Can’t Complain

It turns out that this song requires a warning label, namely, it is not a cry for help.

It is not a request for emotional support.

It is simply a description of an emotional state for which English has no convenient, single word, although it is grounded in burnout.

While overwork and emotional exhaustion are certainly components, and compassion fatigue, what I am describing is more general than either of those specifics, and the focus is on the delay in getting help due to the state not being a clear case of clinical depression, where the burnout occurs in part because the person is trained to just keep slogging through.

The lyrics capture an experience that is relatable for many people, so it is a statement that we are not alone.

If someone would like to talk about these sorts of things, that’s fine, that’s what friends do, but I am not dragooning folks.

So, if you are uncomfortable with songs that depict a dawning self awareness about the development of an unhealthy life pattern, then just don’t listen to this one.

Now on to our regularly scheduled introduction.

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I finally got around to arranging for counseling again.

I’m not sure that I am actually depressed. I think that what I am experiencing is burnout from learned helplessness and compassion fatigue in the workplace; however, I’m not able to make an objective evaluation of my emotional state.

Anyway, this song describes why it takes some people (like myself) so long to get help.

I’ve attended counseling plenty of times, but it is difficult to find a good fit. I did have good sessions with one person, but she retired from the service with which my agency contracted. I had very helpful sessions with a nurse practitioner, but I didn’t need a prescription for very long, so I stopped qualifying for that kind of service (although the way that I am being treated at work might drive me back onto medication). One PhD dashed her clipboard to the ground while yelling her credentials at me, so I fled. (I had identified a banal platitude as a semantic maneuver that was not effective with me, and she flipped out.) Many were just not enough like me, or able enough to understand me, to be able to offer helpful interactions. And so on, across a dozen or more people.

So, ya know, fingers crossed. I’m seriously not looking forward to front-loading all of my personal information again.

Here are the lyrics.