Perfectionist Cures Chronic Illness And Burnout
Photo by Christin Lund
You can learn more about Wenche Fredriksen here.
TRANSCRIPT
The Law Of Jante
Wenche (ven-kuh) Fredriksen grew up in a fishing village in Norway 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
WENCHE: I come from farmers and fishermen and blue collar workers…
My father had a foundry that his father started before him. I remember my father used to wear these blue working clothes and his hands were always dirty.
We didn't have much, but we played outside and we climbed the trees and we built houses and we sailed on icebergs in the ocean.
LAUREL: You sailed on icebergs? How does that work?
WENCHE: I said icebergs, but it's just a piece of ice and then you can use it kind of as a sailboat and I don’t recommend doing and my kids would never do it, but I did all of that and all my brothers, you know, they fell into the sea from the, you know, it was a part of growing up by the sea.
Wenche had four siblings. With both parents working all the time it was difficult to manage such a chaotic household. So from a young age Wenche tried to pitch in whenever she could.
My mom had extra jobs. She was washing or cleaning offices. And she did that three times a week. And then, you know, she worked at my father's foundry in the office all day. Then she came home and then that was my responsibility. I cooked dinner for the whole family since I was 11 or 12 years old.
She always went above and beyond what she was called to do, but her mother put her in her place reminding her of an old Nordic belief.
It's called the law of Jante. And the law of Jante says that, you know, you're not to believe that you're anything special. Do not believe ever that you're better than other people.
Wenche says parents of this era didn’t express much affection at all. So naturally Wenche set out to prove that she was special and worthy of love…
... that I was of value, that I could help her in the house, that I could, you know, be a good daughter, that I could be, you know, perfect. I think it was really kind of looking for love. And this is a generation that my parents never told me that they loved me, never, ever. And that was so, you know, that was so hard.
This is a story about the making of a perfectionist and how Wenche eventually broke the law of Jante (YAWN-tuh). This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
A Seed Is Planted
As a kid Wenche Fredriksen did well in school.
… always prepared, always clean, always well behaved. I was in the marching band, I was in the scouts, I was in the soccer team. I was kind, I was helpful.
Even though she always got good grades and excelled in after school activities, she says she still dwelled on her insecurities… But when she was 13 something shifted. It was at her first job at a shoe store. Her boss was like no one she’d ever met – a cool feminist oozing with confidence. One day she took Wenche aside and said something that changed her life.
WENCHE: …and she looked at me and she said, ‘Wenche you are special. You are special.’ And...I don't know if she knew actually how much she meant to me. She said, ‘you know, you go out there girl and you get your education and you move on in your life and take your space.’ And so she saw me. And I never heard that.
LAUREL: What was it like to hear that you're special?
WENCHE: Oh, you know, just talking about it today, it feels quite emotional. And I remember exactly, you know, where it happened, you know, when it happened. And I remember I had a white skirt and actually a pink top. And she said, ‘Wenche, you know you're special. Wenche, you are special.’ And I was like, ‘do you mean that?’So I thought, maybe I am special. Maybe I am special.
After that Wenche set her sights on college. She told her mom, who came from a family of 12, that she wanted to go on the pill. And Wenche became the first in her family to finish high school. But her doubts still crept in.
I thought everyone else was just so much smarter than I, and they had, you know, grandparents and great-grandparents who had been academics, and I came from...you know, fishermen and farmers. I was the one who always had read all the books and prepared everything and written summaries of the books and then read them once more. I attended all the lectures. I had the most amazing notes…if you remember, you know, that person on the front row, sitting with their hands up all the time, asking the professor's question, visiting the professors after school to ask questions again and really...That was me…I thought I needed to prove myself, you know, that I was good enough.
Starting in the seventh grade Wenche recalls feeling sick on days that were especially stressful.
I described it as having like a lump in my stomach and I was worried. I started throwing up at school and I came home and I remember my mom defining that as Wenche has gone crazy. And I was just in total despair and it wasn't taken seriously. And I actually think that I had depression at the age of 12, 13, but it was never treated. It was never addressed. And I remember, you know, when my mom said that you're going to have a hard life, I decided I am not going to have a hard life. I am going to be successful. And I think that kind of put a lid on it not to feel.
