Oxygen masks

In the months leading up to my mom’s arrival in Montana, I talked to myself often about how things would change. I reminded — and forewarned — myself that it was going to be difficult. That there would be some bad days and some really hard days. And that there would be some fantastic days too. And every other day would be just be days. I coached myself: “Alyson, you have to make space for yourself. You have to remember that to be a good caregiver, you have to take care of yourself.” And I acknowledged that I wasn’t always going to succeed at remembering all of this. Not only would I be living in a different environment, I would be navigating all the emotions that three adults would have as they adjusted to a new living situation.

The months leading up to her move were intense, chaotic, overwhelming, bittersweet, hopeful, and exhausting. On all of us.

For me, that manifested in a flare-up of my stress response — a rash on my arms and face that also presented with swelling around my eyes and cheeks. Once it flares, there isn’t much I can do other than try to calm myself and rest.

When I burned out in 2021, my rash and facial swelling were extreme. For weeks I woke up with my eyes almost swollen shut. I had never experienced that before, and I didn’t know what was happening. The doctors couldn’t explain it either. Tests ruled out the scary things like auto-immune diseases, but I was the one, in my last dermatology appointment, to ask if stress could be the cause. Yes, the physician's assistant replied, it’s possible. And that remains the most definitive answer I’ve ever received on my rash and facial swelling.

That episode left an impression, so much so that when months after it had cleared up it started showing up again, I knew I couldn’t repeat the experience. I resigned from my position and started on my burnout recovery journey — a journey that I have come to realize may never end.

Because, here’s the thing: it’s really, really, really, really, really hard to break old habits and form new patterns of behavior. It takes intentionality, mindfulness, and an embracing of imperfection.

It takes work.

It takes putting on your oxygen mask first.

Which always has, and probably will continue to feel selfish.

But if I don’t put myself first, if I don’t invest in my health — mental, physical, and emotional — how can I be anything to anyone else?

We live in a culture and society that on the one hand tells us that we are only going to succeed by doing things on our own (rugged individualism) while in the same breath teaches us that women have to do everything for everyone else without issue.

And yet we can’t be everything to everyone if we aren’t something to ourselves first. That’s why the oxygen mask analogy comes in so handy.

I know this now, having learned it from my burnout. I even talk about it in my workshops and presentations about burnout and toxic productivity.

This is even a slide in my presentation:

But remember what I said earlier about how hard it is to unlearn bad habits and learn new behaviors?

My oxygen mask went out the window when I moved my mom to Montana.

My focus was on the emotional, physical and mental well-being of my mom. (And making sure we didn’t destroy her China cabinet, which in the end destroyed my back, but that’s another story.)

I was only concerned about her and how she was handling everything. Being there for her when she needed to cry (understandably) about leaving her home of 25 years and the city of 30 years. Keeping her from wearing herself out too much because when she gets too tired, her risk of falling increases, while also figuring out how she can help so that she doesn’t feel too much like a burden.

That singular focus on her and her needs was starting to make me ill, and my stress rash started appearing. Again.

But now I see the rash as something other than an issue. Now I realize that that rash is my body’s warning system. The rash shows up first on my arms, as a way to tell me something. As a way to remind me that I don’t have my oxygen mask on.

If I listen to my body’s warning system, I start to slow down and give myself the space and rest that I need, and the rash goes away pretty quickly. If I don’t, the rash spreads and my face starts to swell.

And once I start seeing the swelling in the mirror, I really know I have to change things.

About a week after my mom moved in, we talked about how I needed to establish a better rhythm for myself. My writing grounds me in a way that nothing else does, and I have been away from writing for months. With the shifting of our rooms, I no longer have a private space for writing, so I asked my mom to hold off on coming downstairs from her penthouse (another story, this one delightful) until closer to noon. That way, I would be able to write and do yoga and catch up on things I needed to catch up on, in my own space on my own, even if that space is the dining room.

We haven’t been able to do it every day, because appointments happen in the morning too, but for the most part, this new rhythm is working out.

It’s why I’m able to finally write something again.

And yet, I felt so selfish asking my mom to not come downstairs for two hours. It’s a perfectly reasonable request, especially since she has her own food and entertainment in her room. But I felt nervous and uncertain asking her to do this. I felt selfish for putting in place this boundary.

It felt selfish to ask for something for myself, even knowing the importance of it and how it will benefit everyone in the house, not just me.

The guilt that many of us feel when we do something for ourselves doesn’t come out of nowhere. We’ve been taught to feel guilty. We’ve been taught that it’s selfish to put ourselves first.

And so we don’t.

We do our paid work, whatever that may be, and we do our unpaid labor at home. We push through colds and Covid to take care of our families. We break down at work and only if we’re lucky do we have a boss who recognizes we need a day off and pushes us to take it. We put off scheduling our doctor’s appointments because everyone else’s needs take priority. We take care of our kids singularly, losing sight of who we are as individuals and as partners.

We say yes to the obligations we feel guilty about saying no to and we say no to the things that we want to do.

We move through the world with unending to-do lists and a pressure to perform to perfection in all things, never once stopping to think about how it’s impacting our own well-being.

We burn out, take a few days off, and then think we’re recovered.

And we repeat the cycle over and over again.

Like I said, it’s really hard to unlearn.

I still feel guilty and selfish that I asked my mom to give me the mornings, even as I revel in the quiet of this morning’s writing. But those feelings of guilt are secondary, and becoming less pronounced, the more I realize that I am a kinder human to my family when I have the mornings to myself. That I have more to give them when I take this time for me.

I’m going to keep putting on my oxygen mask first.

Will you?