Take a break: How to make time off, work.
I’m so sick (‘How sick are you?’) that my head feels like a boneyard for dead hangovers and I haven’t drunk a drop. That I’ve spent the last week in bed, and not in a fun way. That I’ve watched the entire Martin Clunes back-catalogue on BritBox (check out Manhunt) and watched Jessica Williams, Jason Segel and Harrison Ford swap scenes with each other in every possible iteration and talk about their feelings while being therapists in Shrinking, and I’m not even over it, yet.
I’m so sick, and I have so many sheets of tablets strewn across the place, that last night I mistakenly took two antihistamine sleeping tablets instead of two paracetamol and woke up from weirdly terrible, sickening dreams about seriously messed-up topics (really, subconscious??) with nostrils caked with that weird crystallised snot that hurts when it comes off.
(OK, the last one is bad medication management - I should really do something about the mess in my bedside drawer.)
I’m so sick that I’m desperate to get back to work, and I’m looking forward to it.
In fact, I sort of cheated - I wrote this piece for The Medical Journal of Australia magazine, InSight+, about out-of-pocket costs for low income Australians with health conditions (a lot of things I’m super passionate about) while I was starting to get sick. The lesson here is that I can work when I’m sick. My brain latches-on to a good article, and achievement makes me feel great.
That’s not to say that it’s the best thing to do.
I tried to push it, and I got smacked back down.
Because that’s the real benefit of taking time off - to get back to work and loving what you do.
I am lucky, because I’m a freelance writer and it’s exactly what I’ve pursued my entire life. Scratch that - there’s been no luck about it. I’ve pursued being a writer since I was 8 years old and wrote a story about my cat and dog going to the beach (5 chapters, one-and-a-half pages). I’ve endured bad relationships, bad self-confidence, mental health challenges, chronic illness and (I realise now) dealing with autism without knowing it, being fucked over by myself and others time and time again and I have never given up on my dream.
That’s what we do here, we freelance writers. And we love it.
The issue is that we often don’t know when to stop, because we’ve spent so long having to work harder than other people (those of us with businesses and chronic illnesses) and never being able to stop. To make basic wage. To have quality of life, which for people like us is sometimes different from the normal. We are independent, and don’t trust things that are good or easy.
And that’s often why we get sick. Because we don’t give up.
So! How to make the most of it when your body says no (thanks Gabor Mate, When The Body Says No.)
Stop. Collaborate and Listen.
Sorry.
The best thing to do is to do nothing. It’s hard and you’ll feel guilty. That’s how it will be. This can be a good time to listen to your body, and to things other than your drive to continually look for personal growth, to improve, be better, or attack work. It can also be a good time to call friends, and check in on how they’re doing.
Also, BritBox. Or whatever floats your boat. (Seriously, I love As Time Goes By.)
Keep a pen and paper handy.
This isn’t a time for work, but the best way to not think about work is to have a system by which to not think about it - and that’s to attend to the ideas. The best way to convince your brain that you have attended to something is to write it down. (Also works when you’re having a thought that’s keeping you awake at night. Writing connects with the ‘action’ part of the brain, and satisfies it.)
Keep things simple.
You’ll notice that there are three tips, here, for how to deal with being sick, successfully, as a freelance writer. The best thing to do is to keep things easy, go easy on yourself, say no to things that aren’t rest, and wait it out.
And that’s why I’m ending this post here.
Sources
When the Body Says No, Dr. Gabor Mate
https://drgabormate.com/book/when-the-body-says-no/
‘Out-of-pocket medical costs hurt the most vulnerable,’ by Becca Whitehead, The Medical Journal of Australia
https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2023/11/out-of-pocket-medical-costs-hurt-the-most-vulnerable/
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash