The Cure for That "Useless" Feeling: The Moment the World Stopped and My Life Changed Forever
Three years, one month, and nine days ago, my world was measured in inches—the distance between my driver’s seat and the sedan buried in the trunk of my car on a major highway. I was on my way to work, sitting in a complete, bumper-to-bumper standstill.
I remember the sun glinting off the metal ahead, the hum of the air conditioning, and a moment of joyful peace while singing along with the radio.
Then came the roar, and the sickening, explosive impact.
The person behind me never saw us stop. According to the highway patrol officer, the young driver hit me at an estimated 65 to 70 miles per hour. There were no skid marks on the pavement—not a single sign that they had even tried to slow down.
In that flash of a second, the woman I had been—active, competent, and fully in control of her life—was gone. By the grace of God and what I can only describe as an army of guardian angels, I survived the collision without a life-threatening injury. But the life I returned to was a landscape irrevocably changed.
The Slow Climb Out of the Fog.
The last three years have not been a period of rest and ease. They have been a long, grinding battle to rebuild a life that was shattered in an instant. My recovery has been a circuit board of appointments, procedures, and adjustments: in and out of physical therapy, a shoulder surgery, the frustrating, dizzying work of sorting out the mental fog of a significant Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and the humbling, sometimes isolating, process of adjusting to hearing aids.
The physical recovery was a marathon, but the invisible recovery—the financial, the mental, and the emotional—remains a complex wilderness to navigate alone.
To keep the bills paid and the lights on, the first things to go were the services that kept my life running: the housekeepers and the lawn services. Suddenly, the upkeep of my home fell back on a person whose body and mind were operating at a fraction of their former capacity.
This is where the quiet shame began to creep in.
The Judgement of the Piles.
If you are like me, you’ve always prided yourself on being well out together. You were the one who got things done, whose home was welcoming, and whose yard was neat. Now, I was confronted daily by evidence of my limits.
The laundry piled up. The garden beds grew wild. The dust settled on forgotten corners. For the first time, my pets went MONTHS without a good grooming. And with the mess came the whispered judgments. Maybe they weren't malicious, but they stung: the concerned frowns, the unhelpful suggestions, the subtle, crushing disappointment from family members who didn't understand that this was the very best I could do on a given day. Expecting my children and my friends to help me with the upkeep continually was not something I could wrap my head around.
My house, which used to be my sanctuary, became a monument to my incapacity. The constant visual reminder that I was not the woman I once was weighed on me. “Incompetency,” the whisper taunted me in the back of my mind.
But the worst environment wasn't the home—it was the workplace. There, as I struggled to concentrate through the TBI fog and requested reasonable accommodations for a whole rainbow of different medical and therapeutic appointments, my needs were quietly, and sometimes not-so-quietly, deemed "inconvenient and annoying." Shamed that I was not keeping up but not offered assistance to mitigate that. The mental and emotional abuse I endured as a recovering person chipped away at my spirit every single day.
The Soul's Disbelief: Who Am I Now?
The TBI itself was a cruel trickster. Once clear concepts became nonsensical. Words felt slippery. Remembering incidents days, weeks, and even several months later was even harder to pin down. It burned that few people believed me or understood that I really did need to check my daily diary kept to help with this very thing. But the greatest chasm was the one between my new reality and my soul's core identity.
My inner "knower"—the confident, self-sufficient woman in her early 50s, unburdened by a spouse or partner—could not fathom this physical and mental incapacity. I had always been active, resourceful, and capable. As a trained chef, in my earlier years, I stood up and did extremely physical labor, sometimes up to 14 hours a day. Suddenly being unable to handle the basics of my own life was a fundamental betrayal of who I was.
In that state, as bills mounted and the workplace became toxic, I began to feel an undeniable, heavy sense of uselessness. I was paralyzed: too vulnerable to risk looking for another job (and risk getting fired for my limitations), yet too financially strapped to quit. The job, which was supposed to provide stability, became the primary enforcer of my shame.
