Waiting is the Hardest (W.I.T.H Podcast 🎙)

Ep 6-Rockstar status

• Johnita and Lisa • Season 1 • Episode 6

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What is this Rockstar Status Johnita mentions in the podcast? Hear how she describes the challenges of returning to her profession. Other topics include: eroding confidence as a result of her injuries, difficult conversations, and a sister of circle friends who support her through this journey.

Johnita:

I'm trying to figure out what exactly they're looking at. They'll be confused, trying to comprehend what happened to me. Was I born like this? Maybe she was in the military, served in the war and sacrificed body part... Five years ago. I almost lost my life and my leg. And I told myself that it would be time to tell my story when I could tell it without tears. So after five long years, I'm finally ready. Waiting has been the hardest part of this journey. Hit stop now if you're sensitive to mature subjects, because this story is raw, real and unfiltered.

Lisa:

Episode six, rockstar status. I'm Lisa and I'm Johnita. Welcome to Waiting is the hardest. So you just talked to us about finally starting to accept that you wanted your leg.

Johnita:

Yeah.

Lisa:

Are you starting to kind of settle into your new normal?

Johnita:

Yeah, I think that at this phase you know, I'm, I'm beginning to accept my fate... with my leg, but I'm still waiting to be, to become a rock star or to get back to rockstar status. And what I mean by that is, you know, rockstar status kind of went hand in hand with bad B status

Lisa:

Got it.

Johnita:

And I just felt like. You know, with, with that confidence, like at work, you know, I just, I felt like a rock star at work. I felt like, you know, I was not, I felt like I know that I was doing something that I really enjoyed. I, you know, I just had, I had a great situation, a great professional situation, a great personal situation. And I was waiting to feel like a rock star again. So while I knew at this point, I want to keep my leg, but I'm waiting for that, I'm still waiting for that rockstar confidence, that rockstar status to come back. And at first it was some glimmer of hope, right? Like even though, even though I mentioned in the earlier episode about how I noticed that, that like with my mental, mental taxation or being mentally taxing, that there were some issues with my focus or concentration, I should say. I didn't think that was going to impact my rockstar status. And when I was at home recovering, I was still downstairs in the living room. And I was not, you know, last episode I talked about like how, how I was just feeling awful. But my hairdresser came to town. She had moved out of the state and she was back in town and I told her about what happened. And so she came over to visit. But while she was there, she decided to do my hair. So she cut my hair. She did my eyebrows. My husband has locks. She twisted him up. So we were looking and feeling good. And I will post a picture in the show notes. You could not tell me anything, okay! And and so I wrote about it, like I was feeling really good and I wrote about it and I said: Maybe it was the bomb ass haircut I received the night before. There's nothing better than making the traumatically injured feel sexy. And on top of that, she did my man's hair too. So we were both looking good.. After our styles, I kept saying that we needed a night out on the town. Maybe the kitchen served as our date venue. And so what happened was he put me in my wheelchair and we wheeled on over to the kitchen and I sat up in my wheelchair at the table. And I don't even remember what we did, like much of nothing probably, but we were just, I was just sitting up in my chair, looking good and he looked good and it was just like, okay, we're out on the town because I'm out of the living room, I'm out of this bed, you know? But that was my glimmer of hope that okay, I'm feeling good. And I'm feeling like I can get back to rockstar status like that, like in the purview, but it didn't really happen. And something was going on with me mentally. And my mom brought it up when she was visiting. She said that she noticed that there was something with my mental state and she noticed; she was concerned. And I got defensive. I didn't really know what she was talking about, but I did realize that after a while like I did realize that there was something going on. Like it was one thing to like, look cute from a haircut, but then it was another thing to like, be given like tasks to do. Like, for example, before the accident, I managed all of our household bills and I, you know, I took care of everything and you know, you're in an accident, but you still got to pay bills. Right? So we haven't really, you know, things were kind of falling behind when I was gone. And when I got back home, I told Antoine like I took the bill book and I couldn't do it. I couldn't focus on paying the bills. I was getting overwhelmed and I told Antoine I'm like, you gotta pay the bills. And I showed him how to pay them. I'm like, you gotta do it. I just couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I would get overwhelmed. And those kinds of things were happening. Little by little and, you know, I would talk to my boss and because it was like in the back of my mind, like I kinda, it was kinda back there, but I still wasn't like giving it a lot of attention. So I applied for a job. Like I mentioned, I applied for a job. It was a promotion. I was looking forward to it. But again, God makes the best laid plans because as I was recovering from that, trying to get that hole from that failed flap to heal, I started to notice more and more that something just was a little bit different about my, about my ability to focus and to concentrate and

Lisa:

Do you think your mind was too much on your recovery? Do you think that there was some something from the accident? How do you, how did you figure out exactly what was going on mentally?

