I am hanging in here. Still very depressed but starting to level out. Don’t know that I can say much more than that. It’s getting to the point that it is hard for me to do things around the apartment, things that I need to do like laundry and cleaning. But I’m getting a little better today.
I got to see my wife over Thanksgiving…the kids were away with their bio dad. I realized how much I really missed her, and her me. We didn’t spend more than ten minutes apart the whole time. Sometimes we just held each other. I’m crying a bit thinking of it now. I miss her so much. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out here without her.
There is trouble heading my way. She and the kids do not want to move down here. But my employer wants me to stay, and I don’t know if I can find a job back home without much help. I can’t do anything until March, though I will start looking in January. I don’t really want to stay in my job, but the money is good. I feel like the entire department is on my back, and I work longer hours than anyone else. We are failing as a department and though I will not be blamed for it now that won’t be the case forever. We have consultants coming in this week. I know exactly what to say, but it will change nothing. We are fighting the wrong battles and we are too stratified to know we are going in the wrong direction. It’s going to be time for me to go soon. Don’t know where.
Cogno, I’m so glad you got to spend some time with your sweetie.
You haven’t mentioned where here is or where home is. Is home basically a one-horse (employer) town that you can’t find work there or near there? Is “here” objectionable to family because of eeww factor or because it would mean uprooting and drastic change for your family?
It’s Buffalo…not a one-horse town, but not a great place to find employment of the sort I have, working for a university. The problem is there aren’t many of them there and the job I have is pretty specialized. If a job opened up I would go in a heartbeat, but it hasn’t happened and I doubt that it will any time soon.
So right now I’m caught in between wanting my family to move down and wanting to move back. I think the best I could hope for would be to get a consulting job and work out of home some time in the new year. But the odds on that aren’t great, and if I do get one I’ll be on the road most of the time. I can handle that to be honest. I like being on the road–I find it peaceful and bracing. So I don’t know if that’s my solution.
Cogno, you have my sympathy. I know that certain jobs are very hard to find and often not in prime locations. You do have some tough decisions ahead of you. But I’m excited that you made it as far as you have while apart from your family.
Are there any universities that aren’t horribly far from Buffalo that you might consider? Where you might be able to commute home at weekends? Have you considered applying for jobs in Canada?
I think we all have our fingers crossed that there will be a good solution for you.
Might have to look sooner rather than later. I had a big screwup at work last week and my boss was not at all happy. He told me that the “spark had gone” from my work…that I used to have all kinds of good ideas and now I had none. The honest truth is that the reason I don’t bring him ideas anymore is that he kills them all, but either way, it is obvious he doesn’t think I’m doing a very good job anymore. And to be honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to get it back now that he thinks that. I’m doing my best and it’s not good enough for him.
I don’t want to be fired. I will try my best, and talk to HR as soon as possible (we have an HR person in our department who deals just with our department) about what I can do to get things back. Needless to say, right now I am particularly terrified.
Yes, I can imagine you are terrified Cogno. Talk to HR but start looking now. And, please also consider a different field of work or a similar, but not the same field in a place closer to home.
While you are talking to HR, go ahead and mention that your lack of spark may be due to your boss’ lack of receptiveness.
Hi Cognoscant, how are you doing?
I don’t think we’ve ever interacted as I very rarely post, but I have been rooting for you and I know several other posters do, too.
So, give us an update if you feel up to it and please know there are many, many people out there who sympathize and empathize with you even if we don’t post much.
Half-elf–thanks for asking, things have been a struggle of late. I am sleeping way too much even though I have been put on Provigil. I am sleeping out of depression and stress and boredom. I don’t have anything to do so I sleep, but that means I have even less to do so I sleep more. It is a vicious circle right now.
It’s only about a month until I have been here a year. I really can’t believe how long it’s been. On my one-year anniversary day, when my contract runs out, it’s going to take everything I have to not just run over to HR and hand in my resignation and drive home. Of course, the way things are going with my job, they might do that for me. I really haven’t been doing well at work…too many problems to even go through here.
