Internally I think: “I need to,” “I should,” “I’ll struggle if I don’t…” There are so many layers of obedience, fear, societal conditioning, it’s like a mille crepe cake inside my head and heart. None of it was put there by any one person or circumstance. I just absorbed the cultural and subcultural expectations of my particular place in existence. 

I’ve known for a decade that the pace I was operating at was not sustainable. And it wasn’t just the external schedule that I mean. I also mean my internal pace - the input of information overload, the output of deliverables and tasks, the mental load of child rearing and household running. I knew I wanted to get off the highway. I even thought I was crafting an exit ramp by moving to the Caribbean, which turned out to be a loopty-loop onto another highway. Stress. Mental health challenges. Obligations. Responsibility. Pushing, pushing, pushing beyond what felt good. My body and heart were screaming at me. I knew. I felt despair, and I felt trapped. I couldn’t solve the problem because I didn’t have the courage to listen to what I knew I needed to do: stop.

The change found me one year ago last week when I was diagnosed with stage 2 aggressive breast cancer. 

Bernie Seigel, the author of Love, Medicine & Miracles puts it this way: “The salient point is that our state of mind has an immediate and direct effect on the state of body. If we ignore our despair, the body receives a “die” message.”

To be clear, I’m not blaming myself for my cancer diagnosis. I believe there are many factors - some in my control and some not - that combined to result in me being diagnosed with cancer at age 40. 

But I am acknowledging that I knew I was harming my spirit. 

Modern working motherhood is an insanely unrealistic expectation that is a set-up for failure, stress, and dis-ease. A majority of women I know, including myself, are on antidepressants. The refrain I hear is that it “takes the edge off.” The edge being this constant, impossible ask we are asking of ourselves. [And in comparison, we have it easy! With all the awfulness around the world, it’s laughable to look at an upper middle class white working mom in the U.S. and feel bad for me. Still, we suffer in our way. It’s like when people don’t want to talk to me about their problems because it’s not as big as cancer. It may not be life-threatening, and it’s still a problem, and I still want you to share it with me.]

I was at the psychiatrist a few weeks ago for one of my children and we were discussing their need to move freely throughout the day. “We may need to medicate him,” the doctor said, conjecturing that he may have the hyperactive sub-style of ADHD. My response was “do we medicate him or do we change the environment?” Perhaps the requirement in elementary school to sit in your chair for four hours is what’s actually wrong and needs to be changed. 

In other words, is it the context that is crazy or is it us? Is there something wrong with all these working mothers I know that need chemical support to take the edge off and function without succumbing to our blind rage? Or is there something wrong with how we are being asked to function in this world at this time? Perhaps blind rage IS the response that is merited to the weight we find hoisted upon us. A weight that feels a lot like another form of oppression, just a less obvious one. But because rage is not socially acceptable (or very conducive to living in a marriage or family) we medicate ourselves one way or another. 

I think we all sort of know deep down that something is wrong with the context. We know it but admitting it is absolutely terrifying, especially for those of use that have been rule-followers and adherents to societal norms for all of our lives. If we admit the context is crazy we have to begin down the path of rejecting what is safe and going towards what is authentically us and a life that listens to our spirit as it speaks through our bodies and minds. How do you “do you” in the face of practical challenges like mortgages and health insurance and the rising cost of everything? How do you summon the courage and conviction to believe in yourself above all else and go against what is expected of you and what you expect of yourself? Can you tolerate the rejection and stigma of living outside of the norms? And most importantly, how do you truly believe you are worthy of loving yourself enough to listen to what your true self is telling you — and to honor it by acting on it. No matter what it is.

I don’t have those answers, but in retrospect I can tell you with confidence that cancer is a crappy way to be forced to act on a truth you already know. Severe illness works well as a catalyst because it transforms you in an instant and your life gets rearranged into a different life, so you have, in some ways, less to lose. Priorities are clear. Mortality is evident. Time is more precious. There isn’t space for regret or procrastination or self-denial. The stakes are simply too high. They were always too high, really, but cancer obliterates your ability to be in denial of that fact. 

Cancer, it turns out, is also a socially acceptable reason to change your life and priorities. To slow down. To ask for help. To follow what brings you joy. To live as your truest self. Interesting that we have to get really sick for people (and ourselves) to finally allow for that. 

For anyone reading this with that nagging sense that they know they should be doing something else or different or changing in some way, take my word for it: make the change. Feel free to decide not to function in your life as is. Remake it before it remakes you. 

One year ago I was stopped in my too-busy, stress-laden tracks. In many ways I am so grateful for my diagnosis. You can’t gratitude-journal your way to how I feel as a result of the last year. But no, I don’t recommend the cancer method of self-evolution. There’s got to be a better way. And maybe it has something to do with not requiring ourselves to function in a dysfunctional system.