From Convalescence to Career

Redefining Work Post-Illness

The last couple of weeks have been much more eventful than recent months. I had my first interview in over six months, which went relatively well. This interview was the culmination of a few things. I’ve been slowly building up my cognitive energy over the last few months by filling my days with work-like activities. Things like writing, reading, online courses and language lessons. I’ve found that if I build things up slowly I’m able to do much more than I imagined. I’ve been ending my weeks pleasantly tired, but not completely wiped which tells me now is the right time to get back into the world of work part-time.

My relationship with work has evolved so much since I first became unwell. Within a few months, my corporate job had to go. I’d been spinning several plates at once: doing a data science course, working full-time and working on a startup idea. After quitting my job, I began to dedicate a few hours a day to my startup, which had previously been flitting in the background of my work life. I started off working two to three hours a day and slowly built up the hours without even realising it. Before I knew it I could work six hours a day. In this period I had some of my biggest career wins and more importantly, I got to work on something I believed in every single day. I learnt to be much more efficient with my time and interrogate what tasks were high-priority and what could wait until the next day.

But it felt like I lived a double life. From the outside, I was at the height of my professional career jumping from achievement to achievement. Yet I was paying for it at home. I didn’t know anything about boom and bust cycles, the term commonly used to describe the intense highs and lows that come from cramming too much on your “good days” when living with a chronic condition. I remember feeling like I was on a rollercoaster ride ricocheting between days spent in dark rooms to days similar to the before times. It took me a while to work out that my overactivity caused these huge swings.

It all came to a crashing halt when I relapsed a year and a half ago after an infection. I could no longer go on and had to accept that my startup’s days were numbered. I spent the next few months winding things down in between long days spent back in a dark room. I slowly accepted that the goal I’d been working towards for several years was no longer. It was a period of intense grief. Grief that I had lost yet another thing to this illness. As CEO I had the fun job of telling all of our advisors and supporters that it was over. The few hours of work I could muster every week were spent explaining that we had not achieved what we set out to and that our business was no more.

A few months later I joined a new project. This time the hours were much more reasonable for my still chronically ill brain and body. I embarked on the project tentatively. Aware that I could not let myself creep back into the workaholic tendencies that had propelled me for so long. I would be working two hours per day. Sounds reasonable, right? The rest of my time would be spent resting and focusing on my recovery. That’s not how the project panned out. I found myself growing more and more consumed by it. Even though I was (technically) only working a couple of hours a day, I was spending all of my time reflecting on how we could make it a success, what needed to be done and how I would spend the next day’s two hours as impactfully as possible. My workaholism slowly encroached on this project and I began to dedicate more and more time to it.

After the project wrapped, I had to stop working altogether because I had learned that I was unable to set clear boundaries around my work. This tendency had not been as damaging before being ill, but now it seemed existential. Even if the number of hours I was contractually obligated to work was low, I seemed to always want to make a new project my “next big thing.”

I’ve spent the last year focusing exclusively on my recovery and it’s helped me come on leaps and bounds. This may not yet have translated to a full physical recovery, but it has helped me gain the mental bandwidth I need to get to the next stage.

Over the last few months, I’ve realised that I may be ready for part-time work, so I’ve been preparing myself to start working in the new year. The preparation has been three-fold: finding workplaces that will provide enough accommodations for me to return to work (safely), doing brain retraining to teach myself that going back to work is safe so that my nervous system does not completely unravel and the usual preparation that comes when applying to jobs.

"Crossroads of Recovery and Ambition" DALL E 3

I’ve also been doing some self-exploration and trying to set myself up in the right way. I want to continue making progress with my health when I go back to work. Some of the ways I’ll do this will be practical. Working out how long I can work before I need a ten to fifteen-minute break. Working from home as much as I can and taking Uber instead of public transport to get to the office. Socialising may have to take a hit for a while, but it has sadly been the first thing to go as recovery takes precedence over seeing friends a lot of the time.

The other side of the coin will be keeping my tendency to prioritise work above all else in check. It will most likely be a case of me checking in with myself regularly as I get used to working again. I will ask myself things like: does this task need to be done right away? Have I done my allotted hours for the day? Regular breaks and scheduled downtime will be non-negotiable, giving me time to recharge. If I feel my familiar pattern creeping in, it will be up to me to rein it in and continue to prioritise my health. I’ll have to practice saying no to additional commitments or projects that could lead me easily to overwork.

This period of convalescence has completely transformed my approach to work. I’m nowhere near as nervous or stressed with work performance as I was before becoming ill. It’s given me a new perspective on life and a feeling that if I can get through this, I can get through anything. I am immensely grateful to be in a place where I may soon be able to work again and enjoy a more full life.

With love,

Naïma

In other news…

• I was interviewed recently for an article called Long COVID Research Is a Bit of a Mess. This article is all about long COVID research and the main developments over the last few years. I encourage you to read it (if you have the spoons). Happy with the outcome and it gives a real insight into all things long COVID research and why progress has been so slow despite so many of us being impacted. A big thanks to all of you who have found my newsletter from this article, welcome 👋🏾💛