I put the world on my shoulders, and it broke me
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A couple months ago, I wrote an article about what comes next after you have experienced success. I still do not have an answer, but I have come to understand myself better. That is a scary process. Life is a series of peaks and valleys and putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves can make the valleys seem much lower than what they actually are.
I write this column every month because I am not afraid to share what I am going through, in hopes it will help someone else experiencing similar things. After my last article about the Canal District’s future and Massachusetts regulations, I realized a lot of people do share in my ebbs and flows. But when I went to write a new article last month, my mental health was truly suffering, and it was not just a bout of writer’s block. For the past seven years, my whole life has been about work. I chose work over everything else in my life, and maybe I pushed away some underlying issues. When I no longer needed to work my crazy schedule and made a point not to schedule myself for any events, I felt like I was hit with a ton of bricks.
As the boss, or the owner of an establishment, it is easy to put an immense amount of pressure on yourself without realizing you are even doing it. I have taken on the issues, or life experiences, my staff members are going through and tried to be a hero. Some days I feel like the mother of 25 children, with the added pressure a certain amount of money needs to come in each week so everyone can be paid. But I have always kept myself busy.
I was a “yes” woman. I agreed to everything, spread myself thin, felt I could fix the problems of my employees and forgot I was a person of my own. I was the culture creator; the boss who throws baby showers for her employees, buys personalized Christmas gifts for each of them, and has a Fourth of July cookout for everyone at her house.
I have had a really hard time dealing with my business being self-sufficient without me. It was something I had hoped for, but I didn’t aptly prepared myself for the reality of it. With more free time than normal, I was waking up in the morning and counting the hours until I could go back to bed. I knew something was wrong, and I needed to deal with it before things got worse. In order to deal with my thoughts and anxieties, I had to start with the inside, which is what I told more than 5,000 people at the Worcester State University commencement this year. I am the only person who can make a change in my life. I had to be honest with myself, and those closest to me, so I can be the wife, daughter, sister, friend and boss I strive to be.
It was so hard for me to admit this was my reality. When I was younger, I dealt with anxiety and depression but felt like I grew out of it, if that is even a thing.
But lately, it took all of my energy to complete simple, everyday tasks. And after arguably coming off of the best year of my life – Small Business Administration Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Massachusetts, WSU commencement speaker, home owner, dog mom and more – it made me feel guilty for feeling the way I felt. After just coming back from five days in Haiti with Be Like Brit, an actual third-world country where people are truly struggling, it was even harder to cope with my feelings. I am blessed beyond belief, but I know that sometimes there are imbalances going on in my brain I cannot always pinpoint without the help of a professional, so I took the initiative to get the help I need.
I am not ashamed to admit I have dealt with these struggles, and I know many others have gone through them too. As a business owner, or a boss, I know how easy it is to think we have to put the world on our shoulders and fix every problem for those surrounding us. It is up to us to open the dialogue for other people in our position, or those who work for us. Most importantly, it’s a reminder to be kind to those we meet along the way, because they may just be struggling silently.
Renee Diaz is the owner of The Queen’s Cups bakery, which generated more than $1 million in revenue last year.
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