And how much of not being happy there is not having your family with you?
You’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel about yourself with a job you like. I’ve been there.
I don’t know what the people who report to you write and research, but managing this kind of work is no small accomplishment, since so much of it is not measurable. And you do fall behind once you manage people - that’s part of the game. Stop thinking about the stuff you don’t know and can’t do and start thinking about the stuff you do know and can do.
Project management is something you should think about. You may consider your technical skills rusty but they’re great for project management of IT. You might have to get training and certification, but it might be worth it.
Really, this is probably a post I need to read. I did go on disability for a brief time at my old job, but I was talked out of it here by the head of that office. I think I will need to talk to them again. I did have a verbal warning here. The reason I feared being fired at my old job was because the guy who harassed my wife at her old job was going to be hired as my new boss…it was my wife who convinced me I was going to be fired there.
Having said all that, I do need to make changes here. I don’t do anything other than sleep and work. I need to find some things to do here. I’ve been holding back because I just don’t want to deal with it, trying to find a social life and trying to live a normal life, because I don’t want to live a normal life here, I want to go back. All that isn’t working.
I fully accept that I’m depressed. I’m taking meds for depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety. Somehow I am keeping myself together long enough to work. What else am I doing? My wife and I have stopped fighting, completely. It’s hard to remember the last fight we had. I’ve started working on computer languages again (starting with VBA because it’s easy and the tutor is right in Microsoft Office). I’ve started reading again. I’ve put myself into a professional organization. I’ve joined a games night–next night is tomorrow in fact. I’m going out to eat more. It’s a slow process, but there are some things that are happening. That said, I don’t feel like I’ve particularly gotten anywhere. I still spend the vast majority of my time by myself at my apartment.
I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m going to be fired all the time…I hate it, it keeps me up at night, stops me from doing the best job I can. At my last job but one I enjoyed a kind of bulletproofness and I enjoyed that. I was able to lecture at professional organizations and work on side projects because I knew my job was safe. I don’t have those things now, and I really miss them.
And having said all that…I still want to go back rather than have them come down there. The truth is I miss where I was from. Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it is gone, and that’s how I feel about where I came from. I don’t want my family to come down here because I don’t want to be here, to be perfectly honest. And I’ve come to realize that that’s OK. Sometimes things don’t work out. I’ve lived in a lot of places in the past, and this is the one place I’ve felt like I was oil and water to.
It seems like I make the wrong choices, yes. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place, for starters. Secondly, having come here I should have built a social life while I was still able to do so. I should have found a counselor (I did find a psychiatrist) and just told my employer that I was going to be out of the officer for certain time periods every two weeks. (I do have a counselor now but her time is somewhat limited.) Failing that, I should have worked with my counselor back in my old place. But most of all, I shouldn’t have come here. Stressful and upsetting as my life was there, it’s been several times worse here.
But, I can’t look back, I do have to look forward. I am going to try to live a life here while looking to go back there. I have applied for one job and have an appointment with a career counselor coming up. Hopefully that will lead to working with a headhunter. And I will keep going to the social events that I can and keep working on things here in the apartment. Really that’s all I can do right now, but it’s hopefully worth something.
I have at times felt like I had no one to talk to. Sometimes I was just isolated, other times I felt like I couldn’t talk about certain things with the people I knew. Well, one day that just turned around when I met someone I could talk to. That probably sounds simplistic, and I am just one example, but I can report it works like that.
Besides that, reading the thread I pick up some perfectionism from your posts. The job is going well, but not well enough. You could go back, but the terms wouldn’t be right, or things might be weird. You are talking to counselors and going to work, but you feel alone.
Well yanno, if there is something you badly want, sometimes you gotta just take it and damn the consequences. Maybe the wife and kids won’t be perfectly happy for awhile. Maybe you’ll have to slog through a genuine shitstorm. Other people might not like your rocking the boat, but this is your life and sometimes that is what it takes. Just don’t capsize the thing, heh.
I’m moving slowly but at least I think in the right direction. I’m waiting to hear back from two jobs and have sent my resume to a number of recruiters. I don’t know what will come of that and all I can do is just wait now.
