I work a very demanding job. When I was hired, a year ago, they didn’t prepare me for how demanding it was. Probably because at the time that I was hired, they didn’t know how demanding it would become in the past 12 months. Yes, I was warned there’d be late nights and a Saturday thrown in every few weeks (around once a month). I was prepared for getting cursed out and hung up on, threatened with lawsuits, and just all-around bad attitudes from clients. I’m from a state that doesn’t take shit from anyone, I lived in a city where they take even less shit, and now live in the suburbs of a city that just doesn’t give a fuck…at all…about anything except the local teams. Literally.
A month in, I was still excited. Gosh, everyone I worked with was super nice. I could see one was sizing me up and was closed off but I wasn’t there to make friends, and she was still so nice anyway. I get it, because I do it too. Second month, I was getting more deeply involved in my actual job now that training was done. I really enjoyed it. Monotonous, but I start seeing every day that this is not my forever. I didn’t even want it to be my year. I hardly wanted it to be my 6 months. I could find a better position somewhere else with better work life balance. I wasn’t asking for much, just to be able to be present at home during the week enough to take a kid to practice or make dinner. I also don’t love loans as much as I thought I did and I love collections even less.
In May, I suffered a concussion. Honestly, I believe it was May but in actuality I have zero clue when it happened. I won’t get into what happened, but it was a huge accident, and it may have been preventable, but honestly even if given warning, my reflexes have never been on point. But maybe I’d have gotten hit in a different part of the head, and it wouldn’t be as bad as it is. Anyway, I was home for 3 weeks. I think everyone wanted me home longer but I was stubborn. I honestly am still terrified to drive anywhere, any distance, because I still lose focus and then I’m on autopilot. I honestly don’t know how I get through my job, some days.
I go back to work 3 weeks later, I am clearly not okay but I am also seeing what my job is with new fresh eyes. Having taken a step back from it, I see it. I see the higher ups for what they are. Even more so as the economy has taken hit after hit, people cannot afford life and we’re making it worse for them. The place is eating at my soul. My office does care. We also don’t want to do some of the stuff they are having us do. Our choice is do it or leave, pretty much. Well, there’s more job seekers than there are jobs, so we have to suck it up.
On Monday of this week, I went into work after having an unusual morning. It was like the moments after I got hit in the head, where I was in a full on rage. No reason. Just rage. Then, I get to work and I am just sobbing, shaking, and I cannot focus on anything. I left with a “migraine”. Yesterday, I couldn’t get out of my head and ended up picking a fight with my husband. He did not take the bait, thankfully, but he convinced me to see my doctor. I thought I’d be fine today but after a small, stupid argument with one of my kids, I called off work and called my doctor. I am now looking for IOP and a psychiatrist and am about to start a medication that I thought the doctor was calling “boost bar” but have since learned is buspirone (Buspar).
So what is my life right now? Wake up, get kids out the door, get myself out the door, work until 5:30, get home, eat dinner, and then I dissociate for the remainder of the evening until bed. Weekends, kids have sports. I have to travel to get my oldest. I have to plan Thanksgiving. I do not want anyone in my house. I do not want to go to anyone’s house. I do not feel any of the joy I used to feel for cooking, planning, hosting.
My entire life I have been the strong one. The good girl. The one who would let everything just roll off of my back. Yeah, I’d give myself time to grieve whatever I lost (a person, a piece of my soul, whatever) but then I’d pull up my big girl pants and move on. I have never been fully honest with a therapist, because most of it is just life shit that everyone else gets through with no problem. My dad killed himself around me when I was a toddler, at 4 I was fingered by a teen girl, at 11 I was groped by a friend of my mom’s (she still doesn’t know anything about it), a family member propositioned me as a teen (and I shut it down), I lost the man who raised me when I was 10…almost human trafficked out of rehab in my 20s (but definitely raped by the trafficker as a parting gift), passed around, choked, imprisoned, etc. And here I am, crying because I have no time to pretend to be the perfect mother and wife. Here I am, picking fights with my husband because I know deep down I am unworthy of anything good and I need him to see it. I need him to pick himself and the kids and leave me with what I deserve…loneliness. He deserves better. They deserve better. Because I love him. Because I love them.
I am getting help because I love him. Because I love them. And today, I finally asked for help. And I finally mean it. Today, I get to start to rediscover who the fuck I am. Because I want to love me again. I just hope that my family can love me enough until I can love myself.
Now, if anyone has any advice on the job shit, I am all ears. If I didn’t need to keep food on the table, and gas in my car, among other things, I’d quit and go part time somewhere like a bookstore I just want to be happy again, outside of my family. Inside of myself. And if you’re a mom in your late 30s who is struggling too, stick around. I hope I can make you feel less alone.
What inspired this post? A song. “Breathe Me” by Sia. Specifically, this part:
“Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself, and I am nowhere to be found
Yeah, I think that I might break
Lost myself again, and I feel unsafe
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me, I am small
And needy, warm me up
And breathe me”