So anytime Wenche started to feel anxious, she tried to push those feelings back down.
‘I’ll Show You.’
She wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her big plans.
I wanted to travel, I wanted to go to university and I wanted to have an exciting job and I wanted to have a man who was a feminist and I wanted to, you know, only have two kids and a tidy house and all of those things…
First on her list, college. She left home to go to university in Trondheim and set out to get a master’s degree in political science. She studied from morning to night.
I spoke to the professor and she said, ‘you know, Wenche, you are just average. You know, don't expect anything great on this exam.’ And I was like, I'll show you. And I worked hard and I was number one.
She continued to throw up before her exams and started losing her hair.
I guess I was so afraid of not being good enough and…I lost 80 percent of my hair stressing for an exam.
Occasionally she found time to have fun. At one party she met the young man who would become her husband.
I saw him and I thought he looks kind. Yeah, there he was. I come from chaos and he comes from a well-furnished house, home. You know, he's very calm. And I think the wonderful thing about him that his self-worth is just solid. I don’t think he ever questioned himself, am I good enough. It’s like here I am.
College - check, man - check… now she needed a career. Around this time a recruiter from a prestigious consulting company came to campus.
This one day, this handsome young man comes up in a suit and sparkling wine. And he talked about Anderson Consulting back in the days and how they only hired the best people. And it was projects, and it was training in Chicago, and it was, you know, suits and dress. And, you know, I was just...so impressed and overwhelmed by that kind of a glamorous life.
So she applied and got the job.
…and I did not think that the combination of being a perfectionist in this kind of performance, powerful performance culture, was not a good combination.
When she took the job she didn’t know how her performance would be rated and how she’d equate that rating to her sense of worth.
I was used to being the best and then suddenly I was just average that started to break me down quite early on
But she was too busy checking all the boxes to notice. In 1991 a couple years after college Wenche and Lars married.
My husband comes from Oslo, and growing up in the North, which was the wrong part of the country in a way, you know, the lawyer and the doctor and the minister, they were all from the South. I guess my mother-in-law had hoped for someone else than me, than what he got, her son. And I remember I was trying to meet her standards, I think, of perfection and, you know, since I had the background I had, I wanted to. And I even remember the first time I met her and I shook her hand and she corrected me from that first very first moment and said Your handshake is too weak…and I think that was why okay I'm going to show you that I can be the perfect housewife. So I think I try to be…
LAUREL: Wow.
WENCHE: …to be worthy and good enough at work. I tried to be good enough, you know, for my husband's family. My husband didn't care about those things. And the thinking was that if I had a clean house, then I could relax. If everything was organized, then I could relax.
Wenche washed and ironed the sheets every week. When she left in the morning she made sure the beds were made, the kitchen was sparkling.
A few years later when Wenche discovered she couldn’t conceive she and Lars adopted two boys from Colombia. But that didn’t stop her from this feeling that she had to do it all. In addition to perfect wife and mother, she was expected to be an expert at work.
Expected To Be The Expert
Being a consultant, you are put into different projects, sold in as an expert. And I felt I was not an expert. You always have to be on top of things and have a perfect facade and perform and deliver.
Her boss picked away at her insecurities during performance evaluations.
They focus on everything that was wrong with me in order to improve me and make me professional… I was actually asked if I could please adjust my dialect so that I could come across as more professional.
So instead of feeling special, all Wenche could focus on was what she lacked.
I think this I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. And I was actually told that I'm not good enough, you know, by the rating system. And you know, adjust this, adjust that, be more like this, and not focusing on what was right with me, what was my, you know, strengths. So I started to be concerned about the hour.hourly rate that they paid for me. I thought that's way too much. I'm not worth that. They will, I will be exposed at some point, just a matter of time.
Wenche Burned Out
At the same time she was sick constantly. If there was a bug going around she’d catch it – infections, chicken pox, pneumonia. But she kept working and doing all the things she felt were her duty – ironing sheets, cleaning house, sending kids to school in clean clothes.
And I started having problems with my back. It was many years and many symptoms…but I felt so stuck
In 1999 at the end of her second maternity leave, she decided to use that time to recover.