Johnita:

I don't know if I ever figured out. If it was from the recovery or if it was from the accident, you know, they did scans, they did a head to toe scan. So medically there was nothing on the scan that showed that anything was wrong, but, but little by little, and it wasn't until, you know, like I started to prepare for, for my job, this new position in trying to make the transition back. And I never wanted to admit that something was going on. It took a lot of therapy for me to be like, like something, something is, something is a little, just a little bit different with my thinking and I wrote about it. I wrote about that as well because I was trying to process what was happening and what I wrote was: I I don't know the exact moment when I knew I wouldn't return to my job initially. All I thought about was my return. Actually, soon after I was brought to my hospital room in Roanoke, I thought about the urgency of my work. You know, I've work with children with disabilities and I had a big burst of energy at the realization that had I survived my life work was as urgent as my life. In fact, I told my boss that we had a lot of work to do when I returned. As I recovered, my work was one of my motivations. The encouraging words, calls and cards from my coworkers, brought a smile to my face and lifted my spirits. At the time of my accident, I was working on earning my administrative credential in special education supervision. I continued working on the online course that I was teaching, having received an accommodation to complete the work virtually. The distraction was much needed. The doctor said I would be off work for a year, but I was initially determined to return in six months. I felt so invigorated at the thought of returning, that I applied for a position as a special education supervisor with my newly earned administrator certificate. My boss's husband stepped in to fill my role during my extended recovery. And I was eternally grateful and had continued determination. But as my recovery continued, I started to see the extent of my functioning. And I started to realize, going back to my career would be completely different. And I wasn't sure if I could face this new reality in an atmosphere where people knew the old me, it didn't help that the role I was in before my accident wasn't filled and I had heard rumblings that I would be assuming some of my former job responsibilities along with my new role and my conversations with my boss didn't help. She was so eager for my returns. As we talked about what the future held for me as a leader in the district, I silently knew I held a secret that I couldn't bring myself to reveal. I was different. My movements were slower. My brain was slower. My multitasking was delayed. My focus was more on managing pain instead of staff and helping students. I longed to share my secret, but I didn't know who to trust. My boss was my longtime confidant, but I didn't know if I could divulge the information to her. Would she receive it as a friend or as my supervisor? I also noticed the PTSD that I long tried to push down inside of me, pushed its way to the surface like reflux. I couldn't conceal it anymore. I was easily overwhelmed and anxious. The thought of my secret and how to manage it put me into overload. My brain felt like a short circuit. I needed to escape the feelings and thoughts, which meant I had to dismiss the secret for another day. I tried repeatedly to address my secret, but got the same result.

Lisa:

Wow. So with all of that, what do you do?

Johnita:

Well, I just kept, I tried to overcome it. I just thought that given time, it would get better. And I I mentioned that my boss's husband was filling in my role and we went out to dinner once. And I knew they were gonna, you know, they wanted to know my plans for returning and I couldn't talk about it. Like I was, I was overloaded. And so I remember saying to her, I remember saying something like: for my mental health, I cannot talk about my progress or something like that.

Lisa:

I think we discussed that on the front end.

Johnita:

Yeah. So, and it took a lot for me to say that. It took a lot for me to say that, but I, you know, cause at this point, you know, I had been... let me back up. I have a community of sister friends who I love and appreciate and am eternally grateful to have. From, you know, my friend Greta who sent me the song here I am by Marvin Sapp that I played every single day during my recovery when I was like sad. And I'll talk about that in episode seven, I think. To my friend, Brenda, who sent me black eyed peas and, pinto beans because I needed a high protein diet for the recovery of my flap. So my boss is one of those sister friends and, and I would continually update her on my progress, but it got to a point where I could not, I couldn't talk about what was going on. It was causing too much anxiety. And so it took a lot for me to practice saying those words to say to her, I cannot talk about what's happening anymore because, I was getting to a point where all of the, all of the recovery, all of the surgeries, all of the healing, all of the different plans, all of the... it was just, it was just overload. And I just could not talk to her about it from a, from a professional perspective, which meant that I couldn't talk to her from a personal perspective, because as I said in my journal, I wasn't sure if she which one, which person I was talking to, you know. It was so hard.

