FireSprite

This has become a big issue for me lately & I've started to understand how some of my codie issues may have affected my personal happiness in deeper ways than I ever really saw clearly before.

I *hate* my job. I work in a good environment & with good people for the most part. I'm happy to have work in this economy & to have a pretty ok place to come to every day. But it's empty, soulless, materialistic work & as I progress personally I find it harder & harder to come in every day with a happy-go-lucky attitude necessary for this kind of customer service.

Looking back I can see where I never, ever took the time to really figure out what I wanted to do with my life. (I barely had time to LIVE my life, it was more about staying in your role in an alcoholic family.... the addict always comes first.) I graduated HS at the top of my class & was fully prepped to start college: college prep classes, credit earning courses in Sr Yr, heck I even studied Latin as a language for 2.5 yrs as a prep tool for pre-med/law "just in case"..... but with a dysfunctional FOO (AF) there was never time in my childhood for me to be a kid or explore who *I* was as a person. Going into college with no financial assistance & no clue what I wanted to do, I just froze up & found the possibilities too limitless to comprehend. My FOO & extended family all encouraged me to "do whatever I wanted" & that I was "sure to succeed because I was just soooo smart" but I never had any sense of direction or sense of what I would enjoy doing for a career. I don't think I knew how to define myself outside of who I was in relation to those around me. I identified as a daughter, sister, spouse... but not really any sense of Self.

I really think my only goal was to get out of my family home & have some distance from my FOO. I dropped out of college after a year because I was just as clueless as the day I had started & was concerned about running up high education loans with no passion for the degree. I moved home after that 1 yr away & before I could move in any personal direction, RAF was diagnosed with cancer & once again, my FOO was the spotlight in every way. He died 8 months later & I couldn't see how entangled I was *once again* with everyone else's grief & anxiety. My mom was so young to be widowed (37) and I think totally rocked at just getting RAF "back" from addiction only to lose him to cancer. My sister was in her Sr yr of HS & fell apart.

So now, decades later, I can see the long line of excuses & reasons that allowed me to never stop & address my own happiness. Dealing with RAH & learning as much as I have about addiction, codependency & FOO issues, I see how I got to this point but I'm a bit lost on how to go about fixing it. I know I have to start figuring out something that brings me happiness & not just a paycheck, but it would be irresponsible to just up & quit when my family depends on this income.

I just wondered if I'm alone in this or if other codies (especially those with addiction in their FOO) have had similar experiences.

LaTeeDa

You pretty much described my career trajectory, lol. Luckily(?) I didn't figure out how unhappy I was until I was in my late forties with fifteen years of service in a government job and only a few years away from the ability to collect a (small) pension.

In 2009 I discovered my passion for photography and in 2012 I retired. I went from making over $90K a year to about $22K and I've never been happier. My advice would be to explore activities and hobbies that bring you joy while still working at your job. Then, when the timing is right, you will know what you want to do.

L

Edit to add: I should mention that I didn't "hit" on photography right away. I tried lots of stuff looking for my passion.

LadySage

Me!

For the last 4 years I worked a job I HATED. The people were great, it was not that difficult and I was pretty good at it. Why did I hate it? I felt like it wasn't in line with who I was, my manager was very difficult to work with, the company we worked for was highly unprofessional, I had to multitask constantly (I'm not so great at that) and I felt like I should have a better job for all the money I'd sunk into a degree. I recently quit when the STBXAH told me he'd take care of bills (he didn't, he wanted a couch buddy, I just hated my job).

I'm a fellow ACOA and can really identify with not taking the time to find out what you want to do in life. I also really feel like it's hard to know what I will be happy doing because my sense of self is quite warped.

Now that I'm unemployed (mostly, I have a few hours that allow me gas money but that's it) and single (ish). It's a massive change and I feel like I'm at a crossroads that is both terrifying and exhilarating.

I'm looking at my ACOA issues square in the face and hoping I will be able to deal with them. Answer those questions of who am I, what makes me happy and where do I want to go.

I'm hoping I can develop enough sense of self in the next few months to make some concrete career decisions. To do this I've been working on getting into volunteering and internships. I did my first volunteer day at a local rebuilding center last weekend and hope to volunteer at our local urban farm in the next few weeks. I'm also doing a 6 week women's per-apprenticeship program that starts soon (helps women explore trades careers).

Maybe you can test the water a little in other areas and try to see what resonates with you?

LifeRecovery

I am just undergoing a job transformation.

I have always struggled with work/life balance and for me this is related to my codependency pieces.

