It was a crappy day. I made it through the morning and made it through the first half of the day. Went to lunch with my friend, Erin, at the Matador and broke down at lunch. Went to a meeting and immediately afterwards felt like crap again. The depression took a deep dive when I tried calling a number of psychiatrists and couldn’t get an appointment. So i called my regular doctor to see if she had any recommendations and she suggested that maybe I should admit myself - yep, admit myself to a hospital. How fantastic is that? I want the freakin’ meds to work and I’m being told to check myself in to a hospital. So i freaked out further and then asked her to give me a psychiatrist’s name. So long story short, I am going to the psychiatrist on 7/4. Oh, and therapy tomorrow. Oh and told my work that I may need Short Term Disability. Good times.

I’m so frustrated by all this. I’m dragging my husband and my friends through my crisis. I’m not providing any meaningful work to my employer. I’m simply existing right now. Existing.

So i’m thinking of a way to write this post where it makes sense, and so that it’s short enough that I have the energy to write it without pooping out. The last few weeks have been hell and if it weren’t for my husband, I don’t know where i would be. I’m suffering from depression and have gone to the doctor to see what i can do. She put me on Wellbutrin and it’s been almost 13 days and i don’t have any sense of getting better. Nate says it’s like a ship fixing its course and that it takes time. So i’m trying to believe this. I’m literally living hour by hour at this point. Whenever I think about the future, I just panic and start swirling in the depression. It’s always around me. I’m sinking in it.

It’s Sunday morning and I got myself another panic attack. I’m sitting here on our couch and Nate’s gone to church. I know I should have gone with him, but I just couldn’t get myself to go. Instead, I am sitting at home freaking out over being home alone with my doggie.

I’m now going to refer to last week as the breakdown week of 2008. I’m hoping it’s my last one. The combination of work and apparently some serious chemical imbalance led me to completely break down at work. I was basically going to give my 2 weeks notice. I came home on Wednesday night and started crying my eyes out. On Thursday, I decided I couldn’t go in. While Nate was out door-knocking, I sat at home and cried hysterically. I knew I needed help, and my friend Mary told me to call my doctor. After a few unsuccessful attempts, my doctor said to come on in. That was at 1. The appointment was at 4. Between 1 and 4, I cried. I cried about everything - about my work, about my life, about the darkness, about my family and friends. About EVERYTHING. Even know, I’m getting weepy typing this out. We went to the doctor at 4 and we talked about what I was feeling and why. And…. I’m back on the meds. The meds I tried so hard to get off of. It’s a different one this time - they’re safe for me to be on when I get pregnant. But I’m back on them. And I can’t wait for them to kick in b/c my poor husband and I can’t take this anymore. So this is me now… Maybe three weeks from now I can read this post and see how far I’ve come. I hope so.

I’m not sure I’ve made myself clear. I hate my job. I don’t dislike it. I’m not bored by it. I’m not tired of it. NO! I HATE MY JOB. So last night, as I was talking to my friend on the phone, she told me she had figured out how much she gets paid an hour so that she can mentally reward herself through her long days. Oh well, an hour is a lifetime in this hell hole so I decided to figure out how much I get paid by the minute - BY THE MINUTE PEOPLE. And do you know WHEN I figured this out? During my MANY potty breaks. Yep, I had my cell phone in there and used the lovely calculator function. It’s quite easy to calculate too. Salary/2080 gives you your hourly rate. Divide that by 60 and you’ve got the magic number. So in case I haven’t made myself clear about HOW MUCH I hate my job, this should clear it up for you. So now, whenever I’m in deep agony and am counting the minutes, I can count the dollars too.

I came home the other night in a pretty melancholy state. I found my husband Nate in the kitchen and he gave me a great big old hug. You know the kind… the one where you can just sink in to. Nate’s amazing. He knows me inside out. He knows how terrible I’ve been feeling lately and he just let me bury myself in that hug. Once we broke apart, he looked at me and said, “I think I know what’s going to make you feel better… puppies!” Puppies? Plural? Wait, I knew about his dad’s new 9-week old puppy, but when did we go from singular to plural? Before I could get a question out, we were in my car, racing the mile to my dad-in-law’s house where we found the two cutest little things rolling around, jumping around and scrambling to get in my arms. They were so excited they tinkled – on my hand – and I DIDN’T CARE. Yep, that’s how happy they made me. These two little puppies made my night… and really so did my husband. He knew exactly what I needed.

I guess I should tell you how the puppy duplication happened. My dad-in-law has a friend who bought puppy #2 but wasn’t sure if she’d keep it. We’ve been on pins and needles since hoping she doesn’t! This morning we found out that dad-in-law gets to keep both! Hurray for happy endings!

So i’m going through this career-related midlife crisis. Every day I wake up with this terrible knot in my stomach. I dread going to work. Dread it. I’m not sure if it’s the job itself, or what. So today, I decided to take a career test and see what an “objective” online tool would tell me. Here’s my result.

 

 

“People with Yellow Interests like job responsibilities that include organizing and systematizing, and professions that are detail-oriented, predictable, and objective. People with Yellow Interests enjoy activities that include: ordering, numbering, scheduling, systematizing, preserving, maintaining, measuring, specifying details, and archiving, which often lead to work in research, banking, accounting, systems analysis, tax law, finance, government work, and engineering.”

Well that’s just great since I don’t do ANYTHING remotely similar this type of work. However, key words that stood out for me: predictable, detail-oriented.

