Hey all
I've been feeling pretty awful recently. Having a stinking cold doesn't help, but that's not the real reasons why I've been feeling so bad.
Mainly, it's work which has been really wearing me down. I seem to have arrived at a level of stress which has changed me from an everyday organised person holding it successfully together with a strict schedule to an emotional, scatty mess of a woman. I got really good grades at uni, but I can't shake the feeling that all that means is that I'm just good at memory tests. I certainly am not feeling like I'm good at anything else! I feel all I do is make mistakes. I put so much effort into what I'm doing but am getting nothing useful out of it. I used to work late one night a week and now it's becoming every night, even when at the moment technically I'm not very busy. My confidence has shattered and my motivation has flown out of the window. My explanations when trying to show to my boss that I understand something or when creating a plan have become so incomprehensible that I fall a little deeper into the hole I've dug for myself which my boss then kicks over with dirt, making me less comfortable with showing my understanding and showing that I can do something or make the right decision. My to-do list is full of acronyms to look up, and phrases to explore and understand, and it's getting so long that it's becoming impossible to find time to catch up on them all. But if I don't, I feel I'm gonna start slipping behind. That's if I'm not already. I feel way behind all the boys and am really struggling to keep up.
The big question is, why am I feeling like this? When did it all start turning for the worst?
I don't want to look for one clear answer to my work problems. I don't want one grandioso factor to blame the whole lot on, as it will feel as if I'm just making excuses. The reason actually is more like I'm my own worst enemy. But here are a few prompters...
Firstly, my boss has a classic line which gets me every time - "You should know this". It kills me inside, as to hear that really bothers me. It's as if he hired me based on my uni grades and finding I'm not living up to his expectations, and every time he says it, I feel one step closer to being kicked out of there, when deep down I really do love my job and really want to succeed at what I do to prove I can do it.
Secondly, testing (a very practical aspect of my job, where practicality is not my forte) is extremely frustrating. I get results I'm vaguely happy with, prove them, but then find I've missed a factor and I feel I have to retake the whole lot. It's as if I don't trust myself! There's a student (a very clever one) who does most of the donkey work, but every time I appear to change my mind, I swear he loses a little more faith in me. And the scattier I become, the more intelligent he becomes, and I feel so belittled. My boss hinted that I should be managing him, and the more I struggle trying to find my own way with testing, the more I feel I'm doing a crap job at teaching a very diligent student. But if I look on the bright side, although it's slow, my thinking is becoming more and more practical, and I'm thinking in ways that a year or so ago I would never have thought with before.
I just wish it would happen a little faster. There seems very little leway for your own learning curve. Another reason I'm feeling so low at work is because of the meetings we've been having recently. Someone I trust deeply at work asked me point-blank in a meeting why I'd taken so long with testing, when he knew that I was still in the process of figuring it out myself. And in more recent meetings, I've been spoken over repeatedly when it comes to my work, and it's driving me insane. I can answer for myself! But the more I get spoken for, the more I feel that the people who my colleagues are speaking to lose faith and interest in what I'm doing. My boss is always labelling others as "good" and "not very good" - I wonder what they think I am? But the truth is, I can answer all they ask and do all that needs to be done. It's just I feel my boss has driven me to the point of low confidence where I'm beginning to freeze around him. Alongside the "You should know this" daggers, I feel he's been pestering and watching me closely. No matter what, he seems to always get things right, and even when I'm close to getting the right answer myself but can't find the words to explain it, I get interrupted by him. A couple of weeks ago, I couldn't take having him around, and just had to distance myself. One thing to look forward to though is that I'm getting a new boss soon in the form of a closer friend of mine at work, and thankfully, I can talk to him on the same level as myself rather than being belittled and interrupted all the time. Hopefully he'll see that I'm not as useless as I feel my boss makes out. Unfortunately, whether it was to make me believe in myself or whether I was just lying point-blank, I told my new boss that I was getting to the point where I didn't need as much managing as a brand new graduate anymore. But actually, I feel I need more managing than ever.
I desperately need to get my confidence back. I've offered to do a presentation at our annual conference in March, but if I get one interruption from my boss during any practice runs that I do, I fear I'll freeze up again. But if it goes well, hopefully I can prove that I do know my stuff, and I have managed to do something good since I started work. Maybe it will give me the boost I need.
