The gaming night really did help. I was able to sleep through the night for the first time in ages. And I got to meet some very nice people, and even almost win a game of Splendor.
Work is still really rough. Four major projects due tomorrow (almost done with them all), then a major meeting which I am not prepared for on Friday…which is our office moving day. Someone else in my department is supposed to help out with the meeting but despite instructions she is going off the rails. I meet with her again tomorrow but…it’s not going to be good on Friday, and with the move I can’t be “sick” for it. I might just work all night tomorrow, unfortunately.
And to top it off my cat is sick. She threw up Monday, threw up three times today. I can’t take her to the vet until Saturday at the earliest. Don’t know what’s wrong…could be just a bug or something. But Monday she threw up in my bed, which I didn’t notice till bedtime. What a way to end a day which was really, really lousy anyway.
I have a friend who’s dog was sick, but she couldn’t take the time for an appointment, and the vet’s office let her drop the dog off and basically have an appointment by himself. It turned out the dog needed fluids because he had been puking, so they just kept him overnight. It did not cost her an arm and a leg - I don’t think it cost any more than the appointment.
Something to think about. I would never think to ask my vet this but I bet they would allow it. Better get the cat taken care of then be too late.
In other news…glad your game night went well! Woohoo!!!
Well somehow the meeting went alright. I managed to look prepared and insightful, though I felt neither was true. And twice on Friday I was asked to prepare work which I had already done and which received effusive praise on its speed when I sent it over. Better to be lucky than good I guess.
I don’t know how moving day went. I am massively nervous about it all, and working in the new place. I also have work to do today, and I am nervous about that as well. It’s a project that has me tied up in knots already, plus I have several other projects going on at the same time. I keep procrastinating massively. I know I’m not supposed to work this weekend, but I feel it’s inevitable that I must do so. My nervousness, though, might prevent me from doing it. Maybe a benedryl will help…or maybe not, as I drug myself back into another sleep cycle.
Remember to get some exercise each day. That will help with the stress. The procrastination is another matter. I have yet to find a good cure for my own procrastination.
Doing all right. Having trouble with banks and colds and cleaning my apartment. But doing all right. Watching a lot of X-Files…forgot how good that show was…and reading a lot of books on cognitive behavioral therapy.
The project I had to complete at work is done, as are several other projects. I don’t know how I’ve managed to get so much done, though there have been days when I have been the first to get there and the last to leave. I still have irrational fears of being fired, of being yelled at, of being let go with nothing to pay my bills and to care for my family far away. I miss them so much…my son is going on college trips without me, my daughter to a homecoming dance that I’ll never hear about in person, my wife is missing me every night as she goes to bed alone. I vented about this a bit to my dad, and he realizes that I am lonely, as he is too. Theoretically I’ll get back together with my family one day. But I worry about it not happening. I worry about being without a job and without a family. I worry about losing everything. If it’s the depression talking, I wish it would stop.
I hope that in the future I can clear everything off of my plate at work and take some time to see my family. I am going back for Thanksgiving…luckily I am able to go without losing a single day of work. But my kids will be gone and I will only see my wife. I have become an absentee parent, my kids do not talk to me on the phone any more. And that depresses me most of all.
Cognoscant, I like the first 3 words of your post. So good to see you type them.
I made my decision many years ago to not father children for, along with others, the reasons you touch on at the end of your post. I did not know then but I do now that love is not a very easy thing. It can really tear at you sometimes. I commiserate with you. Thank you for sharing your pain, and your progress. I hold you in my thoughts.
Well, folks, I’m going on a downhill slide again. I really screwed up at work (twice) and now I’m going to get it from my boss on Monday. I’ve gone completely catatonic in my apartment…done nothing but eat and sleep all day. I have no desire to do anything, no desire to get better. I don’t know what to do. I see my doctor in two weeks. Honestly the way things are going–if it weren’t for one saving grace I have, a consultant I know is coming in and she is a friend of mine–I might be out of a job by then. Frankly I just have sucked at my job lately and I have sucked at life lately.