I’m sorry I’m not posting more. Maybe I will try to post tonight. I just feel so tired and under the gun. I feel like my life is slipping away from me really and I am just so burned out I am letting it go.
Cogno, I’m so glad you posted, but I’m sorry that things haven’t gotten better. I have no advice but wanted to let you know I care, and clearly so do others (thanks for asking, half-elf).
Honestly this feels like the end of something. I am sleeping 11-12 hours a day on weekends, 9-10 on weekdays. If something happened to me or, say, my car, I’m not sure I would have the mental capacity to fix it. Part of my bed has already fallen apart, and I’m just too depressed and tired to put it back together. At work I feel like a moron, I can’t seem to make any headway on things and I make stupid errors that I always get caught on. I’m not doing anything new and I feel like my brain is regressing every single day.
The worst thing is that I’m a supervisor and I am supposed to be looking after four people. But I can’t even seem to do that, for they run rampant like little kids every day. My attempts to get them in order are going nowhere. And I don’t know where to turn, my boss is singularly unhelpful and runs hot and cold and I fear catching him at either extreme. I have no friends at all, not a one here. My depression and tiredness are turning me into a zombie that has no life other than work and apartment.
I don’t even have a doctor here, just a specialist who has no function in my life than to keep me medded up. No primary care doctor, no psychologist.
The worst thing is that I can’t even seem to cry. I miss my wife and kids so much and I can’t even cry about it. I just sit in bed and read or watch movies all night and then fall asleep because I don’t want to be awake any more.
This is about the worst stage of my life. The time around my attempted suicide was bad, but this just seems to go on and on without any sign of getting better. I’ve had my meds shuffled time and again and nothing seems to work. I just want to go home, and I don’t think I will be able to. No jobs available back home, not even if I took a massive pay cut. I don’t know what I’d do if I were fired, which seems more likely every day. I’ve never lost a job before but my depression seems to be leading me towards it here. They say they want to keep me, but my work is suffering badly. And I don’t want to be in the job or be here, which has to be affecting things.
I wish something good would happen, but I am so down I wouldn’t recognize it if it did. I am really hitting rock bottom here.
What is a psychologist going to do for you? Tell you what you want to hear and not help at all? Or, tell you what you don’t want to hear, and be ignored?
This totally sucks for you, but at some point you have to do something, and not expect things to get better by not doing something.
Cogno, the economy has improved a lot in the last year. Find the energy to keep looking. You deserve a change. Your best chance to make a good change is to do it while you are employed. Otherwise, you will be scrambling for income and grab the first thing that comes along (and that still might be better than where you are now, even if it is less pay).
I know these doldrums and how hard it is to even move at the end of the work day. Try, try, try. Make a list of doable bits. Update your resume over a couple of days. Post it the next. Look at a job site the following day. A different one the day after. Contact a recruiting agency.
And if your job goes totally down the tubes because you are spending your time looking, so be it.
You are the one who can make things better for yourself. Others can only help.
Mind you, my advice may only be worth what you offered to pay for it. But I am relating what has helped me move on from hellish roles.
At this point I’d just like someone to talk to. Maybe I need a bartender. I certainly don’t have any friends, and I don’t know how to make them anymore. My last attempts at making a social life for myself here have gone nowhere, though I am going to try again at Toastmasters on Wednesday night.
You’re right, I know…I need to break out of my sleep and sleep some more habit. Or find a way to get back to my wife and kids. Either way, I know I have to do something, because this way isn’t working. It’s going to take every ounce of strength I have though. Work is causing me a lot of stress, unnecessarily so really, and outside of work I just feel exhausted. At least I am able to make a living and I am thankful for that every day. I just wish it was as effortless as other people in the office make it seem.
But I am relating what has helped me move on from hellish roles.