White Knuckling
Just like everyone, I go through highs and lows. Sometimes life is smooth and steady—you have a perfect balance of challenge and comfort, you’re relationships are solid and your mental and physical health is in a groove. Other times, everything is a wreck—you’re stressed, exhausted, unhealthy, unbalanced and struggling to get back on track.
Then there’s the time in between where you’re white knuckling. You recognized the problem, made a plan to correct it and you’re just starting to move in the right direction. You know the path ahead is slippery and one wrong move could cause you to slide backwards or worse, completely off the path. So you hold on tight, gripping the wheel for dear life. Other cars are buzzing right on by, but you’re too focused on keeping it between the lines to care.
When you’re white knuckling, the people around you are often annoyed. Some may suggest that if you’re not comfortable on the road, you should have stayed home. Sure, that would be the safer option, but the only way to learn to maneuver dangerous conditions is through practice.
I’ve been in a bit of a white knuckling phase for the last few months. Changing my career path this year has been a major lifestyle adjustment. The change was initially exhilarating, then eventually evolved into scary and overwhelming. Going from having an underlying confidence in my work to feeling completely inadequate every day takes a toll on the old psyche. I spend most days keeping my hands tightly gripped on 10:00 and 2:00 just trying to hold it all together.
I’m emotional by nature. I try to suppress and sometimes I’m successful, but more often than not I end up breaking down at an inopportune time. I work to be strong, but in all honesty I’ve struggled with my mental state off and on throughout my life.
As a child I was beyond anxious. I obsessed over pleasing my teachers, I regularly vomited at school before gym class, I didn’t fit in with the girls (didn’t own a Barbie) or the boys (hated sports) and from the moment puberty hit I began hating my body. I often lost myself in books or spent hours talking to my pony, Dusty, while sitting on her back as she grazed in the pasture.
As an adult, I’ve gone through phases of darkness and light. Not long after I got married, I crocheted for about 52 hours straight, continuing through blisters and eventual bleeding that required bandaids. Eventually, Jason called in reinforcement and my mom took me to the doctor who promptly prescribed Paxil. That was a short-lived non-solution that I flushed down the toilet after a few weeks of feeling awful. The next day I started a strict schedule and moved forward through pure will power. This was the first of many phases of white knuckling through life—forcing myself to maintain some semblance of a normal routine.
Over time, I got into a structured routine and I thought I had resolved my issues. I assumed I had put my anxiety and depression behind me. Sadly, I hadn’t resolved any root causes so it was inevitable that the moment I loosened my knuckles things would spiral out of control.
As anybody could have guessed it didn’t take long for my white knuckling to unravel. After a miscarriage and several years of dissatisfaction with my career, I fell into a depression that led me to watching nearly non-stop episodes of Trading Spaces while lounging in bed or on the couch. I did my best to hide my binge eating and marathon sleeping sessions from everyone, especially Jason, who clearly saw through my chicanery.
Over time, I dug out of the hole by putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually I started a new job and had two babies in 16 months. It seemed that having two boys to care for consumed all my time and energy, leaving no room for self-wallowing or anxiety. I truly believed white knuckling was behind me and for 10 years that was the case.
Then 2019 happened. Going through an unplanned career transition meant my routine, structure and stability was thrown out the window. It quickly became apparent that success was going to take more time and effort than I initially figured. For several months I tried to hide my insecurities and lack of confidence which is a slippery slope. I ended up focusing a lot of energy worrying about others’ opinions.
With the outside world seeing me work towards a dream I’d had for years, I found it hard to be honest about my struggles. Fear of sounding selfish and weak meant I wouldn’t dare tell even Jason I was feeling depressed. Afterall, he has taken on every bit of our family’s financial burden.
As I hid more and more of my mental state, I slipped deeper and deeper into a funk. I was sleeping too much, procrastinating on my work, spending too much time on social media, and feeling worse and worse about myself. Then I hit my breaking point—I procrastinated writing a blog post for 7 days, reneging on my promise to myself to write regularly.
So, I scraped off the windshield and slipped on my driving gloves. And that’s how I’m back to white knuckling. The good news is I’ve driven this road before which means I’m getting more comfortable every day. That also means that if you buzz by me too fast, I just might loosen up my grip long enough to flip you the bird.
