Worlds colliding
Work/life balance when your work dominates headlines
I had the best of intentions when putting together my boundaries and strategies from completely separating my work and personal life. All of the motivational LinkedIn posts on “carving out time for what’s really important” definitely have a place, and our local general news website seems to have a fixation with the younger generations having seemingly championing a career-less existence. I grew up with parents who worked at least two jobs each throughout my upbringing out of necessity, so I wanted to commend and repay their sacrifice for me so that my child has greater access to their parent. But how do you completely separate yourself from your work, when your work dominates media and social discourse, and permeates every single facet of your life?
I won’t go into the specifics of domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) and its prevalence here in Australia and elsewhere, because the information is all out there. Part of my work is talking about this, all day every day, to people both within the sector and in the general community. I’m also not going to get into a discussion on how we support people experiencing or using violence, or how we prevent it in the first place, because again, it’s all out there. We know how (we just don’t have the funding, or backing, to do it properly…..but I digress). But what I will talk about here is how the expectation of being able to distance myself from it all outside the hours of 8am - 5pm is, like the promise of adequate sector funding, a complete and utter pipe dream.
Like most modern elder millennial women shaped entirely by repeated grand-scale global disasters and The Internet(TM), I find it difficult to be able to regularly connect with a local community - to build my village, so to speak. My closest friendships are with others at similar life stages, so naturally we are spread not only around the country but around the world - this makes it difficult to socialise in the traditional sense, say at a pub trivia night or over a meal. Instead, we rely on the convenience and practicality of communication over messaging platforms, or through social media. And while this has made it significantly easier to stay connected to those we love, it has also brought with it the downsides of being permanently online - namely, being constantly flooded with news, current affairs/events, and copious amounts of often-distressing information.
For a while, I had set some strict boundaries around my consumption of news related to DFSV - I would only read news stories related during my work hours, and blocked mention of it on my social media. It worked well for a while, until you remember that you(me) literally educate people on DFSV being a “whole-of-society” issue, and you(me) yourself(myself) are a part of said society. None of us are immune to the impact of DFSV - either through experience of being subject to it, witnessing it growing up, or using it. And while I am able to separate my day-to-day job from my previous experiences of DFSV, it is much more difficult to adhere to a self-expectation of not engaging in social and public conversation regarding it.
So, I guess here is where I let you know that I’ll probably be writing a smidge more about DFSV. I might write about some things you vehemently agree with right from the outset, I might write things that have you re-evaluate some pre-conceived notions and make you reflect on why they are the way they are. I will only ever write things that are my opinion, of course, which is based on the work I do, on current research and generalist survivor perspectives that are out there (that you may not see regularly). It will be only one of the things I write about, also - I will still write about sobriety, being a painfully dull almost-40-yo, and the Utah Jazz. But I do ask you to read with curiosity.
Very very very clear disclaimer: this is NOT an appropriate space for advice, or questions regarding personal circumstances - please contact 1800RESPECT (if in Australia) or your local state crisis service as appropriate for this.
If you have any general questions, please leave a comment.