The Next Right Thing—Burnout.

Hi. I’m Bailey Henry.

Most of you reading this already know that. I’m a wife, mother, friend, Mississippian, author, and somehow—I keep finding myself being placed in the advocate category. I never wanted to advocate for anything, but you live where you land, ya know?

I wrote a book once. I guess if I think back far enough I’ve always loved writing and sharing stories. And for a while, certainly while I was writing my book—I wrote my stories retrospectively. I had to wait and see how it all ended before I could tell you about it. Not that it had to end well, trust me, six miscarriages, one surgery, one adoption, thousands of dollars, and three therapists later—not all my stories have happy endings.

But again, I just needed to see where I landed so I could paint you the landscape.

So maybe I felt the need to introduce myself because for the first time in about eight years, I will write as I live—in the current moment and show you a behind-the-curtain-view to my brain. Proceed with caution.

I’m a new mom. Well I think I’m still new? If this were any other job and someone asked me how long I’d worked there and I said, “One year, six months, and 13 days,” I would still think that felt very new.

Being my son’s mama is the greatest joy of my life and getting to him took a level of strength that I didn’t know I had, but I’m afraid I’m hitting my first string of serious burnout and it burns extra deep considering we are eleven days away from Christmas.

So, as I was cooking my family dinner this evening, surrounded by Christmas cards, broken crayons, and unanswered text messages from other women who can’t remember if they brushed their teeth today—did I brush my teeth today?—it hit me on how I landed in both camps of being burnout and an advocate.

I think the answer is simple and cyclical. They are connected.

Follow me for a sec—Somewhere along the way, the medical industry began to fail women. Or at least, that is where this begins for me.

Women were sent home after miscarriages, or still births, or really, even healthy live births and they were given zero to little information on how to be a new mom, and postpartum, and anxious, and a walking milk truck all while having to heal from a C-Section or, my personal favorite, being ripped from cooter to pooter.

Someone didn’t connect the dots to help her.

So either she had to become her own advocate to demand better, or she fell through the crack—leaving a space big enough behind her for a whole life to fall down there, too.

Same can be said for most everything today.

A teacher didn’t show up for her students, one of which was being abused and neglected, but the teacher couldn’t notice because her own husband had left her with two children. She now had to advocate for herself and them in family court. So with her own burnout and exhaustion, the space she took up in her own classroom started to diminish—leaving her students no one to talk to safely about their own struggles at home.

So then that child ends up in the foster care system—bounced from home to home and relative to relative. The state tried to step in, but good case workers are hard to come by these days, so you do what you can with what you have—but as we know, the cracks our states children fall through are as deep as our politicians pockets.

And then there are the nurses. God bless the nurses. The attorneys. The directors of non-profits and the professionals. The women who tried to start their own businesses from home so they could spend more time with their kids, but all her friends shopped big box stores instead leaving her embarrassed and defeated. The stay-at-home mom’s friends never called to check-in and all the homeschool mom’s messages to local superintendents went unanswered.

I scratched my head all day long trying to pin point the exact moment I fell into the pit of burnout and I think it happened at the same time I was forced to be an advocate along with wife, mother, business owner, daughter, friend, churchgoer.

I’ve had to advocate for myself, and for my child, and for my business, and my marriage, and for my friends, and for my car at the Subaru dealership.

I’ve heard that expression so, so much lately.

“You have to be your own advocate.”

We’ve demanded so much from women and now we are demanding they be advocates, too. But how did we get here? When did we get here?

Because we stopped showing up for each other and doing the next right thing. I know that sounds so PollyAnna, but that’s it, right? It’s that simple.

The church didn’t show up for the widow, so she didn’t show up for her friend when her husband died.

And then that friend was left navigating grief alone so she didn’t show up for her daughter when she miscarried.

And then that woman didn’t show up to be the best attorney she could be. And then her partner didn’t show up for fertility patients when they suffered another loss, brushing it under the rug.

And then those clients…And then those single moms..and then those new moms..and the women who went back to school..and then the small business owners….

And then we throw up a well posed, peach filtered photo on Instagram so no one thinks you’re drowning.

But you’re totally drowning. I’m totally drowning.

I’m tired just thinking of all the ways we could be lifting each other out of the ash. We live such singular lives now and I don’t like it.

It takes a village, and trust me I have an incredible village. But each one of us has our own battle to face because someone, somewhere didn’t do their job to the fullest extent.

Because someone let them down and it’s been a domino effect of dissociation ever since.

We advocate for our homes, children, lives, and futures because we want to, because we have to, but certainly because someone forced us to. And when we are exhausted from emailing everyone we can think of to ask for help, (after we built up the courage to ask for help in the first place because, whew that’s hard work too) we pick up our phones and doom scroll just long enough until we feel like burnt rubber—forgetting to text our friends back and check in on them because this time of year sucks for her, too.

If you feel like a bad mother the week before Christmas, I can assure you that you’re not alone. If you totally forgot to pack the goody bags for the school Christmas party I promise, no one noticed. If you’re skipping all holiday events because you’ve been through two rounds of IVF this year and you just can’t face your in-laws, you’re not alone. If you sat on your couch all day binge watching White Lotus instead of cleaning for a party, you’re fine. You probably needed the break and that is a really easy show to get sucked in to.

If you are ending 2022 so burnout that you did indeed forget to brush your teeth today, you can come sit by me. I have gum.

Maybe in 2023 burnout rates in women will decrease because we were allowed to rest for a minute. We may just feel recharged because we didn’t have to advocate for ourselves once we remembered what it was like to fight for each other.

Hold your head up, sister. We’re almost home.