Yep, I want something predictable and detail-oriented. It’s a start…

I have to get something off my mind and I’ve got to do it now. I’m miserable. Absolutely miserable at my job. So the question that I pose to myself is, is it the job, or is it the work that I do? I’m unclear about the answer. I’ve never really been happy at any of the companies I’ve been at doing my line of work (Organizational Development). I’ve always assumed it’s a poor fit, but now I’m starting to think otherwise. I’m not sure I like the work… It’s a lot of strategizing, a lot of “brainstorming” and then a lot of execution on “stuff” that no one really ever gets. In my current role as an external consultant, I thought things would be much easier, but I’m working on a project that is EXTREMELY complicated, in a very complicated organization (and if I said the name of the company here, most likely you would understand), with a project manager who is about as helpful as a piece of toast.

I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m secretly hoping to get fired. Yep, I’m_hoping_to_get_fired. Not that this is on the horizon, but how sad is that? Every day I wake up with this sense of dread, of foreboding. I feel like this job, and I really look at it as a job, has crept into my sacred home life b/c it’s always on my mind. It makes me depressed, sad, and just plain ol’ scared. And it’s not a matter of failing or succeeding. I honestly don’t think I like the work that I do.

So then the next question pokes its ugly head out. Well then, what do you want to do… Hmm… hard question considering every time I think about it, this big black dollar sign comes up in my head showing the tens of thousands of dollars that I have already spent obtaining my Ph.D. Whoops, did I forget to mention that? That’s right, I have my Ph.D. in this damn field. So it’s not just walking away from a career, it’s walking away from a degree that I spent countless hours and dollars on.

I told my husband I would give this job a year, but honestly, I don’t know how much of this emotional blood-letting I can handle. And if I walked away from this job, I really need to walk to another career… to bad I don’t know what that is…

That’s what I did. I paid for torture. It sounded like a great idea at the time. Hey Ani, my friend Regan says, Dan is doing a boot camp on Mondays and Fridays at Green Lake. It’ll be fun. Let’s do it. “Aw that’s awesome,” I say.

Aw. That’s. Awesome. What was I on? I am PAYING a man to drag my butt out in public, bark out instructions, while I lift an 8 lb. torture ball with Velcro through my squatting legs. I am PAYING a man to have me run back and forth between trees. I am PAYING a man to tell me that Diet Coke is bad for you and that aspartame is made out of formaldehyde. Yes, he crossed the sacred Diet Coke line!

What is wrong with me? Oh, I know… that’s how desperate I am to get back in shape. Right now, I can barely feel my arms. My legs are quivering. I’m about to go take a healthy dose of Advil and jump in the shower… but not before I bend down and try to kick myself for the insanity i’m putting myself through. Bootcamp. What a great idea…

I’m kinda in this blah mood today and I was trying to think of things to cheer me up. Right away I thought about Kona, which then got my mind to start thinking about this doggie food sample we got today at some feed shop that sells food for pets. First let me say that the whole world is losing it. The dog food brand was from the guys who wrote “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” No. Really. “Writers” are now making dog food. Wholesome dog food. It’s called “Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul.” Doesn’t it make you people who read the original book feel kinda dirty?

So I kinda giggled at the display and walked away, when I heard one of the workers asking my husband if he would like a sample. Free pet food? Uh, yeah we’d like some. But here’s where my mind starts going. Why would we need a sample of dog food. Have they seen most dogs? Dogs will eat anything. Anything. My dog will be in heaven if she gets a piece of dried spaghetti. More importantly, my dog can’t speak. She can’t tell me if she thinks it’s so-so, a little too bland, a little too spicy. Right? Am I right here?

Ever watch Curb Your Enthusiasm? It’s a now-defunct HBO show with Larry David, one of the creators of Seinfeld. If you haven’t seen it, it’s hilarious… as long as you don’t mind being uncomfortable with finding so many inappropriate things so funny. You see, Larry is like George Costanza from Seinfeld, but 20x worse. He is selfish, self-centered, and bears the wrath of most who encounter him. Wait, is it bear or bare? Whatever.

So I’m watching season 5’s “Kamikaze Bingo.” The short version is that Larry shames the son of a kamikaze fighter into suicide. Basically, Larry brought up the idea that if his dad was a kamikaze, shouldn’t he be dead rather than living in a nursing home. The story goes on in the typical Curb Your Enthuisiasm way, but the ending was what killed me. Larry goes on to piss off all the people who live at the nursing home and they all decide to gang up on him during a bingo game. Larry starts backing up into a door while all these old people come slowing charging at him like the monsters did in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Then all of a sudden you hear the revving of a wheelchair, the crowd parts and the kamikaze dad comes racing down the bingo hall in his motorized wheelchair screaming “BONZAI!”

So at this point you must be wondering (assuming there’s a “you” out there actually reading this) why I’m sitting here recapping a TV show episode. I’ll tell you why. Right after I hear “BONZAI!” I start cracking up. I mean I’m hysterically laughing when all of a sudden I see this black object fly past our living room window and I hear something crash against the window. I run outside to find a tiny baby bird with a yellow breast essentially taking its last breaths. I run inside to grab a towel, reach down and cup the bird in my hands… and the baby bird quivers and DIES! DIES!!! So I run behind the house calling out my husband’s name. I don’t bother going inside since my loving dog would surely attack what was in my hand. Meanwhile, Nate comes outside with this shocked look on his face. He heard me laughing and now I’m standing in front of him, cupping a dead baby bird, crying hysterically and screaming “the baby bird is dead! It’s dead. It died! A crow killed it. Fucking crow!” So he grabs the towel from my hand and the baby bird lands with a thud on the ground.

And so you see, this is why I told you the Curb Your Enthusiasm story. You think this kind of shit happens only on TV shows, but oh no… not when it comes to my life.

Epilogue: Nate buried Baby Bird O’Leary (BBO) in our backyard and has a great big cinder block on the patch so no furry animal can get to it. I’m going to make a pretty little patch of stones and plant some seeds. I guess I’m a closet animal lover after all…

Here’s what the BBO looked like.