The Little Train of Thought That Couldn’t Stop Itself…

Or, Fuck Motivation 

Feb. 1, 2025

Today I attended a music recital in which the child of my boyfriend was performing. About halfway through I started to cry, which shocked and embarrassed me. I am not one to cry, or express any emotion, really, if I can help it. Fighting emotions requires a ton of energy. I have to hold my breath and turn off the feelings, and I am far too exhausted to do that these days. I feel more vulnerable than I ever have, because I have spent my life pretending to be fine when I wasn’t, refusing to let difficulties and life circumstances prevent me from living or achieving whichever goals I had set for myself. If I can’t do that any longer, how will I get anything done? Living at the mercy of my emotions is the stuff of nightmares for me. 

Recently I have undergone two major assessments, one by an Occupational Therapist and one by a Neuropsychiatrist. Parts of both of these assessments have been interviews where there have been lengthy discussions about my (often extreme and irrational) determination not to be off work, and then to get back to work against all odds despite lingering effects from my fifth (or sixth, I’ve lost count) concussion which occurred when I was rear ended by a heavy plumbing van seven years ago. 

From the first moment that I was hit, all I could think about was getting to work. This is not happening… WTF, this can’t happen, I can’t go down… I have to get to work to meet the bus… Suck it up, bitch, shake it off, you can do this… Decide that you’re fine and you will be fine, work your day and pick up the kiddo at daycare, you have to function… Who is going to make supper?.. After we exchanged information and the guy that hit me literally pushed the rear pieces of my car back together so I could drive it, I drove a couple of kilometers up the road to the parking lot of the school. Everything was disorienting, the brake lights of other cars and the motion around me had the world spinning. The road seemed to be moving and waving around in front of me, as was the sidewalk when I got out of the car. I could not walk to the building and I didn’t want to pass out alone outdoors, so I had to wait for a colleague who was walking by to help me get inside. 

I didn’t end up meeting the bus. I waited in the office for my father to come and get me and drive me to the hospital. Since that day I have been struggling to function, forcing myself to do everything I could to get better regardless of pain or nausea or disorientation. Trying my best not to drop all of the balls. To get better, to single parent my child who has some next level health and mental health issues, to work, to do physio and vision therapy exercises. At one point I nearly dropped the ball of life. I thought I was managing my dark thoughts, but then I caught myself making a suicide plan and saw my doctor for meds. 

One of my life mottos has been a quote from Napoleon Hill, motivational speaker of yore and author of a book I read because my then husband had to read it for work. “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” I have used this, and other motivational bullshit, to push myself against all reason, through pain and nausea and migraines and vertigo that was so bad I could not drive for months on end. To get through an abusive marriage, a university degree while being mom (and then single mom) to a sick baby, and umpteen other crap situations. Refusal to accept the reality of your life can look and feel a lot like resilience or motivation, which is exalted by our society in such a way that there are accolades and praise for something which is slowly and secretly killing you. That in turn becomes a special, insidious, secret soul sucking type of shame. 

So, back to the “little train of thought” that derailed me today. These trains used to run like clockwork, at least a few times a day. Now it’s a bit quieter in my mind and it surprises me when they really pick up speed, as this one did. I was at a music recital and this tiny little wisp of a child played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” followed by “Lullaby” on the piano accompanied by his music teacher. He happened to have the same first name as the six year old child in my class who died about five months ago. I thought of his parents, and how dark and surreal the world must feel to them now that he is gone, and then I thought of another child in my class who has been away sick from school for the better part of the past ten days. My teaching partner and I have both been feeling a sense of dread and worry about him. Then I thought of my own child, and how its health issues kept us from doing so much and left both of us traumatized, and then the old familiar self-beratement train picked up speed… Anyone else would have done a better job coping with a sick child than you did, if you’d have been a better mom it would not have missed out on so much… People who have you in their lives are cursed for knowing you, terrible things happen to you because you are such an awful person and you contaminate everyone around you. Anyone but you would have recovered from that accident, you deserve to be in pain and you will never have your life back. It’s your fault, you failed your child and you’re a worthless fraud, you have everyone fooled because people think you are so great, but you know you’re just a manipulative psycho bitch… SIGH. This again?! I thought I had vanquished the seriously unhealthy tracks my mind is inclined to take. Some of these things have been said to me in the past, and some are my very own fabrication, but they have stuck and twisted and gutted me for most of my adult life. 

Tears came. They spilled out and down my cheeks. I’m too tired to continue to fight my own mind. All I can say with any certainty is that this doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to, I am profoundly grateful for that fact, and if crying when it does happen is the result of it happening far less frequently then I suppose I can endure a few tears now and then despite the physical pain they cause me. 

It shocks me when people say that they love a good cry, that the release makes them feel better afterward, and that they don’t expend their energy trying to fight tears. I feel literal physical pain in my gut and my neck and head when I cry. At least my current exhaustion is productive in some way; if I’m too tired to keep myself from shedding tears then maybe I’ll get more used to breathing my way through them. Wait, that’s part of the problem, only ever validating anything if it is “productive” enough. Maybe the key to all of this is to stop judging myself for having uncontrollable emotions, and to stop seeing them as unproductive and therefore without value. Trying to control them and squash them down just seems to make them stronger. 

Being injured enough that I have to work part time has left me feeling worthless. The financial struggle which ensues is part of my current exhaustion and overwhelm, it makes me feel that I have failed at life. My plan was to work until age 65 and yes I know that working in itself doesn’t give me value, it’s seeing a plan through that gives me that feeling of security and accomplishment. I took a circuitous route, but I went to university, got two degrees and sacrificed a lot to get a tenured position in my chosen field. Being derailed from my nice straight track feels impossible to accept. 

Right now, I’m the little engine that said fuck it. Here’s hoping that with a little more emotional release through tears or whatever else, I’ll turn back into the little engine that thought she could. Managing my expectations and accepting that sometimes you just can’t do something (no matter what you can conceive and believe) might help me to be a bit less harsh with myself. Maybe one day I will accept that yes, this did happen, yes, it sucks, and yes life does go on.