My spirit told me to take a leave of absence from my job until I have the support I need to reduce the stress and anxiety of WFH and around the clock parenting. And after getting past the initial resistance, I know my daughter and I will be safer and healthier for it.

There have been zero accommodations for working parents, and the expectations of productivity have remained the same. I have stress and anxiety warning signs that I have tracked closely for a decade, and they were being triggered by this insensitivity.

One of my warning signs is violence, and I don’t mean just physical violence. So when I began being violent with myself and my kid, I knew it was time to wrap it up. No way these fuckers gonna crush me and my seed for some bullshit that doesn’t fucking matter tf.

It is very real that we have been experiencing some of the worse gaslighting imaginable over the last 7 months. So much so that we have collectively agreed that what is happening work-wise is normal shit. No. It’s not fucking normal.

When I began contemplating my leave, I became afraid. What if this means I’m weak? What if I lose my job? What if I’m not good enough at juggling all of these impossibly unrealistic expectations being asked of me? What if there is something wrong with me for not being a robot?

Fuck. What if I’m actually a human being who had every right to rest and recover from an extraordinarily difficult year? What if me and my kid deserve better? What if we all deserve better?

Finally one day after being asked to translate live on Zoom while breastfeeding, being choke-hugged constantly by my kid and trying not to yell at her while simultaneously paying attention to the content and translating into Spanish, I gave up. Fuck this.

I’m not doing this shit. Ever since I made the decision to take leave, my entire spirit and body became noticeably more relaxed. The yelling and screaming subsided. Oh shit wait. A less stressed out person actually feels good. What a concept.

My leave starts Thursday. I’ve been mentally on leave since I sent the paperwork. I wanna keep my job and every time I think of withdrawing the leave, they hit me with more insurmountable bullshit. Nah, figure that shit out without me. I’m going to cuddle with my kid and my tea.

Like I’m expected to translate 44 PowerPoint slides by tomorrow. You know how long it has taken me to translate one sentence? 3 hours. I explicitly said months ago that translating is hard with a kid. And nothing. So here we are, I’m taking leave because no one cares.