I’m trying to get off at least one of my meds. It makes me feel tired and dumb, which is killing me at work, and making me feel like spending the entire weekend in bed. The sooner I am off it the better, I am hoping the doctor allows me to do it.
On top of that my son is going off the rails. He had a meltdown a couple weeks ago, then told his mom that I was to blame for everything because I had abandoned the family. Now I feel 100x worse. I didn’t want to leave and I want to come back. Even if I have no job to go to. I’ll work at Target, I’ll work anywhere, just get me out of here and back home with my family where I belong. If I can get out of my contract, I will do it.
Cogno Sorry to hear it’s been rough this week. I hope it goes better than you fear on Monday. Can you call your dr.'s office and ask about changing the meds sooner? It sounds like it might be better not to wait until you see her.
What ddsun said Cogno, please call your doctor and tell him/her that you are in crisis right now. Please don’t wait. Even if you have to use one hand to make the other one pick up the phone.
You can do this - for yourself and the others in your life.
I’m doing ok. Sleeping a lot…10-12 hours a day, mainly out of boredom. I don’t feel depressed, though I know I am. Still muddling through work, want to quit but can’t, still missing my family more than ever.
I will be going home in two weeks for Thanksgiving, which is a big relief. It will be good to spend four days back there. It looks like I’ll be able to spend five days at home over Christmas, which is even better. But first I have to get through this weekend, a five-day work week, another weekend, three more days of work.
I wish I was in my old mode of being awake almost all the time…then at least I had the energy to do stuff, to write on this message board, to stay awake long enough to watch a few X-Files episodes or play some computer games. I forgot how bad living alone was. Last weekend I went to a Chinese buffet, and that was literally the highlight of my weekend…it was the only time I left the apartment, spent any money, talked to anybody off the phone. Afterwards I went back to the apartment and slept, again. I slept probably over 14 hours on Saturday.
I’m getting help on my meds. The doctor is cutting my clonozepam down to .5 mg from 2 mg. I don’t have the crippling fear I used to, and now I’m just sleeping a lot on it. I’ve already worked my way down to one mg, and although I’m not sleeping less I do have more energy when I’m awake. Hopefully the transformation will start working in my favor soon.
One sad thing–the games night I was going to on Tuesday night has mysteriously disappeared. I’ve been there two Tuesdays in a row and nobody is there, after over 10 people being there every other time I’ve been there. It’s a shame as it was right near my apartment, and now I have no social outlet at all. So I have to find some way of restarting my life now, or go home. I really want to go home, but it would really bankrupt my family at this point. Still, I only have three and a half more months until I can go with this contract. Then we see what I can do with my life.
I’m late to this party but have read it all and one thing really stuck out that I can’t get past. Why did your wife threaten to leave you if you quit? A loving spouse should support you and want what’s best for you. I know that you’re doing a lot of this for your kids future, but your kids future depends on things much greater than money.
I had a job once that made me miserable. My wife and I were newly married, and I was reading meters. I was narrowly averting getting mauled by dogs every day, as my boss had something against me and sent me to the worst areas (gangs, pit bulls bred to fight, not fun). I was the only person that hadn’t been bit yet, and I came into the office to find out that the one female employee that we had got mauled that day and needed massive reconstructive surgery of her chest. I went home, scarred mentally and emotionally and told my wife that I didn’t know if I could do it anymore. What good is money if I come home a shell of the person I once was? My wife told me to quit and that we’d figure it out, and we did. She wanted what was best for ME, not for anyone else.
Man, I applaud your acceptance of responsibility to provide for your family, but that doesn’t mean it is the only way, and I’d go home for the holiday and never go back to that wretched environment. I don’t know where you live or what the prospects are for a livelihood, and you can’t live on love in some sort of romanticized way, but right now you seem to have only presented two choices, A) keep working where you are or B) go home and face financial and possibly marital destruction. There are usually more than two choices. How about C) go home and let the relief from hell that you’ve got now empower you to bigger and better things while being there for your wife and kids? Why isn’t that a possibility? Maybe I missed something, but I don’t see why you can’t go home and be the dad your kids need, the husband your wife needs, and still make enough to get by. Maybe your job now affords you more financially, but there’s more to life than money.
