Rest, resistance, and resisting posting online.
In the middle of February, I said ‘no’ to a prestigious curatorial research residency I had *just* started, and my PhD.
Having recently moved in with my partner, I’d moved my PhD to part-time to cope with increasing costs due to living on plague island, alongside the insane pace of work required to submit a social sciences PhD in three years (UK Higher Education is trash). Since November last year, I’d been feeling increasing amounts of brain fog: as though my brain had too many tabs open and I couldn’t find one I needed at any given time during a task. I also felt tired all the time. I had no energy. I kept cancelling on friends because I was too tired. The tiredness and fatigue did not subside with more sleep, more greens, or more iron (I’m anaemic). Anti-depressants did not help. I told my cousin I felt “grey and empty.” I was experiencing depersonalisation.
I simply did not feel good. Nothing noticeably physical, like a stuffy nose or a broken leg. I just felt horrible, all the time. I am not well.
And so for the first time, I said no to pushing through. And it’s been really hard. I burst into tears while explaining to my contact at the residency “Sorry. I just cannot work right now.” I felt, and still feel, like an utter fraud. It’s scary to say ‘no’ before your body forces you to, but I had no other option.
On the first day of “???” (I’m still not sure what I call this period? sick leave? exhaustion due to capitalism?) I picked up the book Wintering The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May. I’d started it before, in an attempt to glean some insights during the first season of the Pandemic, but I couldn’t stick with it. This time was different. The book is memoir and meditation on Katherine’s experiences dealing with hardship. She uses the metaphor of ‘winter’ to illustrate how we all, (some more and harder than others) experience fallow periods; it’s cyclical, like the seasons. May writes:
However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful…we tend to see it as a humiliation, something that should be hidden from view lest we shock the world too greatly. We put on a brave public face and grieve privately; we pretend to not see other people’s pain.
But ‘wintering’, or dealing with life life-ing, is immensely difficult to do in the fourth Age of Online. During my first week off, I had an almost incontrollable urge to type up a quick policy analysis on the Digital Services Act draft implementation legislation. I thought I needed a short tweet-think-piece to keep my profile (or is it brand?) on Twitter. I could imagine it clearly: a pithy, concise point. I’d watch some likes fall in, a retweet here or there. A “👏🏾” reply. The dopamine rush.
“There.” I’d think. “I have done an Online.”
But I didn’t.
Instead, I dragged myself off Twitter by logging out of the website and (re)deleting the mobile app. But the anxiety of how to ‘announce’ my “???” still filtered through my thoughts. I’m no influencer or anything, but my intellect is how I get paid. In the knowledge economy, I am one of thousands clamouring for contracts and relevancy from our benevolent funder/client overlords. So showing I still get it, constantly producing, ~creating content~ is one way to show that I’m available for hire. It varies: panel talks, guest lectures, strategy meetings: it all contributes to me being able to pay my bills.
Wondering how to keep up with my online self while wintering is anxiety-provoking. It is a particular useless and energy-sapping addiction: scrolling through the various algorithmically-curated feeds, consuming snapshots of peoples lives. We’re not meant to see, or know, so much. Logically, I know it’s a curation of a curation of lives, but the inadequacy I feel with every ‘small announcement!’ or career update post is alarming!! Katherine May expresses the sentiment intimately: “People admired me for how much I got done. I lapped it up, but I felt secretly that I was only trying to keep pace with everyone else, and they seemed to be coping far better.” I started to think that the horrible things my previous PhD supervisor said about me was true. Maybe I am just not good enough?
I resisted posting anything about being “???” (well…until this newsletter) because I find it difficult to explain, and I am embarrassed. What would I say? “Quit everything coz burnout, lol. I feel horrible, but I’m not sick in a normal way? I just feel really really bad hahaha. I’m good though!!”
I feel the immense luxury — because it is a luxury — to be able to say no. To be able to make the difficult decision to put myself, and my sanity, and my health, and my wellness ahead of my career and financial ambitions and obligations. But because I feel guilty, I also am battling thoughts about how I can share back someway. “Maybe I can do a YouTube video on noticing burnout for other PhDs?” I think.
It is inane; the internalised need I have to prove myself. Even when I already have, several times over.
The Nap Ministry tells Black women that “rest is resistance.” To know our boundaries. To stop doing so much. And yes, rest is resistance, but only if you have space to do so. Rest is resistance when you have the option to choose business as normal, but you opt-out.
So in this winter season of mine, just when I had planned to enter spring: I am resisting. And I am resting.
Resonated? Leave a comment