- My dad died unexpectedly from a heart attack two weeks after his 34th birthday.
- I've been dreading my 35th birthday because it marks me outliving my father by nearly a year.
Empty and unmoored are the feelings I get when I don't have a lot of work to do. It's strange since I'm constantly trying to get to the bottom of my to-do list. When I have a weekend without work, instead of relief, I find myself craving the feeling of being busy and tired.
Toxic productivity is a pop-psychology term for describing "an excessive and unhealthy need to always be productive and performing," Elizabeth Fedrick, a licensed counselor and the owner of Evolve Counseling & Behavioral Health Services in Phoenix, told Insider.
"If you spend most of your free time checking things off your to-do list, rather than relaxing or having fun, it's likely that you are participating in toxic productivity," Fedrick said.
As a child, I could spend hours watching Bruce Lee movies with my dad and singing along with Disney princesses about believing in your dreams "no matter how your heart is grieving," as the eponymous protagonist says in "Cinderella." But no amount of make-believe could prevent my dad from dying of a heart attack just two weeks after his 34th birthday.
His death was sudden and unexpected. I was playing at a friend's house as a doctor was trying to revive my dad.
The guilt I feel about his dying moments has shaped the way I grieve him. My worries crystallized into a fear that bad things happened when you're having fun and losing track of time. At least, that's the way my 7-year-old brain tried to make sense of his death.
With each passing year, I've felt this looming dread at the thought of turning 35 and getting to live the years that he didn't — years that his parents and older siblings have lived well beyond. I can't help but feel like my dad was cheated, along with my family. The emptiness remains no matter how much I try to fill it with work.
The connection between grief and toxic productivity
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, proposed that there were five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not everyone grieves in this order. It's common to go back and forth between these stages or start them over when you reach a milestone such as outliving your parent or having a child who is the same age you were when you experienced a traumatic event.
"Before coming to full acceptance, you can get stuck in bad habits," Daryl Appleton, a New York City therapist, told Insider. "One of these points of fixation can be in productivity to avoid or deny feelings of grief."
Productivity is when you have a clear goal and you're working hard to achieve it. In contrast, toxic productivity is the "inability to find healthy intention in what you're doing," Appleton said. It's like you're on autopilot, moving on to the next goal without stopping to celebrate your successes.
Since our brains are drawn to comfort and safety, we seek out methods or vices to push away uncomfortable emotions, Fedrick, the licensed counselor, said. Toxic productivity helps us numb or suppress feelings of grief.
Experiencing guilt from outliving a parent
"Guilt can be a powerful motivator of toxic productivity, especially when you're seeking approval from others," Appleton said. You might feel like you're never doing enough or that sitting still means you're wasting time.
Like in my case, you might feel as though you didn't achieve enough while your parent was alive, which can prompt something called survivor guilt. This kind of guilt may stem from a desire to honor your parent's memory or make them proud. Thus, engaging in "toxic productivity can be a way to prove your worth, as well as your love and devotion to your parent," Fedrick said.
The hope is that by making your deceased parent proud, you'll lessen your guilt. But rather than feeling better about yourself, "these behaviors might exacerbate negative core beliefs about being unworthy or not good enough, so you try to do even more, which ultimately ends up in burnout and fatigue," Fedrick said.
Coming to terms with loss
For years, I've dreaded my 35th birthday. What I realize now is that I didn't lose my dad only when he died. Each time my mind becomes alert to the start of a day or when I catch myself laughing and forgetting all sense of time, I lose him all over again.
I don't know whether I'll ever get to an age when I stop wondering whether my dad is proud of me and if I'm doing enough. What echoes in my mind is a story my mom tells me about when I was learning to talk.
I had gone to work with my parents at their automotive-paint shop and said "pearl white." I was probably repeating something my dad said, but hearing it from me made him think I was the most brilliant human on earth.
As I continue my perpetual search to fill the void he left, I think my dad had the answer all along. It's about developing the kind of pride in yourself like that of a parent who looks at you with wonder and amazement as you're attempting to string together words or take your first steps.