I’ve really been fighting depression. I could pit that. I did almost nothing but sleep all weekend–I was feeling sick but I know that I really could have gotten out of bed if I’d wanted to. Bad situation to be in. I am seeing a new counselor and my psychiatrist this week for some help. Work hasn’t helped, my boss is chewing me out again for “lack of leadership.” Of course he has no examples of this lack of leadership, just a general feeling. I don’t even know how I’m getting out of bed in the morning, let alone actually doing anything leaderly–but I am, somehow.
I am going in the right and wrong direction at the same time. I will try to make good of both things.
Hang in there. I know it sounds trite, but truly, this too shall pass.
Feel better.
(waves hand) Data migration specialist here - and yeah. I was reading the OP and thinking “jack of all trades, master of none”. Nava’s post made me realize she was basically talking about me 
You can do a little bit of everything even if you’re not an expert on it. You know a little SQL, could dig through data if you had to, could pick up / hone your SQL if you needed to - and you can herd cats (something I suck at, even if the only cat in the herd is myself).
I do almost no true programming, though I’m a fair hand at SQL. SQL is not rocket surgery… and you can download a free desktop version of Oracle if you want to play around with a real database and practice.
Things took an unexpected turn for the worse today. I had a nervous breakdown at my desk. I had failed to do an important project because it was not placed in the correct queue (although it was e-mailed to me, I missed it because this person always puts things in the queue) and at the same time I had two other massive projects that were due immediately and I just snapped. I have now been put on leave.
I fear every day that I am going to be fired for a mistake, or just for being a bad leader. I was already told by my boss this week that I was “the worst manager in the department” and that unnamed members of my staff were coming to him to tell him how lousy I was. I’ve been trying all week to rectify things to no avail. He has never once let me know what it is he wants from me, or to tell me what he thinks good leadership is other than it is not what I am doing. He’s threatening my job now. He also accused me of “having a meltdown” a few weeks ago when–horror of horrors–I tapped my computer mouse on my desk after losing an hour’s worth of work due to a power outage. How he found out about this I have no idea, but he ranted on about it as if it were the worst thing to ever happen in an office. I don’t know what he’ll say about the breakdown today but it’s not going to be good.
There is a project that is going to come to fruition next week. I made a major error on it and I have no way of fixing it–now more than ever, as I am supposed to be on medical leave from my job. I don’t know how I can survive this. And I fear to say it but if I am fired from my job I cannot guarantee that I will not harm myself. My kids have all but forgotten me, and my wife does not really want me to come home. I will have no way of supporting myself here and I honestly don’t think I’d want to bother. It feels too late to start over. I have heard nothing from the headhunters, not even a welcome e-mail, and I don’t think I’ll be hearing much from them.
I’m sorry I feel this way, I wanted more from all this. Thank you all for reading. I promise I will post again soon when things feel less dark. I still have my job for a few days anyway.
{Cognoscant} Please do not listen to the dark voices - they lie. I know. Get professional medical and psychiatric help now. That is what medical leave is for! You’ve been stressed out beyond belief, you are away from your support system, and your employer is the pits. The national suicide prevention hotline is 1 (800) 273-8255. Please contact them, or another med/psych pro, this very minute. Seriously. We are far better with you than without you.
I did call the hotline. They had some good ideas for me.
I am so tired now, it has been a long day. I promise to check back in the morning.
Get some sleep - sleep really helps. I will see your post in the morning.
Slept OK. Woke up with another panic attack. This is not really helping me and I am scared this is starting to become a permanent thing. On Thursday the psychiatrist put me on Paxil. I’ve been warned that it will take a long time to start working. I hope that it will start working sooner rather than later.
So this is what I’m stuck with: I need the psychiatrist to sign me back into work on Tuesday. I’m nowhere near getting better but if I don’t get back to work soon I will likely get fired if I can’t fix the problem that I caused by making the grievous mistake on the project. I’m prepared to sit in her office all day until she can sign the paperwork. The alternative is that I go to the HR office on Monday and explain what is going on and try to get my leave of absence rescinded. I don’t want my job and career to end over this and I fear strongly that it will. Needless to say this weekend is going to be one of the longest ones of my life. I know I need to find some way of calming down and waiting to go to the HR office.
I’ve been pounding my head in anger at myself over making the stupid mistake at work. I know I have been under a lot of stress and depression but I shouldn’t have done it and now I risk ruining my career and my family and my life. I can’t find another job and I just might as well not be a burden to anyone else. I don’t want to drag my wife and kids down with me. I have already been enough of a burden to them, being so depressed and stressed all the time. I know they have had a better time without me living there, and I can’t see how me being there will help them in the slightest.
