Stress management requires three elements. Think of it as a three leg stool and you are balanced on the top juggling your life. One leg is support, one leg is information, and one leg is control. If one of these legs is shorter than the other you start to wobble. Wobbling for a while is OK, but you need to work on what is lacking. Plus the effort it takes to juggle your life is increased. It becomes harder to juggle, you drop a thing or two.
When two are out kilter you are in some trouble. It requires more effort to balance, and you are more likely to start dropping more important things. You drop some of your support system, you just don't have time to give them right now, you drop that book club as it's just too much pressure to read and show up. As you drop things the stressors in your life tend to become larger and even more difficult to handle. You stress about more things, all those things you are dropping, and the activities you are missing that fed your soul. The last and final leg tends to start splintering. And then you fall.
My control leg is what failed completely first. I was maintaining. Just survive this little rough patch, improvements are coming, new management is in place, give us a little time. I had a plan. Keep doing my job, self teach myself as much as I could about the systems we were putting in place, just hang on. Then go for the training position that should be opening up any day. The more things changed, the more our little section was blocked out of participating. The implementation team is screaming for help, but we aren't allowed to even be trained. Pretty clear message about how unimportant we are. I had one on one conversations with management that were supposedly confidential. The contents of those meetings were hurled at me in anger during my written reprimand. Do not trust them when they say "you can talk to me about anything. If you have concerns my door is open." That is a complete lie. Paranoia becomes a strong part of your persona. Some people shut down, turn inward. I did that for a while. Others start lashing out. Sarcasm becomes second nature. I did this for a while too. As my control leg failed, my information leg started wobbling.
My information leg was adequate to begin with. I knew I was under stress. I tried to find ways of relieving it. We have wellness/safety classes at work and we did a little test about stress. If you scored over a certain number you were at high risk. I scored double whatever that number was. However, by the time I took the test I had been too far down the long term stress road for too long to be able to self help. I actually maintained pretty well for a long time. Years even. I had the basics down. Eat good food, exercise, create. However I was suppressing instead of managing. You can only suppress for so long. The thing about suppression is it's not selective. You can't say "I'm going to suppress this frustration" when you suppress, everything is suppressed, even the joy and delight and happy of life gets suppressed. Things you would normally cherish become unimportant. This also feeds into the control leg. It just starts to snowball.
You lose your good judgment. You become suspicious of everything and question every motive. Even good things are look at with scepticism. Once upon a time I was a cheerleader for management at work. I bought into it all. That change was coming, that employees would have a voice, that management really was listening. Once I lost that faith it was harder and harder to juggle. I stopped participating in things.
My support system is my strong leg. Ken, my faith, my kids, family, friends. I have people in my life who love and support me. However, as I was spiraling down the loss of control and information path, I was isolating myself from my support. I knew I wasn't myself. I knew I was crazy, and I was ashamed. I was holding onto my sanity by the tips of my fingers and I didn't want anyone to know how bad it was.
I was sick a lot. I could not stay healthy through fall and winter. I caught every bug that came through the office. Since I was sick, I couldn't go visit family, or help Ken with constructing our Burning Man equipment, or keep up with the house work. Snowball after snowball.
I was showing every single symptom of long term stress and possibly PTSD. And then on April 11th my brain gave up.
My support leg is recovering. I am learning about the new me and look forward to more of the old me coming back. My information leg has had to be rebuilt from scratch. I am devouring information about long term stress, techniques for getting through a panic attack, healthy eating, dieting, and these newly found creative opportunities I've found. Writing, fabric, and knitting. The control leg is still my big problem. I have no control over my work environment and I am working hard on getting to a place in my life where I can have more control.
I'm exploring becoming a full time student and finish my degree. I am going to explore how to build a business plan. I have an idea about a business that I would like to start. I have to research small business loans, backers, etc. and come up with a plan. Pay down debt. Take the power this company has over me away. So that if it continues to be this toxic for me, I can walk away without losing my house.
Step by step, baby steps some days, other days big giant steps. I go to my doctor on Tuesday to get my return to work release signed. I am due to start work Thursday part time. Two weeks of part time, then slowly had an hour at a time until I'm back up to full speed. If I have a panic attack it's an automatic three day break.
Yes, I am scared. No, I don't think anything at work has changed. I am going right back into the same situation that wore me down. Yes, I know, I'm crazy. I have a mortgage on a house that I love. But, we have a few plans, and I'm seeing color mixed into my life. On April 11th all I saw was black.
I am my own fortress. I am strong, I am loved. I am a beautiful, perfect child of God.
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