As I have started to change I have started to need more from work.

A lot of it is up in the air, but just taking that first step has helped me to feel unstuck and that has been wonderful.

dancingnow

Before my kids were born (20 years ago) I always enjoyed going to work. Even though I have professional degrees, I don't think I was ever focused on a career path or had enough guidance to develop my career in those 10 years that I was working.

About 3 years after my first was born I decided and was able with good budgetting of my husband's salary to stay home with my daughter and then second was on the way. (Was laid off from my job and didn't have much enthusiasm or success finding a new position.)

Third child and 10 years pass and I find myself jumping back into the workforce, this time separated from AH, still with financial support but no other support. Managed to work full time for 2 years while managing my kids, then cut back to 30 hour work week. It was crazy and I enjoyed many aspects of my job, part of which was traveling, although it was so hard to do when I had to rely on friends and my older daughter who was 17 at the time because AH was not to be depended on.

Turned out after cutting back some of my hours things were a little easier, although I got a lot of flack in the workplace for days I needed to take off or work from home because of a sick child. I always did my part, although I probably didn't go out of my way to take on some projects that others were trying to get off their plates.

Other aspect of my job that I really liked was working with the students, helping them with their career goals (ha, ha). Turns out funding was cut for the program I was hired to help build and grow and my position is now a few hours a week and I have minimal work with students.

I feel like I was really lucky to get the job I had, with elements that I liked (and some I really didn't like - backbiting coworkers, constant budgetting manipulations), and with some flexibility. Also I didn't have to worry about being out of date with any schooling.

Now that I no longer have that position, I feel I really need to look at what type of position I can get with my experience and credentials that I can balance with my family life and that has elements I enjoy and that at 52 will last me a while. I have some graduate work in education but not degree yet and some substitute teaching experience and am looking into tutoring in the sciences and math. I feel like I would really do well in education with younger children now that mine are older I could focus on that but sometimes I lose my enthusiasm because of my age and because I have not pursued this earlier.

To your point though, there are aspects of being with an A and my inability to balance taking care of my kids and working that contributed to some of the choices I made and lack of focus. I am making small steps and looking to my HP to guide me into what is best for me and hoping things work out.

firebolt

No - I'm in hell most days. I like my field, my career, and my associates...but the owner of this small business is a serious alcoholic. You all know what that means for my day.

Between work and home, 90% of my time is spent with 2 people that are either craving drinks, drinking, or drunk. It is DEPRESSING, and to change it, it feels I need to change my entire life - also depressing at my age. Bleh - had better days...and sorry to be negative Nancy but that's how I feel today!

LexieCat

I have been very, very fortunate in my career. I recently retired after 22 years as a prosecutor--a job that I loved very much, particularly my nine years in the Domestic Violence Unit. I would not have retired except that it made economic sense. My post-retirement job is a "dream job" that involves training others who do what I used to do, and getting to travel all over the place to do it. When asked how much money I wanted for salary when I interviewed for this job, I named a low figure (because I have a pension) and they are paying me TWICE what I asked for. But I was willing to work for less because it was something I loved.

The happiest people I know are in one of two situations. Either they LOVE their work, or they have OK jobs that are not particularly meaningful to them but pursue their passions in some other way--hobbies, volunteer work, freelancing, whatever. I think you gotta feed your soul, but it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be through your job that pays the bills.

DesertEyes

Hey there FireSprite

Add me to the list of peeps who have gone thru what you describe.

I find that my understanding of "happiness" was severely twisted by my alcoholic FOO. It took me awhile to figure out what "happiness" really means. Along the way I learned that there's other feelings involved, that "happiness" doesn't exist all by itself. There's things like "satisfaction", "gratitude", "curiosity", "belonging", "friendship", all of which are combined in a big kettle of emotions in order to make me "happy".

The short version is that I am happiest when I am a part of something greater than myself. The word "greater" is also a tricky one for me. It means that the result of my efforts will make a difference in the lives of other people I happen to care for. Making just _my_ life better does make me happy, but in a smaller sense.

Which comes around to my ACA thinking being black and white. I was either happy or not. Now I recognize that happiness comes in all kinds of colors and shades. I can just be pleasantly satisfied for a time, and find that to be "happy enough". When I participate in my ACA meetings I get a huge "belonging" charge, when I go out to lunch with friends I get another charge. etc, etc.

My happiness is made up of lots of small things, each one contributing a different "flavor" to the mix. My happiness is more like watching a sunset, some days there's not much to it, some days are fantastic, and most day are plenty nice.