At 37 Wenche thought she had it all – house, husband, two kids, career – but she was suddenly struck with a realization.
Now I should be very happy. But I was not. And I think things that led up to this was that I felt that everything was just falling apart. I think most of all my mental health and my physical health.
At the very thought of going back to work she caught a bad case of pneumonia that landed her in the hospital.
I almost died. I was so sick. So I had to you know stay in bed for weeks with medication because it was so painful. So my body was breaking down basically and I didn't want to have I didn't want to face the situation I was in.
I think it forced itself because I tried to ignore the red flags as long as I could and then it's like when your body and soul is trying to talk to you and trying to guide you to stop and I didn't do that then it needed to scream to me.
One day home on sick leave Wenche was chatting with her son who was four years old at the time.
‘So what do you want to become when you grow up?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘oh I think I want to be on sick leave.’ And that was horrible, right?
After so many years as a consultant she hit a wall.
I go home, and then I just sit down in this chair and I feel like I'm disappearing. I cannot do anymore. I'm broken. I wish that someone could have stopped me. I Wish someone could have said, ‘Wenche, you are heading in the wrong direction.’ You need to stop and take care of yourself. I was like lost in the gray, foggy, something I didn't see the way forward. I didn't even know if I would ever recover. I feared that I would become...a disabled person with social anxiety and lose it all.
Wenche Accepts She’s Enough
In 2000 her doctor finally told her she was burned out and she needed to take a break.
And I said, ‘how long will this take?’ Because I was thinking maybe it's spa treatment and a couple of weeks and I'll be fine. And she said, ‘it's typically a year with a severe burnout.’ I was so terrified of anything mental. I thought, what is this? Am I going crazy? You know, hearing the words of my mom. And I remember her saying, there's nothing wrong with you. You are just simply exhausted. You are totally exhausted. And you have spent years on preparing for this. Years. And that's why it will take time to recover. And I also asked her, because I was so full of shame, and I said, am I the only one in this neighborhood that is going through this? And she said, no, you're not.
But Wenche felt all alone in her struggle.
It was extremely lonely …I felt that I was the only one having a mental health. Back then no one else had a mental health but me, and if you broke down and that happened in consulting, then it meant that you were professionally dead, right? I was full of shame…Also not knowing how long it will take. Will I ever become healthy again? I thought that if I start crying, I will not be able to stop. So I was so stiff like this. And then one evening, I just suddenly, after a few months on sick leave, I started crying. And I remember calling my mom and said, ‘Mom, I'm crying. And I was so happy.’ And I think, you know, I cried more or less for three months.
She got a therapist and at first she tried to perfect her healing process.
I tried to be the perfect burnout, of course…So I did everything that the magazines told me to do and walk in the forest and it didn't help me at all. And then I had a really great psychologist who told me not to shower, not to dress, just to take it all the way and be depressed. And not be so perfect all the time…sending the kids in daycare with old sauce on their sweater and dirty clothes and even went to the daycare in my pajamas just to test out not being perfect because I think, you know, that was a major part of it that I was so afraid of making mistakes that I had to practice making mistakes.
LAUREL: What did that feel like to make a mistake or to do something that wasn't socially accepted?
WENCHE: I was terrified…And I remember the first time I missed a call, I just simply forgot about it. And I had a very wise leader and she said to me, great work, Wenche. You made a mistake. Yes, and I could send things off and there were mistakes and if I ever do a presentation and there's a spelling mistake I'm like hey there's a mistake wonderful because for me that's good it means that I you know can relax and so forth but I was terrified of making mistakes so I had to practice making mistakes.
LAUREL: What do you think you were afraid of?
WENCHE: I guess not being good enough, being exposed, is that the word? You know this, what's it called, this syndrome that you're not good enough.
LAUREL: Oh, uh, imposter.
WENCHE: Yeah, the imposter syndrome, is that it? Yeah. I would be revealed as incompetent and, you know, what this is just what we said, you know, you just proved to be not good enough and here we were right all the way. And the thing is that, you know, when I was on disability…I shouldn't believe that I was any anything special and here I am on disability. You don't go any lower than that
Wenche’s therapist had her make a list of all the things people expected of her.
