I am on the train home feeling solemn: but what the fuck else is new? Me & my boss got into our first “fight” over email for Christ sakes. (Not that she hasn’t screamed at me in person/on the phone/this week already.) But this time I actually wanted to stand up for myself, just a little bit, and point out the hypocrisy of how she does her job. You get tired of swallowing your tongue because of money after awhile. Not treating yourself with autonomy gets old.
I try to be honest and level with her for the first time- but that doesn’t work of course. This woman is a textbook narcissist and manic; my job is based on her whims and overreactions. I know this is not new, this is how employment works. But I didn’t know my emotions would suddenly be manipulated by an almost 60 year old undiagnosed bipolar woman that I didn’t know before 2018. I didn’t even know a person like this could exist, (In a leadership role at a NON PROFIT mind you) or that I would have to interact with her; let alone WORK for her.
We just finished our god damn yearly gala- and it was not easy at all. It was months of insane emails and berating and just endless stressful hell. I watched this crazy bitch scream her head off on the Dumbo waterfront, as families with strollers passed. Without abandon, no self-awareness at all...I get freaked out when people are so openly mentally unstable when they’re supposed to be, I don’t know...my employer?
And this shit is finally over! I think things will be easy now; I can enjoy my summer, I’ve reached some sort of milestone and can feel a semblance of stability or comfort- so stupid. Every time that thought comes to my mind I am wrong.
I am just sitting at my desk holding back my hyperventilating so my supervisor who shares my office doesn’t hear me. All I want to do is close the door and let her see me like this. Show her that I need help and I don’t know what to do. I am reaching the end of my rope. (Although I feel that way a lot and somehow it is never the end. Prozac?) I keep picturing myself doing it, I am so close. But I don’t. I love this woman and truly enjoy working with her, but I don’t trust her to treat my feelings carefully. I know she has allegiances she has to maintain. So I wait for the coworker I do trust with my emotions to come in, meet her in the bathroom with the dying cockroaches (AKA all of the bathrooms at my job) and terrify her with my red damp face. She hugs me and we talk shit, and she buys me lunch that day, a gesture that means a lot to me even though I want to give up right now.
Today is my 3 month anniversary at my job, and I am fucking tired. Being a mentally ill person is tiring. Commuting more than 2 hours every day is tiring. Existence is tiring. I feel stuck and helpless. My coworker and I keep discussing when we’re going to bring this up to HR, to our CEO; because this isn’t just petty or emotional; it isn’t just that I’m beginning to truly hate this woman, resent her for all of the emotional trauma she has caused me. It is that factually she makes my job harder, projects her mania onto every person she comes into contact with, and is not a leader.
I still want to cry now, even at 7 PM, hours after all of this. It is hard to shake myself out of a feeling like this, every time. It is just visceral; dread and panic that turns into a deep sadness. I feel mournful towards all of the ways I could be right now, instead of unhappy.
So now I sigh and feel a sense of dread thinking about interviewing again- about doing all of this AGAIN. Every single step that comes with getting and maintaining a job. I am more tired just thinking about it. But unfortunately, I am ready to blow up my life at any moment. I cannot plan too far in advance simply because I can’t predict when my mental illness will force me to uproot my life.
Never be ashamed of having to begin again.
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