Mike

fluffyflea

[


Not alone,I;m in the same boat. Caregiver because I was caretaker in a dysfuntional abusive family system. Now I:m caregiver to abusive people.


B][/B]

FireSprite

Thanks for all the replies everyone, lots of different & wonderful perspectives here.

Firebolt - I worked for an alcoholic -once- and never again. I can't imagine dealing with this dysfunction all day at work & then again at home all evening. That sounds impossibly difficult!!

firebolt

Thanks FireSprite. Yeah, it is INSANELY difficult. The upside is all of my coworkers know (shes not exactly good at concealing her disease) so we've all banded together. But yeah, our valiant leaders bawling outbursts, fits of anger, completely irrational business decisions, and wine breath after 3 take its toll.

Another upside is detachment, Alanon and you guys - SO thankful for that!

SparkleKitty

My day jobs have never been my "career", they have always just been what I do during the day to make money to pay my mortgage, eat, and support my true passion in the theatre.

In my twenties, this was super-easy to balance as I had seemingly endless amounts of energy and was so freaking co-dependent I would do whatever it took to make everyone happy even if it meant days without sleeping or having a decent meal.

In my thirties I became extremely resentful of my day job for numerous reasons: the company was run poorly, I wasn't appreciated, the work was boring, blah blah blah, and it made me so angry to have to spend so much time there when I would rather be doing anything else. But heaven forbid I put myself out there and tried for something that made me happy. I think I needed an excuse to be unhappy, and that's what I turned my sure-annoying-but-ultimately-perfectly-fine job into. As usual it was my therapist who gently suggested I consider my relationship with my job more and start being more present in the moment about it (I tended to wish for things to be different, more like they used to be, more what I thought they could be, etc.)

Gradually I came to accept that the lifestyle I was living was important enough to me that I needed to maintain my day job, and that it was up to me to either change my attitude about it or get a different one. Eventually I did both. I wasn't going to dedicate 50 hours (including travel) a week to something or someone that made me miserable. I learned to take the good (experience, what turned out to actually be challenging work responsibilities, super-good people) with the bad (poor management, under-appreciation) until I could find my way into a better position. Turns out the relationships I made at that job led directly to the job I have now, which is pretty awesome in every way.

It's still just a day job. It's still not my career. But I still need it, so I am determined to make the best of it.

It took, like, ten years to get to this point from my lowest low, and I have been pretty lucky. Overall, it was acceptance that got me through the toughest and most frustrating parts of the journey.

I wish you luck in finding your bliss when it comes to work!

emmy8466

Firesprite, I took your advice and have been reading through some of your posts. I completely identify with this one. I hate my job too. I mean, HATE it with every fiber of my being. I have no passion for it at all. Hugh Hefner has a great saying - "Life is too short to live someone else's dream." It's one of my favorite sayings, yet I've never done anything more than quote it. I've never had any dreams for myself. It was never an option. When people ask, "what did you want to be when you grew up?", I just make something up because I don't remember ever wanting to "be" anything. My life was so completely different than any of my friends. I've always had hobbies of course, but no real dream to pursue like most people. My entire adult life has been spent living someone else's dream. Two someone else's in fact, both alcoholics. I should mention that my father was an alcoholic as well. I have never really looked into ACOA until now and I am floored by how much I identify with all of it.

wanttobehealthy

I hate my job... Ive been doing it since DD8 was born after leaving something I loved bc of manipulation by xAH and pressure to earn more $. I have gone from one job to another for financial security since xAH is so reckless with $. But ironically bc he's so uninvolved and unwilling and unable to help when the kids are sick, I'm now in a bad bad position w my job and may lose it. I'm miserable all day every day. I hate what I do and have tried hard to move back into my old field but after 8 yrs of time away I've had little luck.

I hate that at an age when I should be financially and professionally secure I have neither.

I know what I would love to do and I have foolishly given up opportunities to do it time and time again & now feel trapped.

This thread helps me feel so much less alone in this...

LifeRecovery

I just want to give hope.

I was stuck in the work piece a long time being unhappy with a tough boss situation (though loving my coworkers).

Last June I made a big switch and love my new job (same field, different work). Though my new position is only part time I have had to find supplemental work that I do not love as much....it is worth it though for the job I made the changes for.

Even though I don't LOVE half of my work....it pays the bills AND because I don't love it is helping with work life balance as I am not putting in more hours/effort then I should be doing.

