Sunday 4 August 2019

Jaded

I think I have become slightly jaded and lost my way a bit.

I had to quit my job.  Not because I couldn't handle it, not because I was bad at it, but simply because the people were extremely awful to me, because I was working way way over and above for little to no recompense and because there were things going on which I wasn't prepared to compromise my own professional and moral integrity for.

It's been a rough ride.

Me, the week I decided I was leaving my job.  Check out the eyebags.  Anyone who says mental health is invisible is a liar!


It took a lot for me to walk away.  

First came the huge guilt - would everything be okay if I left, would things fall by the wayside?  
Then the stress, the anxiety and the fear - what if I bump into people from there, what if people think it's all my fault, what will people think of me?

I spent a solid month waiting for my p45 - in the meantime there was absolutely no acknowledgement of the sick line I had handed in, no messages of concern from any ex-colleagues, no notice that my resignation had even been received; just radio silence.  It was a long month.

With a husband working in the same sector and around the same kind of people, I lived every day in fear of what he would learn - would someone let slip that I had ruined a perfectly good and well-working project before I got my hands on it, or would people pay their best lip-service to him because I was his wife?

Would everyone be whispering about how badly I had handled everything and how poorly I had performed?  Was I just a weak and poor performer, unqualified and unable to cut it?

I spent the month feeling sick.  I couldn't shop in places I had shopped for the project (still can't!), taking myself 6 miles out of the way every time I needed any shopping.  I nearly spewed on my dashboard one day when I drove past someone who I used to work with. I had vicious dreams about being trapped in my old building while people hunted me down.  I had palpatations in the middle of the night thinking about how and if it might all end.  I had to get rid of certain clothes, paperwork, block people from my social media, filter out my emails...

Of course, news filtered through from various sources; so and so had done whatever, things had or hadn't happened, things weren't going so well, there was a lot of scrabbling around etc etc.  I felt worse.

The people I worked with throughout the sector knew I'd been under a lot of pressure - it was a lucky escape.  I was lucky to get out. It definitely wasn't me - they were awful people and didn't deserve me.  I had done a lot of good and now that was being wasted. What a shame - how awful it had happened to me.  Life went on.

Meanwhile, I could barely breathe.

I tried to get a new job - I had interviewed for a nursery back when I really should have left. The manager was really nice and offered me a full time job there.  I went there for 3 days.  It was awful.  I hated it.  Nobody acknowledged my existence, let alone spoke to me and the children, though absolutely gorgeous and cuddly, just didn't want to be there.  I was in the under 2's room, so they couldn't communicate verbally.  Some were ill and just needing to be at home with mum. I found that parents dumping small kids for 10 hours a day in a mediocre setting upsetting, so I left as quickly as I had started.  Not for me.

I had no income.

A friend very kindly lent me money I have no idea how I am going to pay back and I breathed a little deeper, knowing I could take my time and find something I wanted to do.

I put my all into applying for all the jobs I didn't want.

I got one.  It's really not me.  

I feel like one by one all of my passions have been extinguished and I've been left with an empty and soulless life with little purpose.

And boy, do I need purpose.

Even writing at the moment doesn't feel right.  

I feel stunted - stunted by my gender, by my level in life, by my position and by my status.

I should have went to University to do the Forensic Science degree at 18, if not I should have went to the RSAMD audition, if not I should have went to the Primary Teaching interview, we should have delayed having kids, we should never have left that house we were in, I should have finished the post-grad, I should never have left the library...

Should of, should have never, should be....

What the heck have I done?

I keep saying "what's for you won't go by you", and I am trying to keep the faith that this is true, but honestly, with things the way they are at the moment...what if life is truing to tell me that this is all I deserve?  A falling apart house with no income, a mediocre wage when it comes and a life without anything to pour my passions into?

And if so, what the heck have I done to deserve this?

I've got so much to give, so much love to spread, so much passion to pour into the right thing.  

Could I just please get a chance to do this without being shafted all the time?

Please?

 













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