Are you sure being fired would be a bad thing? I mean, yeah, the lack of money would not be a good thing, but this is a job you already hate that has taken you thousands of miles from your family. Getting fired would essentially take this particular decision off of your plate and allow you to move back home where you can start trying to find a job in a completely different industry and start getting your relationship with your family back on track.
My wife doesn’t want me back if I don’t have a job. She’s said this to me several times. Everyone has suggested that I do this, but she is adamant that I cannot go back unless I am in a “good job” that will pay for everything. Otherwise I would be a burden, and I already feel like a burden now.
You are not a burden - your are her husband!
Make an appointment with a marriage counselor near your wife. Tell your wife you’re coming home for a few days during your leave. Tell her you are both going to the counselor appointment together. Do not ask - tell. Your wife does not seem to understand how serious your situation is. You are so stressed out at your separation from your family, and your awful boss, that you called a suicide hotline. I’m infinitely glad you did call and got help, but you need your wife to reduce your stress not add to it. I hope a counselor can get the two of you communicating and on a path to improvement.
I’m recommending a counselor as a last resort before a divorce lawyer. If your wife won’t go to a counselor then she considers the marriage over, whether she recognizes that or not. In my not at all humble and very blunt opinion your wife needs to take you back NOW job or no job, or you file for divorce. Divorce is the least bad alternative here. A burden is a wife who’d rather pay two divorce lawyers than be with her husband through worse times as well as better times.
Ach, I’m so sorry for your troubles. I know it feels like all the balls you’ve been juggling have started to crash on your head, but listen up, you’re going to get through this. One of my mantras is ‘The best way out is through.’ So what are the most urgent items on your plate and how can you get through them?
Is there anyone else in the office who can fix the problem on the project? Or: if you skipped town to join the circus this afternoon, what would happen with that project? That’s what needs to happen now. Don’t invest any energy at all in trying to cover this before anyone finds out. Seriously. Stuff happens, stuff gets dealt with, that’s just what happens in business. Let someone know as soon as possible if you haven’t already so that they can hop on it, and then let it go.
Your boss is not being a shining example of leadership by telling you that you’re being a bad leader without giving any actual examples and telling you that ‘people’ have been saying negative things about you and telling you to be better at what you do without bothering to tell you in concrete, measurable terms what that actually means. He’s not helping. You get to put his opinion to the side. The worst thing that can happen with your job is what, exactly? That you get fired? Then you won’t be in a job that you have come to hate far away from your family in a place that you don’t enjoy. How is that ultimately a bad thing? All they can do is fire you; they can’t do one single thing to you that is worse than that. Lots of people have been fired, and lots of them have been fired for far worse reasons than this, and lots of them are now working in way better jobs now. Just breathe.
So: your wife. Your wife. The one who committed to a life with you for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. That wife. Talking doesn’t seem to have brought you onto the same page with one another. Have you tried to express where you are and how you feel in written form? You’re a terrific and very clear writer. Maybe that would help to push through the emotional clutter between you and give you a way to get her to understand exactly how serious this is.
Here’s the thing about all of this: I think your jerkbrain (thank you to Captain Awkward for that evocative term) is spinning worst-case scenarios all over the place and leaving you tensed-up and paralyzed, waiting for everything to explode. I think you need to call your jerkbrain’s bluff and grasp the nettle here: if you get fired over this mistake, fine. You’ll deal with it. But what if you don’t? If your wife tells you she wants a divorce, okay. You’ll deal with it. But what if she doesn’t?
Things may not be as black as they feel right now, and even if they were, there is nothing here that is impossible to move on from. Really! Get enough sleep, stay hydrated, eat nutritious food, keep taking your meds and give them a chance to work, and just keep swimming. You’re going to get through this. All of this.
Thank you for the kind words Typo Knig and shantih. I am trying to tell myself that I have good qualities and skills and that I can bounce back from a firing. But it is hard (which is why I started this thread in the first place).
