Hello
Sooooo, things went haywire in a good way, I guess ...
Right at the beginning of July I got hit by what I can only describe as a fatigue truck. I had an appointment with Occupational Health on the 3rd, and the nurse was really supportive and slightly, er, surprised that all of her recommendations had been rejected on the grounds of them not meeting the 'business need'. Essentially, management were saying that they wouldn't make any adjustments. She told me to go to my GP and explain the situation, which I did on the 4th. The GP then signed me off for two weeks. They pulled up all my medical records and identified that my BP had gone mad from October last year and in their opinion it wasn't as a result of HRT, but instead due to whatever was going on at work - they talked to me about this at some length. The short version is that they think I'm in a stress loop, and it really does feel like that. The doc suggested I could consider looking for another job, and should probably contact my union.
So I went into work the following day, because the guy who's my boss (before the restructure and who I still support in my role) was in for a few hours before heading off on two weeks annual leave. We had a really nice chat and he was absolutely fuming. As he correctly identified, everything was fine until the restructure (last October, lol, yeah, when my BP kicked off) and he said he wanted to take me back under his wing so that I could be brilliant me and he would be responsible for ensuring I had the flexibility to do my job properly. It wasn't until I was talking to him that I realised we used to work stuff out between ourselves and it's the interference of 'management' which is screwing things up. The way he's going to tackle this is by going to my line manager's line manger. While this is a kind of weight of my mind, I do feel as if it's also potentially conflict and I'm relatively conflict averse - except, of course, I'm currently playing out this conflict in other areas of my life.
I haven't contacted the union yet, because I wanted to take the two weeks sick leave for R&R, rather than still be immersed in all the problems that got me here in the first place.
In terms of the self care element, I really did want to get on with yoga, but just couldn't. I tired mindfulness and ended up with a war in my head and near a panic attack. So I'm at gym 2 - 3 times a week and swimming once a week. This does seem to be working for me. I'm on edge though. All the time.
In other news, I had to say goodbye to my dear old dog, Dexter, last Wednesday. A vet came to our home. Hubs took little dog (Harley) out to the pub, which meant I did it on my own. It was terribly hard. I'm still crying every day. A rescue puppa, he'd been with me 15 years. It's just awful. What I am able to recognise, though, is just how much shit (sorry for the language) I plough through. I've got so much on my plate ... pretty sure most of it is a relatively common experience, e.g. dealing with old pets, ageing parents, kids striking out on their own, the old body falling apart a bit, workplace issues, hormones all over the place, sudden change creating a fear of the future, etc. It's a lot. You're just jogging along and then, suddenly, wham, so many things smack you in the face all at once. It's like I haven't got any resilience left.
Re: therapy, it's really tough, realising a bunch of stuff. I know that I knew it, but now I'm saying it. Some things I've never actually articulated before, e.g. yeah, I know what it feels like to love other people, but I don't know what it feels like when other people love me, I know they do, because their actions show it, but I don't feel it, or if I do feel it, I don't have a reference point for it. Very weird. Lots of stuff being thrown up all at once.
Hope you're all ok.
