My illness never takes a break from me. I really wish it would just take a much needed, long overdue holiday already, or better yet, I wish it would buy itself a one way ticket to hell where it belongs.
Today I’ve been especially off. If you ask me why though, I can’t really give you a straight answer or pinpoint one particular thing.
I woke up this morning with a splitting headache (not out of the ordinary for me), took a pain killer and off I went to work, exhausted and extremely anxious. My headache began to settle itself shortly after I got to work but still, I couldn’t settle in, my level of concentration was as poor as the air quality looming over us in Toronto today due to the wildfires happening in Quebec right now. I began having some very intrusive thoughts. I sat still for some time, staring blankly at my computer screen before becoming completely overwhelmed with emotion.
I felt panicked and then, then came the tears.
Lucky for me I work with a lovely group of compassionate ladies who stopped at nothing to distract me, letting me know that I’m not alone and making me laugh at their dry sense of humour.
Working alongside these ladies every day (and some who I don’t see as often as I’d like to) for 6 months now has created several close emotional and professional bonds in the office for me.
They have become my “Work Wives” persay, where high levels of disclosure and support go hand in hand; and where we feel safe to vent our mutual frustrations (usually with upper management), where we help each other out when we’re feeling overwhelmed, where we ensure there is plenty of caffeine and candy on hand, where we compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to make us a better team and where we feel comfortable enough to call each other out on our nonsense.
Going back to work full-time after so many years has, (believe it or not) been one of the hardest things I have done along my journey (trust me, those closest to me believe it since they have to listen to me rant about it all the time!). My job has actually added a whole other level of stress to my life and one of the hardest tasks for me is that I have an extremely difficult time leaving my empathic ways and work stressors from work at work at the end of the day so, yes I am very grateful to have my work “Wives” beside me every day to share in this very unique level of friendship that is often filled with secret languages, plenty of eye rolling and lots and lots of raised eyebrows!
Do you have a work “Spouse”? Spouses?
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YouAreEnough 