“Christèle,
you are pissed off in your life. “
It’s 2001, I’m 31,
I am in the cabinet of my generalist and that is what he tells me,
while I’m telling him I can not, I’m exhausted,
between my three young daughters,
my job in which I am very committed,
my family, my house.
In short, I can not anymore.
I leave his furious cabinet.
But who’s that bastard? Who is it for?
Well, I’ll explain now.
Originally, I am the eldest of a Catholic family
of four children, of Lyon origin.
I grew up in the Paris region,
I studied finance at Paris Dauphine University
I graduated from a master of financial markets.
I started my professional life in a recognized investment bank,
I married at 25, for life.
And at the same time, I gave birth to three children in two and a half years,
since I had the chance to do two at once.
In short, a life that seems to me all drawn.
I think it was in July 2001 that it started to go wrong.
At the bottom of my bed, with a beautiful angina, and me, I’m never sick.
But hey, three weeks vacation in August, it’ll be fine.
I have the life of a young mother who is well engaged in her professional life.
It’s normal.
And here I am on my favorite beach, with my friends, my family.
And as they say, I have everything to be happy.
The family photo is perfect.
And yet, I wonder what I’m doing here.
I feel tired, exhausted, bored,
and they bother me all deeply!
But imagine, this is the impossible thing to say.
I tell myself that it’s going to go,
I have three weeks in front of me, I will be able to rest.
No, not at all, the weeks go by and it’s always the same.
And the return is looming, and I’ll have to go back.
And the horror, I go back.
September.
A ball in the belly.
There, I tell myself that maybe I have to go to the doctor,
the famous, the asshole.
He knows me well because he often treats my three grasshoppers
and this time I will go for myself.
I arrive, I tell him my holidays, my return.
He takes my voltage: 8 of tension.
Oh, that’s not surprising!
You will give me vitamins and then it’s good, I’ll leave!
“I’m going to give you medicine, and it will not help. “
What is this doctor?
I’m going to take them, his medicine, and then it’ll be fine.
I take the drugs, and indeed, he is right,
It’s no use.
I’m going back, still in tension, and that’s where he says to me:
“You’re pissed off in your life. – No, I’m not pissed off in my life.
I do not have a minute to myself. What are you telling me?
– Well, I’ll prescribe a blood test.
– Ah, well, finally! You take me seriously! “
Finally he does his job as a doctor!
So I’m going to do my blood test,
I’m in a hurry to get the results.
When I arrive, I see the head of the laboratory: decomposed.
It must be serious.
I see the results, she says to me:
“I hope you are followed.
– Yeah, sure. “
I already see myself with leukemia.
I’m going back, I’m going to see him, furious:
” You did see ? It’s marked, I’m sick!
I told you so ! Look at the results! “
I feel it become sheepish, shrink.
“Well, we’ll do additional exams.
– Oh yes, it’s not too early, we lost time,
it might have been necessary to start there. “
And the next day, I collapse.
I can not get up.
His diagnosis: burnout and depression.
There I say no, it is not possible.
It is not me.
I’m going to do the other exams,
by seeking by all means another diagnosis.
Doctors will talk about a virus, which will take months to go.
I’m going to sleep for three months.
Fortunately I had a good nanny at the time.
Three months at the bottom of my bed.
With anti-depressants, anxiolytics, and sleeping pills.
And with this Molotov cocktail, I will be able to sleep.
The day especially, the night is insomnia.
Gradually, the drugs are effective.
I’m starting to regain energy.
At the end of three months, I can tell you that I feel in top form.
I call my boss, I tell him:
“That’s it, it’s good, I had a slump,
I was tired. “
I take all the drugs,
trash can.
And I go back, Wonder Woman is gone!
And I go back.
Imagine.
Do you see the three-meter diving board at the pool?
The first time, I think I jumped from there.
This time it’s twenty meters.
With a dish on arrival.
I feel diving.
Diving.
Like in a bottomless pit.
I hardly manage to go out anymore.
I feel assaulted by the outside world.
Go to a supermarket is horror.
And one day, driving my car,
I even want to finish,
and to kick, to go to the ravine.
And yet, I have three children.
For the first time in my life,
I understand those who come to commit suicide.
I’m at the bottom of my bed, and I’m crying,
I cry all the tears of my body.
How is it possible that it happens to me?
Because I am a strong woman.
Me, I spent five years at Dauphine.
I have three children. I have a husband. I have a family. I have friends.
It can not happen to me that!
My friends,
for the first time in my life,
I experience the limits of my human nature.
I experience the limits of my head,
who decides, who organizes, who plans, who controls,
without listening to my heart, without listening to my body.
And I agree to go to the psychiatrist,
because all tell me that it is at a psychiatrist that I have to go for treatment.
But a shrink, do you imagine for me at this time?
It was unthinkable, the psychiatrists, it is for those who have problems,
those who do not go well in their heads.
I had no problems, I was just tired.
Three pregnancies in two and a half years, a sick job. That’s what !
It’s my body that lets me go.
And I surrender.
I agree to take the medicine.
I agree to go to this psychiatrist.
I’m going backwards, and I’m ashamed,
I’m fine, I hide behind his plate,
he scored there as a general practitioner.
For me, I go to the doctor, that’s all.
And I will take years to say she is a psychiatrist.