The Cure is Reclaiming Yourself.
This year, in August, I finally found the courage to draw a line. After months of coming home and working on an idea in the evenings and on weekends, I separated from my employer. It was a terrifying, liberating, necessary step—to focus on my business, MealScript, full-time. It was so disencumbering that I barely slept that night from the giddiness of being THAT unburdened.
It wasn't a magic cure, though. The house was still a mess. The lingering TBI fog is still there. But the weight of the workplace abuse was lifted, and that small relief gave me the space to breathe and, finally, to heal.
Today, I can say I am just now getting back to feeling like myself—mentally, emotionally, and physically. As the months pass, I am recovering enough stamina to keep things going here at the house consistently.
It is a process of reclaiming my life, one small victory at a time. I am reclaiming my home, one room at a time, moving through the piled-up closets and dusty forgotten corners with a new, gentle resolve.
And now, the holidays are here. Oh, how I want my home—all of my home—to look and smell clean every single day. I want it to be perfectly decorated, a return to the comfort and beauty I used to create effortlessly. It's a journey, and I’m still on it. "I See You. I Get You."
I know I am not alone. I know there are people out there who have it much worse. But my heart is for you—the silent strugglers.
From overwhelm and burnout to the most profound, life-altering illnesses– I see you, the one who is exhausted from the invisible work of recovery. I see you, the one whose physical or mental limitations are constantly compared, either by others or by yourself, to those who are "finer." I see you, the one struggling silently because you feel guilty complaining or appearing too "needy" because, after all, someone else has a bigger problem.
I want you to hear this truth and let it sink into your bones:
I see you.
I get you.
You are not alone.
This is not a failure of character; it is a season of profound recovery, survival, and strength. You are a survivor. You are still standing. What you think and what you feel matters. YOU matter.
Do what you can, celebrate yourself and your wins, and understand that this is a season that won't last forever.
Better days are ahead. The fog will clear, and you will learn tricks to mitigate the days when it creeps back in. The piles will shrink. Your stamina will return. Be patient with the process, and above all, be patient with the person who is working so hard to get you through it: yourself. Hold on. Your "knower" is right—you are capable, and you are returning to your strength.
Three Tips for a Meltdown-Free Holiday Season
As you move through this demanding time, here are three simple mindsets to help you cultivate peace, manage expectations, and get through the holidays without having a meltdown:
Lower the Bar, Not the Value: For every chore or decoration, ask yourself: What is the absolute minimum I can do to feel like I participated? Instead of hanging 10,000 lights, put a single wreath on the door and buy a great-smelling candle. Instead of baking seven kinds of cookies, make the one recipe that you can’t live without. Your value as a person and host is not measured by the perfection of your home. It’s measured by your presence and peace.
The Ten-Minute Rule: When the mess feels overwhelming, refuse to engage in a mental battle. Choose one small, contained task that can be completed in ten minutes—clean a sink, declutter one shelf, fold one basket of clothes—and then stop. Celebrate that ten-minute win. The cumulative power of ten-minute efforts is what reclaims a home, not one massive burst of energy.
Choose Presence Over Performance: This year, your job is to simply be there. Mentally reframe the holidays not as a performance review (Did the dinner rolls rise? Was the house spotless?), but as an opportunity for presence. If you can be fully present for a conversation or truly enjoy a single cup of cocoa, you have won the holidays. Focus on the joy you can receive instead of the perfection you feel obligated to give.
Never Forget
To someone out there, YOU are the GIFT. When that judgmental voice in the back of your mind gets going, remember this.
Links:
My Favorite Holiday Smelling Candle: Bath & Body Works– “Tis the Season”
My Favorite Merignue Powder for Royal Icing: Modern Mountain Baking Company
My Favorite Hot Cocoa Recipe (the way my Oma made it) Perfectly Chocolate Hot Cocoa
#BrainFog #CapacityLimits #InvisibleIllness #SelfCareJourney #ToxicWorkplace #MealPlanningHelp #FounderStory #LowerTheBar
