So bummed out this week
Hello friends-
As some of you may know, I stopped drinking about 127 days ago after a 20 year binge. Recently I’ve been tested due to have three stressful weddings all in a row - I thought once I had them behind me that I would feel relieved and be back in my happy place but it’s not really working out that way. The last wedding was the most difficult – after 25 years of solitude my dad married a woman he met about 7 months ago.
My relationship with my father has always been shaky due to certain bad behaviors on his part when I was a kid and also into my adulthood – but I’ve still made an effort to stay close to him and help him out when I can. The new step mom has made it pretty clear she doesn’t care for us kids, I guess after knowing him 7 months she’s decided she’s going to step in and attempt to erase 40+ years of history I’ve had with my dad. So be it. In some ways it’s a blessing in disguise. Since I was a little girl my dad always put me in the very unhealthy role of being more his confidant than child. I’ve carried his problems and issues around with me for a long time. If she now wants to carry the load, more power to her.
So I’ve been depressed all week and a little worried about dad because I have a strong feeling this woman doesn’t have it all together or all that good of intentions, but I also realize this is a problem I cannot solve for my father as he made the choice to marry her.
I guess what has me crying at my desk today is that I am suddenly afraid I am going to get fired from work, or that something is wrong. I have been in my department for six years and with the firm for about 10. For so many years I dragged myself into the office, hungover and deathly ill, praying to get through the day doing the absolute minimum work because I was so tired and sick, yet through it all managed to keep my job and even advance a little – I am good at what I do and I enjoy it.
Now that I have quit drinking I’ve really been on my game and getting positive feedback from the attorneys and co-workers. I let myself think that things were on the up and up. But ironically now that I am coming to work bright eyed and bushy tailed I’m getting bad feelings from our manager. She is non-confrontational and passive-aggressive – that is difficult to deal with in a boss. It’s been a real roller coaster ride with her but I’ve held on thus far. I’m the coordinator of my department which pretty much just means I’m not quite good enough to be a supervisor – but I do make a little extra money to keep things organized and running smoothly, and I’m pretty good at it. At least that’s what people tell me.
My manager was supposed to be on vacation this week and I’ve been handling things like I always do when she’s out, which is often. For the past two days she’s been logging in from home and micro-managing me. She’ll send me emails telling me to do stuff that I’ve already done, like I don’t know how to do my job or something. It has left me annoyed and unsettled, which I think is probably the intention. She’s not the type to just come out and tell you if you’ve done something wrong, she’ll just make these cryptic little statements which is also very annoying.
But she’s never really micro-managed me before like she has this week and she’s also been distant (she usually texts and emails me constantly but hasn’t been doing that this week, either) so I don’t know what the heck is going on but I have decided if she keeps up the micro-managing while she is supposed to be on vacation, I am just going to ask her what’s up, over e-mail, so there’s a record of it. Give her a chance to just come out and tell me if I’ve done something wrong, like a normal adult would do.
I’m upset because I don’t have the energy for it. Coming to work and fulfilling my duties to the best of my ability is all I want to do. I have a lot of other things going on outside of work with the new step mom and my poor brother in law who lost his husband in June, and my poor husband who lost his mom in April, and just some other unpleasant odds and ends.
I understand that individually these problems are quite normal for anyone and I also know I have many blessings. It’s just that collectively it’s all weighing me down. I don’t want to drink but I just feel sad. I am already going to an addiction psychiatrist and am on an anti-depressant.
As much as I like my job most of the time it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I got fired. I have a lot of history here and not all of it has been good. I could start over if I had to. I’d try to get a job closer to home or working from home if I could. After almost 20 years in the legal field I have mad skills, sorry for tooting my own horn but it’s just that I’ve worked hard all my life and have slowly built up an impressive skill set. About eight years ago when we moved away from home I got tired of the legal field and worked at an animal shelter for a couple years, literally shoveling dog poo every day, and taking care of animals and I loved it – the point is I can do just about anything. I need to make a living and am not above getting dirty if I have to.
Just wanted to share this today as I feel a little ate up inside and you guys are always so good at providing perspective and/or support and encouragement. So we shall see how this goes. I guess it’s pretty early in my sobriety still and I have not developed the best coping skills. As always I am sorry this is so long and I hope you are all having a good day today.