Another boost will be if my project comes back and works. The first ever thing I made came back and only 1/4 of it worked. It turned out to be a mistake in manufacture beyond my control, but I couldn't help the feeling that it was my fault and that having the first thing I make come back not working would look terrible on how my boss views my progress. Then the next project I had input in to (actually, my new boss') I screwed up on that by missing out some shielding which rendered the project pretty useless. I could blame it on the final design review where most of these things get picked up but this one wasn't, or I could say that it wasn't the only mistake on it and that my new boss had also made a mistake, but as I already said, I don't want to start making excuses. I feel that I messed up what should have been a working project, but thousands of pounds later, it's been repaired. Thousands of pounds which needn't have been spent though...
So if my project comes back after the minor alterations it had from the last version and still doesn't work, I'll be devastated. So much is riding on this project being successful that if I fail, I don't think I could ever forgive myself. But if it works, maybe I'll begin to see that I am doing stuff well, and I'm not making mistakes 24/7 like I believe I am.
So that's my current working status - "needs to get out of rut". Definitely. Failure is not an option - I don't think I'd ever get over it if I quit, and deep down, I don't want to. I'm uber-stressed at the moment, and it's really not good for me as the scattiness and depression has extended into my social life.
T's been brilliant in helping talk things through for me - he's just as stressed with his current status as I am and has been working just as late, but luckily for him, people have started noticing and taking things slowly off his hands to drop the pressure. But inevitably, mutual stress led to T and I having our first fight, which was recently followed up by a second, even more intense and disturbing than the first.
The first was kinda trivial. I'd had a bad day at work, and had found out my housemate J was moving out so was in a foul mood, and T's "let's do what you want to do tonight" and "I really don't know what to say to your problems" attitude was really getting on my nerves, so I snapped at him. He got a bit upset, thinking that all the things which had put me in such a mood was because of him, but either way, we talked it out there and then, problem solved, and I stayed over his as planned. It was a good thing too, as it was just before three days of heavy snow which left me stranded at T's for the whole time.
But the second row detonated like dynamite. Again, I'd had a bad day at work, and it was time for our replacement housemate, G to move in. My other housemate, D, and I decided to go out drinking in order for us to get to know G a bit better.
A few glasses of fermented grape juice later, and T calls to say he's finished work. I tell him we're in the pub, and to come and join us. This prompted D to start giggling, and saying that he was under the thumb. Drunken me decides to call T back about an hour later to see where he's got to, and bless her, I do start playing the game to D that he is under the thumb and start pretending to boss him around a bit. Turns out he's still at work, he's been very busy recently, and as you may remember from my last post, getting quite stressed about it although he tries to keep it to himself. Nehoo, I can't remember what I said to him on the phone, but apparently it was along the lines of calling him a loser for still being at work...Oh dear...What a hypocrite I am! But the drink was flowing and I was feeling relaxed and happy enough to nag him about work when I'm just as bad myself.
He turned up to the pub eventually, and stayed for one drink. I could tell from his face that when he walked in the door that something wasn't right, but let it slip. Eventually, after talking about dancing and me criticising in my own special way that T wasn't the best leader there but still was coming along nicely (G does the same dancing as T and I do, and recognised T when he walked in the door for the same reasons as I was saying), T stands up, tells us rather abruptly that he's "not in the mood for this" and walks out of the pub. This is rather uncharacteristic of T for starters, and secondly, really upset me as it was in front of my new housemate, leaving a terrible first impression, and ruining the evening I had planned for T and I. Pub status turns from "will go home with T and make dinner after this drink" to "park myself at a table and start to fill my body up with wine to forget what just happened". Luckily, D informs G that that attitude was very uncharacteristic of T, which does soften my worries slightly, but by then, I was so angry.
A few hours later, I hear nothing from T, so gave him a ring. No answer, so I repeatedly try, something I don't tend to do but I really want to know why he stormed off like he did. I'm not used to arguments. I eventually get a text from him, telling me what I said to him that night. He was very upset, and felt I'd compromised every aspect of his personality with my apparently vicious tongue. I'd supposedly told him in my drunken state that he was a loser for staying at work so late, miserable for not getting drunk with us, crap at dancing and many other things I never thought I'd say. I start to panic, but as horrified as I am with what I said, I'm still seeing red. I eventually get through to him and try to talk it over, which in hindsight was a bad decision as I was still intoxicated. He told me he felt sick with what I said to him, that with work stressing him out and not going as well as he liked, to have his girlfriend launch a verbal attack at him feels to him like that side of his life was beginning to fall apart as well. I accuse him of attention seeking and we really begin to question how on earth did we get to this state? And are we really happy? I ask him whether he still wants me, that his silence of late when I know something's been up with him (see last post) makes me feel like he doesn't want to be with me anymore. All this from a few drinks and stress. I'm still pissed off with him for buggering off in front of my new housemate, and he's near to being inconsolable. We hang up and wait until the morning. I can't remember doing so. I stupidly texted O calling T all manner of names under the sun and immediately regret it along with my headache the morning after. Luckily, O informed me that he laughed as he knew I was drunk, deleted the texts, and went to bed. Phew!