I think I had about 30 points that I had put on there…We're supposed to be a sex kitten on top of everything just forget about it. And I took it to my psychologist and he looked at it and he said, if you want to do all of this, you need to hire two more people, right? So I just realized that it wasn't doable.
Another exercise her therapist had her do was write her own obituary.
…which may sound a bit rough. But it was all about how I wanted my kids to remember me, how I wanted my husband to remember me ... And I, you know, I realized that it was never about becoming a partner or a managing director in a consulting company. So it was way more important than that. And once you think about how you want to be remembered, then you need to make your priorities aligned with that. Right? If I want to be remembered as a fun mom, then I have to make some choices.
Her therapist took notes, listed all her worries and fears, and locked them up in the archives. And in some way that finally set Wenche free.
And I felt that I really cleaned up everything in my life. And I have such a peace of mind. It is so liberating and it just feels so good. It feels so good. I was just reflecting upon what I have learned through this is that I am enough. I'm good enough. Damn it. I've wasted too many years of my life focusing on what's wrong with me and not what's right with me. I had to go through therapy to realize that I'm good enough in myself. I am not my performance or my deliveries. And I think the moment I realized that I am good enough, that's when everything changed and I found my voice.
Living in a welfare state Wenche was able to go on full-time sick leave for three years, part-time disability for seven, and after 10 years Wenche finally felt like she could go back to a full-time job.
Late Bloomer
At 58 she saw a post for a job she thought she might be good at – head of Inclusion and Diversity at DNB Bank ASA, the biggest bank in Norway. But she wasn’t sure she was qualified then remembered the children’s book character Pippi Longstocking.
And Pippi, she said, ‘I've never done that before, so I'll probably be amazing at it!’ The kids have moved out and suddenly I just had this confidence like Pippi, you know, and I saw this job and I thought, God…They were asking for everything, right? But I said, okay, but I'll apply anyway. And I was a Pippi. I was a Pippi and I applied and I got the job. And it's just been awesome.
She believes her experience with burnout informs her ability to connect with people at her job.
I introduce myself… I say, ‘here I am in all my glory and shortcomings. I'm full of scars from life. I'm 60 years old. I have been a failure. I've been on sick leave. I've been on disabilities. I have, you know, experience being...you know, an outcast, a case. I have experienced shame. I have a personnel folder that used to be, you know, this thick.’ And I talk, you know, with people from multicultural background and they talk about how hard they have to work to be seen, to be good enough and how, you know, extra effort you have to put in. And I can so relate to that coming, I guess, more from a socio-economic background or class background. I felt the pain and I, you know, also having kids with a different ethnic background, you know, you've seen their pain of not fitting in and you heard the words that they have been called. And you've seen their pain and that does something to you, right? So that was, I kind of found my mission in life through the process and that's why I also say that it was a blessing in disguise because it gave me a much better life.
She recognizes her parents did their best with what they had. They were just trying to put food on the table. She’s been spending a lot of time with her mom lately.
WENCHE: I turn it around. I told my mom that I loved her and I told my kids I love them every single opportunity I get. So I got to break the pattern from probably generations. LAUREL: What did your mom say?
WENCHE: My mum, she... Yeah, she... ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.’ She didn't say it back, but I know she loves me. Yeah. It probably made her very uncomfortable, but I had to say it. And I had to say it to my dad too. I have a choice and I change the pattern with my kids. I tell them I love them every opportunity I get, sometimes too much. You know, it's like my son, he said, mom, I'm made for great things. And I'm like, yeah, you are.
She has come to believe she is too. She thinks back to her old boss in the shoe shop…
So I am special. I am special. She was right. I was special. And I've stopped being humble. I'm too old for that now.
I wish someone had told me that it was a great career after 45 or after 50 but then you were outdated and no one wants to hire you anymore and I was like you know we are supposed to work until we are 70 and if we burn out at 37 you know, which happens to many people between the ages of 30 and 45, that we need to, you know, why can we not have a career later on? And I think that's what I have claimed in my life, that damn it, I never been better than I am now. I’m 60.
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