Lisa:

People see us, right, as a certain way. And you know, when we, you talk about these things that you were struggling with, not feeling like yourself, not being back to rock star status; to someone else it's like this girl was pushing through. She's thriving, she's resilient, she's determined, you know, that you are still the same Johnita. Right? So I know, and in those moments, it's really hard to tell someone, right. I can't come back to this work and still I'm not the same person. And although you might see me as the same person and you might not notice some of these things, I notice them. Right. And that is a thing that is more of a distraction and it is something I'm trying to adjust to. It's, you know, so it, I can see how that is. Challenging to have those types of conversations. It's, especially with your inner circle, people who consider themselves close to you, that they know you, that you know, but they don't see the difference. They don't know all of the ins and outs of what you're going through.

Johnita:

Yeah. And that's a good point. And the best way I can describe it, looking back on it is that when, when you're someone who has incredibly high standards and you work at an incredibly high level, a step down from that still looks like, it still looks good to the outside, but to the inside, because you're used to working at such a high level that step down, it might as well be bottom basement at that point, right? Because you're used to holding yourself at such high, high, high standards. And it was very, very hard for me to say that. And now that I'm, as I'm talking about it, I think one of the things that I had to come to terms with was that I had to stop focusing on when I was going to be able to go back to work, the timeline that I thought that I needed to be on to get back to work. And I needed to just focus on my recovery and a part of that recovery, as I was beginning to accept, involved emotional and mental recovery as well. It wasn't just physical.

Lisa:

Right.

Johnita:

And I was starting to get to that point where I was accepting that recovery was not just one thing for me. And maybe for someone else, it was not just one thing.

Lisa:

So is that the point where you decided, okay, I do need to go talk to somebody? The therapist helped me. I was already in therapy at this point, and the therapist helped me to come to terms with this realization. And in fact, she helped me craft that statement that I practiced over and over again and, and, you know, and repeated to my boss.

Johnita:

And it was, it was so hard. It was so hard for me to say those words to her, but I needed to say them. I, I needed, they needed to be said because I was different and I wasn't at rockstar status. And I couldn't go... I think at that point, I still wanted to go back to work as rockstar. Like I just, the thought of going back to work with the, not as sharp, not as quick, not as able to multitask returning back to that. Right. And people are like staring at you, like Cha-Cha! You back! Get back into it. Like I'm like, I'm gonna let them down. I'm going to let myself down. It's gonna... It's, it's a lose, lose all the way around. I'm gonna let my students down that I support, my teachers. It's going to be a lose, lose all the way around. I felt like I needed to say that statement, recite that statement and still see if I could work on getting back to rockstar status a little bit more.

Lisa:

And how did your boss take that message of, I can't talk about it, you know, because of my mental health, like it's not a topic?

Johnita:

So my boss, my boss is incredibly wonderful and caring and understanding and and, and she was respectful. I could tell that she was surprised. Right. I could tell that she was surprised when I said it, but, but she was respectful of my words. She didn't push, you know, she didn't, she didn't come back around, like we didn't have conversation about something else and then she try to sneak it back in. She did not do any of that. She, she, you know, she was accepting of it. And then that information was good information for her though, because it allowed her and her husband, I believe, to figure out, you know, like, look this lady, I'm assuming that this is a conversation at home. Like, okay. She, she not sounding like she ready to gear back up. Right. So what you want to do, you want to come back next year? You want to, you know, what you going to do? And so they later decided to go ahead and repost. The district decided to repost the position for someone, for someone else to fill. And, and I completely understand understood that. And in fact, I felt relief when it happened, because I don't think I would have ever made that call. I would have still been like, I can still do it! Get there, like, you know, but you know, it's like there was, so yeah, it wasn't going to happen. Like looking back on it now. It was the absolutely right thing to do because I would not have been able to get there physically or mentally to be able to do the position.

Lisa:

My final question would be, how much of your rock star status was wrapped up with your job, your association with your job and what you do? Do you think that was maybe more part of your identity? How much of that. You know, cause it definitely seems like you were holding on or did you feel like your job was your, this is my purpose. I am meant to do this job. And so, you know, I guess I'm trying to figure out why were you holding onto it so tightly instead of instantly switching over to, I'm gonna focus on my recovery, the job will be there.

Johnita:

Yeah. Well I think like even reading, reading that excerpt. The job. So working out like working on that credential, that gave me purpose. And I think having something to work towards gave me, it gave me purpose. It gave me something else to focus on. And maybe, not having a job would have meant that I had to focus on my recovery 100% and maybe I didn't want to focus on it. You know? So that's, that's what I'm thinking, just reflecting back on it. But I was holding on girl holding on.. tight!

Lisa:

Wait for me now! Wait for me!

Johnita:

Girl, I'd still be like, y'all still wait for me! I'm coming! Can't hardly walk. I'm coming!

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Johnita

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Lisa

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