Fortunately, I had a yoga workshop to go to the next day. I love yoga, it really is beginning to help me calm down, and it's the best thing for me that particular morning. I call T immediately and apologise for being such a bitch to him, but tell him that he shouldn't have stormed off like he did, and he probably was being overly sensitive. But not trying to make excuses again, I blame myself for the majority of what happened. It was all me that provoked it.
Yoga calmed me down to the point where I could talk sense, and I go over to T's in a dreamy state and begin to attempt to repair what I did to T. My stomach turns over from the moment I see him - his gorgeous brown eyes have lost their sparkle and are full of sadness. We talk it all out and I tell him sincerely that I do not want to ever EVER make him feel like that again. I don't think I've ever felt so awful in my life. He's the sweetest guy ever and I completely killed him that night.
We talked it out, and ended up having a fun weekend, going up to Bristol on the Saturday night. T met O (not as scary as it sounds, although I did fall over with nerves) and pretty much met every single one of my old crowd of friends at long last, and they all seemed to bond well. I have a holy grail of a picture with both T and O in it (some say it's risky and I do seriously wonder myself what sort of game I'm playing by getting them together), but the picture makes me smile. Mainly because I see O in the past and our great friendship now, and T of the future, with his gentle nature and how much I love him.
I'm still seriously scared that I've done some long term damage but all I can believe in now is that we'll be OK. And I'm sure we will be. But I'm so disgusted with myself for treating him that way. The reason is, O used to wind me up in exactly the same way that I wound up T that night, and some of the things which happened I don't know if I'll ever forgive O for truly breaking my heart. Where I used to suffer from O's words, I've now made T suffer. The roles have been reversed and the tables have turned. And I feel sick just thinking about it.
But nevertheless, I decided to continue the theme of role reversal, but in a different way. I decide to be the chivalrous one for a change. Still feeling awful for not having the night I had planned for T and I, and completely destroying him instead, I decide to surprise him. Dressing up in my newest dress and heels, I tell T to come on over for pancakes at mine. He arrives in his pyjamas looking sleepy and his jaw just drops when he opens the door to a dressed up me, which was exactly the reaction I wanted, heehee. After a brief detour to his to get some fancier clothes, I whisk him away to an all-expenses paid meal at one of the best restaurants in town. And I finally manage to restore the sparkle in his eyes. I don't think I've ever been that spontaneous, but it really rubbed off on T, and he was really touched to my efforts. I wanted him to feel special and happy, like he deserves to feel as he's such a super person, and I think I managed to pull it off well. A happy T. That's the T I want to see.
I think rows, however minor or major they are, are important once in a while to relationships, provided they're not 24/7 (I couldn't stand that!). In the aftermath and make up of a row, you really remember why you're with that person in the first place and learn a little bit more about them. T never responds to my work worries with "I don't know what to say" anymore. No matter how little he manages to say, he still says something in terms of advice to me, which really means a lot. And T's stopped being so quiet about his feelings. As you probably saw from my last post, he had kept quiet on me for ages about something, which alongside the usual work worries turned out to be just that he feels we're so similar that the little differences, such as our difference in musical tastes, are magnified and was worried that it would be an issue. Keeping quiet turned out to be a huge factor in starting off our huge argument, but we now know what makes each other tick and how to deal with each other's emotions. And our huge argument made us both realise that relationships are hard work, but we're both 100% willing to try. I'm determined to keep that sparkle in his eyes now I've returned it to it's rightful place. Hopefully I'll get out of my own rut and I'll get my own sparkle back too. T and I will get through our separate work ruts by working together on how to solve them, and I told my two closest work colleagues that I needed a chat, which I'll receive next week and will hopefully help me feel a lot better about things. With such a support network, I think I'll start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the day, I guess I still need my boys to look after me once in a while, no matter how much I try to fend completely by myself and look after them. Hopefully, I'll never get into the position where I'll compromise the support of my loving gorgeous T again.
Take care all!
(Snotty) FPB
P.S. I found out later that T found my "Yeah, whatever" text immediately after he stormed out of the pub an extremely amusing expression, and my resulting decision to cut down on my alcohol consumption since the argument can only do me good. So even during the course of the action, some good things still came out of that awful night. But even so, keep your fingers crossed for me that I will never do anything like that again. Because T, I love you. And I'm gonna spend as much time as I can proving it.