Psychiatrists for me is the equivalent of Sainte-Anne.
It was crazy.
And here I am, I go there.
First session,
I see a little woman arrive,
a little like me, nice, it puts me immediately at ease.
It confirms the diagnosis of others,
it does not take time, we will not drag on it.
And then she gives me a cigarette.
A cigarette, at a doctor and a psychiatrist!
Finally, being a little crazy is not bad, right?
And here we are both smoking our cigarette.
Maybe it was to prepare for the question:
“Christèle, what do you want?
– What do I want?
I have a nice job in finance, a husband, three kids,
friends, family, that’s what I want.
– No, Christèle,
what do you want?
What do you want? “
I crush my cigarette.
What do I want?
I do not know anything.
I find myself in the street, facing the void that invades me.
I studied finance because it’s good,
on a resume, that’s good.
We make a good living, there is no unemployment.
I married, I made children like everyone else, I chose the road,
and then the business plan, it was fine.
What I want, me,
I am 31 years old, it is the first time of my life that I ask myself this question.
It’s like she’s questioning
everything I’ve done so far.
Imagine, I am already well engaged.
Every Monday, I’ll go there, every Monday night after work.
I can not tell you what we said to each other.
But what can I tell you,
is that for the first time in my life,
it’s meetings where you only talk about me.
And everything is good.
Imagine, a place where we only talk about you,
and all is well!
Has it ever happened to you?
Without being told that you are selfish, self-centered, egocentric.
And it makes me feel good.
Yes, it makes me feel so good.
So very quickly, the professional question arrives on the carpet.
50 hours a week is a real subject.
And it’s been years since I know it’s wrong,
finance, numbers, it’s never been my thing.
But what else can I do?
And she, she talks to me about pleasure at work,
she tells me it’s possible to have fun at work.
Fun at work?
Do you have any?
I, at that moment, yes I have with the people with whom I work.
I do not know how it’s possible, I can not do anything else.
And then one day with friends, they tell me:
“Christèle, why do not you do a skills assessment? “
Skills assessment ?
No, but how are you?
I remind you that I spent five years at Dauphine!
Balance of incompetence, yes!
Anyway, I always heard that it is useless.
And I go there.
And there I meet Armelle Van De Woestyne,
and still today I say: “Thank you Armelle! “
Second meeting where you only talk about me,
and where everything is good.
That’s great.
And in addition, Armelle reveals to me that there are things in me.
Unbelievable !
And these things in me, she calls them talents.
I have talents!
I will not tell you everything, what can I tell you,
is that this first step which was nevertheless the beginning of a long journey,
complicated,
lasted a year.
After a year, I managed to find in myself something to stand on my own,
that is, I managed to free myself from drugs.
Thanks to these meetings with myself, I found a way of life,
I started moving.
I left the bank, I created my own professional project,
which I became the author, the actor still today,
the actress herself,
where I have fun.
I moved.
In short, I took the reins of my life,
I started moving again.
A year,
the beginning of a new page of life from which I am still reaping the fruits today.
I learned to make an appointment with myself.
And even today,
in my diary,
I have appointments with myself,
that I call desert days.
And thanks to these desert days, it’s a day a month,
as well as my professional appointments.
A day only for me.
Where I cut the phone and the internet.
I dedicate it to what makes me feel good, what I want for me.
And I discovered what I never imagined, artistic talents.
I realized one day a painting,
a little girl with a little red dress,
all lost in the middle of a mountain landscape.
And I saw in this little girl,
my little inner girl that I had completely abandoned.
I accompanied her with hydrangeas, roses,
I saw there my capacity for wonder, my enthusiasm for life.
Later, I made a panther.
A panther ?
I thought, “What’s that thing? “
I went on the internet, her name is
Panthera pardus orientalis.
The panther of Love, who lives on the banks of the Love River in Siberia
and who is threatened with extinction
because it is hunted to excess for its medicinal virtues.
My friends, I was reviving the panther of Love.
Unbelievable !
A little later, I made a hippopotamus.
Hippo! “What’s this zoo? “
Like, I went to see,
and there, I discovered that the hippopotamus in Egyptian mythology,
for the female, is a symbol of fertility.
I was living fully this new fertility.
And I felt in this hippopotamus,
this strength in me in which I can take root
and that helps me through the storms of my life.
Why am I telling you all of this ?
Because I know that in each of you,
there is this beautiful interior garden.
And how much time do you take with yourself
to visit him,
to meet you ?
You will tell me :
“Christèle, one day a month, you’re not good.
You did not see my schedule. It’s not possible. “
What time do you take each day
to be with yourself?
And not just to brush your teeth.
Thanks to these appointments with myself,
I learned to love myself,
and to find myself beautiful when I look in the mirror without guilt.
And I know that if each of us,
we take this time,
to love ourselves better, to respect ourselves better,
to respect our own nature,
then, everyone, each,
we will be able to love better,
to better respect Nature, with a great N.
This Land on which we are tenants
and who, too, I believe,
is experiencing a burnout.
Because it too has its own limits.
Before you leave, and say goodbye,
I would like to introduce you to these few companions
whom I told you about, and who came with me.
This is the picture of my little inner daughter,
which I told you about.
Here is also in this garden
Panthera pardus orientalis,
my panther of Love.
And finally, the hippopotamus.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you
(Applause)
”
Be First to Comment