- So after being online for, you know, 11 years,
I've really become hard.
And the reason that I become hardened
is I think just because of the amount
of feedback that you receive being online.
You have enough room will bubbie.
Yeah, okay.
Hey everybody, I wanted to give you a little update.
For those who don't know, are new to the channel, welcome.
I'm Katie Morton, I'm a licensed therapist
but recently I talked about my own feelings
of burnout and my struggles coping with it
and essentially giving myself permission to take a break.
And I don't share these things easily
because my channel's not really about me,
it's about me helping you
and offering tools and resources that you might need.
And anyways, in doing so,
I'm hoping that you can see through my process,
you know, how you can better take care of yourself.
Hi Roxy girl.
And a lot of people I think didn't understand when
I took a break that it was only one week.
Sean and I went to Charleston and got away for eight nights.
We stayed and it was wonderful,
and I hadn't taken a break like that in over two years.
And so it was really, really needed.
And I think what was needed even more
than that was just the quiet time to journal.
Cause I'd gotten away from doing that
and just having, honestly,
the funniest thing is,
that happens for me most on planes
because there's like no other distractions
or things that I'm supposed to be doing,
you know what I mean?
That like pull,
I think that's why I have to leave my house.
I have to like go somewhere because if I stay home,
even if I'm not working, I'll be doing like home work.
You know?
Like, oh I should sweep off the deck,
do laundry, vacuum, you know,
all the things that you do to keep your place
looking and feeling right.
So anyways, I just wanted to update you on how I'm doing,
what I've learned, and maybe it'll be helpful for you too.
So I'm doing okay.
I honestly think that eight nights away wasn't enough.
And I think a lot
of you thought that I was taking a longer break.
But unfortunately when you work
for yourself and other people depend on you, right,
we have a small team of people who assist us
in the editing and and creation of what we do.
And it's hard to take that time off
and still be able to pay for people, right?
Because every video, we make money through AdSense,
and when you take time off,
we're still feeling the ripple effects of this,
unfortunately then the algorithm
doesn't like send your stuff out to people.
I've heard from many of you that you're like,
I didn't get the notification of your most recent video.
And that's partly because we took a break,
and I hate that part of social media,
but unfortunately, you know,
it's kind of part of what I've signed up for
and what we're doing.
And so we were only able to take a week off
and it definitely should have been longer.
But what Sean and I talked
about is that we should do it more regularly.
So, you know, every three to four months we should be taking
either a long weekend or a full week off.
You wanna get down baby girl?
She's just excited to be on the furniture.
Anyway, oh, we're trying to,
okay, okay,
oh my goodness.
(laughs)
Stretch.
Okay, anyway, who's a good girl,
who's a good baby.
Anyway, it was good to get away
but it should have been longer.
And so I'm not gonna lie to you
and say I feel fully recharged and ready to come back.
I don't, and I'm still a little burnt out.
But what I did learn actually came the week
before I went to Charleston, Sean, or not Sean and I,
it was me by myself.
I went to the Healthy Voices conference in Philadelphia.
And if you don't know about the Healthy Voices conference
it's a conference for health advocates.
And it was during that trip
that I realized it was the connection that I was missing.
And it was seeing people
in person that I needed to like recharge me
and help me feel better about what I do and who I am.
Because something that,
I realized on that trip is that,
I am a soft person.
I'm a crier, you guys all know that.
I'm a feeler.
I feel out people's situations.
That's how I navigate my life.
And that's part of honestly what I love about myself.
I don't mind being soft, and vulnerable, and and empathic.
I think that makes me a better friend, you know,
wife and hopefully therapist.
And so after being online for you know, 11 years,
I've really become hard.
And the reason that I've become hardened
is I think just because of the amount
of feedback that you receive being online.
And there's a whole like culture around I think
any of us putting ourselves out there on social media,
people giving feedback,
and people wanting things from us,
and assuming things about us,
and all the things that can come along with it,
can make it hard to remain soft.
And so it was actually on that,
my flight back from the Healthy Voices conference
that I realize what I love so much
about that group of people
is that they're all vulnerable about their disease state
that they represent, right?
Cause a lot of people are talking
about something very personal to them.
Either a family member that they advocate for or themselves.
And I think that intimacy with their disease state,
like forces that empathy and vulnerability
that I honestly think as a YouTuber,
the YouTube community could use more of.
I think that that I needed more of that.
I needed the reminder that it's okay to be soft
and it's okay to get your feelings hurt.
And I don't have to protect myself,
cause I definitely like was puffer fishing,
I should have worn my puffer fish shirt
instead of my Katie detective shirt.
But I've definitely been puffer fishing,
sticking all my spines out for the past, you know,
two years because there hasn't been
that in-person connection that I know
reminds me of why I do what I do.
I haven't been able to see a lot of your faces
in person like I used to.
And I think all
of that is really key in my longer term healing.
I have reached out to a therapist and have an appointment.
We'll see if it goes well.
I haven't been successful
in finding a good therapist in Austin yet,
but that doesn't mean they're not there.
And overall I think I just need more time
and I need more connection with people because I don't,
I don't wanna lose that part of myself.
I know why I did it.
I did it as a protective mechanism.
I did it as a way to keep going, to survive.
You know, it's kinda like I talk
about unhealthy coping skills.
Like we do them for a reason,
they serve a purpose, right?
That's why we can't often just get rid of them
without understanding why they're there in the first place.
And I think me shutting myself off
and like spines out,
is almost like being hypervigilant
and also not allowing people to get to know me anymore.
And it's just been hard.
Anyway, those are, that's,
that's what I learned is that I actually
like the fact that I'm soft,
and vulnerable, and empathic,
and I wanna keep being that way.