I guess I can’t edit my post now, but why would going home bankrupt your family?
Maybe you just need someone to look at your financial situation and they might see something that you don’t. A fresh perspective might give you some freedom. I thought you said that you were close to being out of debt earlier, and now you’re talking bankruptcy, so I was wondering where you’re at financially. I’m sure that people would be happy to offer suggestions. If nobody could come up with another way out, at least you would know that you tried.
By the way, I really feel for you. I really don’t have any friends and am fairly isolated, but it is more just socially. I love my work and the people I work with, including my wife who I get to work side by side with daily. Outside of work is where I struggle, but that’s my own thread to start someday I’m sure. I’ve also dealt with mental struggles, but I’ve really found a lot more peace in my life and it is truly quite good aside from my social ineptitude.
The reason why leaving now would bankrupt the family…I’m on a contract where if I leave before a year is up, I have to pay my moving expenses. I hoped that I could move cheaply and pay off some significant debts with the remainder of the money. Instead I had a nightmare of a move where it took me weeks to find an apartment, and on top of that I got ripped off by a real estate agent to the tune of $1,300. (I could sue to get the money back, but it would cost me more to do it than to get the money.) If I left I would have to pay all of the moving expenses back, which I can’t afford to do right now–on top of which I would have no job to go back to.
And this is why my wife doesn’t want me to leave…she thinks I can stick it out a few more months at least, I think she is really scared I will. Right now I have no real choice in the matter, I can’t afford to go and I have little energy to argue. (I’ve already slept half of the day, can’t seem to get the energy to do anything.) And I get the sense that she wants to leave too, that she is tired of her job and this will be her ticket out of it. She is taking care of the kids now–I haven’t even gotten to see them since May–and I feel like an absentee father. She is looking forward to getting out as much as I am looking forward to going back. I don’t know if our marriage will be able to handle it, to be perfectly honest. And if that’s the case I don’t know what’s going to happen to my life; I am in my 40’s, have known nothing but being with them for years, and am so exhausted all the time there is no way I would find someone else. I feared this when I left but was never able to voice my concerns. I never wanted to leave in the first place but I was forced out by my old job and my inability to find something else in my field nearby. Now I feel like I could lose everything, and maybe this is fueling my depression right now.
Well yeah, it is obvious that you would be depressed right now. I think that anyone in your situation would be. The bottom line is that you’re not living a life true to yourself and haven’t been for a while. You’re doing work that you find misery in, are cut off from your family, and have financial issues hanging over your head. The good news is that there is an end in sight to some of the issues.
I would still move home if it were me, but I understand how you feel trapped. I don’t know how hefty these moving expenses are or what kind of salary you’re making, but they would have to be really high numbers to keep me stuck where you are right now. I know what it’s like to owe a ton of money and to fight my way out of it and it is tough. We owed $55,000+ and worked through it and it was a crazy time for us, but it can be done, and we have no degrees or anything and did it all through our cleaning business.
If you can’t get out or are unable to even consider it due to other things that you’re worried about if you do go home, I hope you can make the best of the time that you have left. Focus on you, what YOU want, and see if you can separate yourself from what you think everyone else wants from you. You can’t live your life for your bosses or even for your wife or kids. You obviously take them into consideration, but ultimately you have to be true to you or you’ll be unhappy. Happiness comes from within. One of the best things I did recently was to read the book “Codependent No More” along with my wife. It helped us to see that worrying about each other and clients and other people in our lives all the time was making us crazy. Focusing back on ourselves helped calm some of the drama. You sound like you have a lot of drama.
Keep posting. It sounds like it is cathartic for you and maybe some of our words can help. Whatever goes down, life is a filmstrip and not a snapshot, so even if things are bad it is just one scene and it will change.
Cogno, I’m so glad you are going to be able to see your family shortly. And yes, it is shortly, so keep marking off those days. When at home, talk to your wife about the possibilities of other opportunities. The job market is definitely better than it was a year ago.
If you need the sleep, then sleep. And put one foot forward at a time so you can actually jump when the opportunity arrives.