My wife is planning to come down here the second weekend of May. I don’t know if I’ll still be employed then. Whatever happens we need to have a long talk. I have thought to myself that maybe I should write things down before I talk to her–I probably should do that now, truth be told. She has always thought that I wrote well. I think that she believes that since I have had depression for a long time this is just another phase of that depressive state. Honestly, I have called that suicide hotline and other helplines several times over the past month; things are getting that bad. And while I feared getting fired before, I never had a boss who was so unsympathetic towards the work I was doing. Even when things were absolutely crazy at my last job, I felt things were under some form of control (and, by the way, since I left there the VP and two other people have been canned and people who are still there have told me that the office has completely turned into a black hole).
I think my wife thinks that if I am unemployed for a long time my depression might get significantly worse. I don’t think she realizes that it can’t get much worse than it is now, but on the other hand I can see her concern that I might be unemployed for a long time. I think of how my father, who had years of experience in a very technically-advanced field, was without work for 18 months and how that affected him. Maybe she wishes to spare me from that.
But at the same time I miss my wife and kids so much. My boss is going through a divorce and he faces the prospect of losing his kids. He claims that it does not affect him at work, but it does–he is silent for long periods of time, then laughs and shouts, then takes out anger on people, and on top of that spends more time out of the office than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. I think part of his disdain for me stems from his personal life. Here I have been away from my wife and kids for over a year, and yet my wife and I still talk on the phone every day and have something of a relationship. Or maybe it’s that his kids are his life and he would probably go into breakdown if they were taken away, and yet I am punching the clock every day with my kids hundreds of miles away.
I feel in such limbo. I am in no state to move anywhere–my depression is like a large weight on my body, and I spend so much of the weekends sleeping. The apartment looks like I’ve lived here for years and it would take weeks for me to pack up and move, if I could find the strength to do so. I’m waiting for the jobs I applied for to write back, and I’m waiting for the career coach to write back to me about the recruiters she is working with for me. And I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop at work. I don’t know what I’ll do. I think I will talk to the FMLA person at work on Monday and go from there. Until then I need to distract myself. I think I will go for a drive and try to see some things that I have never seen before.
I’m glad you took my words kindly. I was not in the kindest state when I wrote them.
You do, you can, and of course it’s hard! Being in a bad job is incredibly soul-sucking! BTDT.
And this is why you need to communicate with your wife, and not just accept the advice of random online dweebs like me. Your wife has a legit concern here, but as you say I don’t think she appreciates the fullness of your situation.
If I may offer advice again, I think you should come up with a plan for how you are going to manage your depressive tendencies once you are back home - particularly if you are unemployed. In addition to whatever your psychiatrist/psychologist/counselor and doctor suggest in terms of therapy and meds, I suggest you schedule time for job hunting, for exercise, for doing something fun with the kids, for doing something fun with your wife, for watching a funny tv show or movie or reading a funny book, for laughing and for smiling. And getting enough sleep (I fail miserably at this, myself. This is another case of “take my advice - I’m not using it!”). Maybe not all of that every day - but if you schedule a helpful activity, IME it’s more likely to happen. I also use upbeat music to keep my mood happy. Do whatever works for you to make you feel happy, even if it’s only for a moment, even if it feels fake. We all fake it until we make it, especially in hard times.
Keep on keeping on! You’re doing well just by putting one foot in front of another.
I don’t have anything to add, but wanted to let you know you’re still in my thoughts, Cogno. PLEASE hang in there.
I am hanging in here. I spoke to the career coach on Tuesday, and to my first job recruiter today. No luck yet, but I am trying. I’ve made a promise to myself to relearn SQL and take a crash re-course in statistics, to go after the business intelligence jobs that are out there. Otherwise the job situation back home would look pretty grim. Of the 10 recruiters I sent my resume to, only four responded, and only two of those have looked for a job for me. The two jobs I applied to are still on holding patterns.
As for my health, I am feeling a little better. I probably went back to work earlier than I should have, but I was afraid of a project that I’d messed up that…apparently was totally forgotten, because nobody has mentioned it to me since I came back. Things are looking up a bit, because I have a new employee who is really helping out a lot with some of the technical issues. In fact she is going to help me relearn SQL…I am teaching her research management in return. So that is a positive step forward. I also have a conference to go to next week, which I had almost totally forgotten about but it will be a step away from the office for a while.
So now at least I am looking to see what skills are needed for various jobs out there. Not that I necessarily have them, but I can see what I need to fill in the blanks.