And being online has made me think that in order to sustain
I have to shut that off.
But I,
I'm gonna push back
and I don't think that I have to keep doing that.
And I think taking the break, again,
it's really just giving myself quiet time
because as I'm sure all of you feel,
there's so many people that vie for our attention.
Whether it's you know,
family members, children, animals, anything,
people that need something from us,
could be business associates, could be employees,
it could be any number of things, right?
There's always something that's gonna be asking
for time from us.
And I've been struggling to do that and take care of myself.
So I have to find a better,
I hate to use the term balance,
cause that work life balancing just frustrates me.
But I have to find a better equation,
a better balance of it.
And I think I've just been, in order to keep going,
it's kinda like white knuckling and pushing through.
I've just like cut myself off emotionally.
So if you felt that in videos, I'm sorry,
it's just me protecting myself and I'm recognizing that now.
But I think because I've been kind of in survival mode,
and I would hypothesize
that this was triggered by the pandemic.
I'm not gonna blame everything
on the pandemic forever, but I,
I do think it was a trauma.
I think we all felt that trauma.
And I haven't quite recovered
and I don't expect myself to recover, you know,
lickety split.
But I do expect myself to slowly come out of this freeze
and this hyper vigilance that I've been feeling.
This, this, I don't know,
maybe unconscious feeling of needing to harden myself
and protect myself because I felt like I was just surviving.
And I think sometimes when I'm in survival mode
and maybe this resonates with any of of you
it's like any small discomfort, dis regulation,
something that's inconvenient can like be too much.
And I even found that,
like a couple weeks ago something happened.
I got an email that, it wasn't not nice,
but it wasn't,
it wasn't nice, you know, it's like moderate.
I felt like immediately overwhelmed by it,
and I like,
it ruined my whole day
and I don't like being that,
you gotta move your boo boo,
your butt there boo boo, okay.
I don't like being that easily thrown off my game.
And I think that's why I thought I needed to
lock myself down and shut everything out,
and I don't, again,
I just don't want to do that.
And I,
I'm gonna try to be better.
I'm gonna try to balance
so that I'm not so overwhelmed
and not so easily thrown off.
And I think for me the answer is therapy,
journaling and, and friendships, connection with others.
If you hear a ding
it's cause my dog is ringing her doorbell,
cause she wants to go run in the yard.
I feel you Roxy.
But anyways, that's what I'm planning to do.
So yes, it was good to get away.
Charleston is beautiful.
If you haven't gone, go, the food is amazing.
People are friendly, I loved it,
but eight nights was not enough.
And if you wanna decide where Sean and I go next,
we're hoping to go snowboarding,
leave it in the comments below,
if you have any recommendations.
But anyway, eight nights definitely wasn't enough.
But I haven't figured out what the cadence is for vacations,
but I'm thinking every three to four months
we have to take some time off.
And I wish it would've been resolved.
I wish I could come back and tell you,
oh I feel amazing, I'm so recharged.
This is all beautiful.
But that would just be a lie.
And you know, I don't, I don't lie to you guys,
I don't want you to ever think that something's simple.
As I've talked about in videos forever,
things take time and healing takes time.
And I do still feel that
like hypervigilant protective nature
and I'm coming out of it.
(deep breath)
You know, I've been trying to do my body shakes,
and I've been trying to take time in journaling,
and if you're ever on a flight
it's a great time to you know,
do some internal inventory,
because there's no distractions, there's nothing you can do.
That's why planes can be really uncomfortable too.
Cause it's like what am I gonna do
with all this time?
Anyway, I encourage you to kind of allow yourself to tap in.
I had music that didn't have any lyrics
and I just like journaled in my phone
and I made a bunch of notes
that I didn't even go through here.
But yeah, I was talking about hardening myself.
And so I'm gonna make a conscious effort,
in summation you guys,
cause I had all these notes I should of just read from them,
I'm gonna make a more conscious effort to get back
in touch with what I consider like pre pandemic Katie,
more, more open, more vulnerable,
more, more of a feeler.
Cause yeah, people online can be shitty,
people in real life can be shitty.
Life can be shitty.
But that doesn't mean
that I have to shut myself off so I can't experience it.
And so my work is to make it,
make myself resilient
so that I can handle those ebbs and flows
without completely shutting down,
because that's again,
so I'm not practicing what I preach.
And I tell you guys all the time
to not completely shut down and stuff it.
And that's what I've been doing for a few years.
And so I'm gonna let it come out.
I'm gonna get back in therapy, I'm gonna journal,
I'm gonna connect with people, with real friends,
and I'll keep you posted, I'll let you know how it goes.
But thank you all for your support.
If any of you were like,
I thought she was taking vacation, I did.
It was just a week.
I wish it could be longer.
Like I'm sure all of us feel when we have,
when we go on vacation,
when Sean are heading back, I'm like, I'm not ready.
And we had to come right back into work,
like the next day I had to film.
So, you know, it just, it's the nature of of life
but I need to build myself up so that it's not so difficult
and also need to take breaks more regularly.
So that taking like five, six days off
is sufficient and I feel recharged.
And that's my promise to you.
You hold me accountable.
For anybody curious,
I did take a break it just wasn't very long.
But yeah, thanks for following along.
Thanks for all your support, all your loving comments.
Thank you for all the happy birthday comments,
cause my birthday occurred during our vacation.
You all are the best.
And yeah, that's it.
I promise to do better.
Have a great week.
Take care of yourselves.
Let me know what you're doing.
If you have any tips or tricks for me,
I would love to hear them.
Y'all are so, you know, insightful and loving and caring.
You've been doing your own work,
so let me know and we can all learn together.
Okay?
Love you all.
Take care.
I'll talk to you soon.
(gentle music)