I also am starting to realize that like anything else I needed to go through that hard stuff....to get to where I am at. It also might not work forever, but it is working for right now.

lillamy

I'm not an ACOA, although growing up with a mother who was sick for most of my first four years of life, I did learn to "be a good girl" and shut up and go away -- it sounds horrid but I had very loving parents who did the best they could with a horrible situation.

The only way I can right now see my codependency affected my career negatively is that I've had a very strong tendency to "go along to get along" rather than stand up for my views -- which means I constructed a pretty solid personal glass ceiling. I'm a fantastic second-in-command, supporter, admin assistant type person -- I can predict people's needs with the best of the British butlers! -- but I've never been considered for management simply because (I've been told this outright) I'm exceptionally creative in evolving and developing others' already-approved ideas, but I rarely present my own (when I do, I present them to my boss so s/he can present them as her/his own...).

On the positive side, codependency traits and people pleasing has gained me a lot of advantages as well. The job I have now is the second time I was hired for a job I was marginally qualified for (required a lot of training) because of my personality. In both cases, the jobs involve constant client interaction, and demands a large amount of diplomacy and ability to listen and make people feel heard. So it's not all bad.

theuncertainty

I've been typing up a new thread about work and deleting it instead of posting it for months now. I hate my job. Hate it. Hate it. And I try to not use that word; it's an ugly word, hate. One of the managers is a verbally abusive wanna-be-king. The other, my boss, is a work-a-holic to the nth degree who is a control freak. When I first started there, it didn't seem as bad, I made sure DS was in safe and loving hands (my dad) and worked insane hours to not be home and it made my boss happy to think she'd hired another 'her'.

Now... I'm tired of the hours. I'm tired of her constantly looking over my shoulder for things as simple as drafting a letter 'here's a copy of the contract'. I'm tired of hearing her tell me and other co-workers with kids 'you need to make alternate arrangements for when your kids are sick.' I'm tired of listening to the other manager make his employees cry. I'm tired of our boss saying 'well, he doesn't really see me as his boss... And it's just personality issues.' Whenever we bring up this manager and another employee.

I'm trying to figure out, now, what to do.

BoxinRotz

God I feel like an ******** for telling all of you how much I love my job. I work ALONE... nobody around unless I'm calling for assistance and that's 911. Three 12 hr midnight shifts from 7p-7a and 4 days off. God... I so love my job!!! To not have an irritating co worker crack gum in my ear shot, a boss breathing down my neck, someone's outrageous BO or smelly perfume. Just me and an off road vehicle patrolling 3 miles of woods in the pitch dark with a spot light.

FireSprite

Interesting bump, lol! I think I had forgotten I ever started this thread.

Box- don't apologize for liking your work... I think it's awesome when anyone is able to work at something they are passionate about.

Over the last year I have come to a sort of peace with my work situation. Accepting that maybe ~for me~ it might just be the perfect place for me to be right now that will help to leverage me to wherever I eventually decide I want to be. Like I said in my OP, it isn't the most horrid place ever despite everything that doesn't trip my passion trigger. And I'm staying open to new opportunities in the meantime. I think what really just floors me about it is that I can handle so many other areas in life very definitively, and then something THIS BIG that is so personally tied to who I am on a daily basis is like an absolute mystery.

A friend of mine reminded me not long ago that she had made an enormous leap in her professional life later in life & it ended up being the absolute RIGHT thing for her, hands down, exactly what she was made to do with her life. But, the field she went into didn't really exist in a way that she would have/could have even known about it when she was in her 20's & actively trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.... she reminded me that we never really know how/when/where our lives will reach one of those forks in the road.

ladyscribbler

The happiest people I know are in one of two situations. Either they LOVE their work, or they have OK jobs that are not particularly meaningful to them but pursue their passions in some other way--hobbies, volunteer work, freelancing, whatever. I think you gotta feed your soul, but it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be through your job that pays the bills.

This is the key that I found. My job isn't particularly stimulating or meaningful- I'm a janitor, I dump trash and scrub toilets. On the other hand, I never wake up in the morning and think- If I kill myself, I don't have to go to work. Every other job I've ever had in my life has made me feel that way.
But I have my real passion doing other things- writing, spending time with my kids, etc. So I am satisfied.
And yeah I was an overachieving ACoA who just wanted to make everybody happy. I actually did graduate college- I left after 3 years to join the Army, then was in the service for 9 years, then came back from Iraq and finished the last year. I have a degree in French. So I'm a bilingual, overeducated janitor. Plus I have a security clearance, though I think that's expired now. But I am content. Funny how that all works out.