elainegrey

I let myself rest as much as i could yesterday. After journalling i was to go meet with friends, then Meeting, then Meeting for Business. As i burst into tears *again* i decided i did not want the added strain of "behaving appropriately." If i were grieving (something specific) or if something were wrong (other than my immune system's flaring signals in my mouth), it would be easier to cry publicly. I could not face a "how are you doing?" question though. And i thought back to some of the Meetings for Worship where i had spent so much time in tears. I didn't want to do that again.

It was easy to label the work stress as the cause when i was teary a month ago. Now that i've had a little relief from the work stress, i can look more objectively at causes and again can see that a significant fraction is my projecting on the situation, not the situation itself. Objectively, i am missing some of the things that are most rewarding to me, and my job right now has more elements that are "draining" than it did a year and a half ago. It does not have a person who was draining, though, so that's a win, but colleagues share a sense of a problem with leadership and decision making at the executive level that is causing organizational issues. There's some evidence that this can't persist.

It's possible that if i went to a smaller company i would have more of the rewarding creative work, but it's not a guarantee. It's possible that i can talk with my boss about my need for a creative work: i'm not sure what he can do at this time, but he might be able to do something.

Most of the stress comes from the story i told myself, some of which was very true. My boss and his then-boss, the VP, were not working well together. The June visit of the VP was very distressing. While the poor working relationship was resolved in the reorg in late June, i still had the emotional sense of instability and threat when i discovered the deployment expectations in early July. The sense of instability and threat lead me to take on the unexpected expectations and demands as "my fault." I believed i had to make things work because i had somehow missed the expectation and, if things failed, my group would be blamed. As the months slid by and i spoke with more and more folks, it became clear that the "fault" was somewhere else (not only me).

That story is pretty much over now. We've planned solutions to *our* issues, and hopefully we will implement them by the Feb installation date; i've done what i can to communicate that there are greater issues (and continue to nag about the greater issues).

The story was told in the context of instability: the section of the organization we're in is new to us. I had lots of travel, lots of need to communicate and reach out to other new folks.

All in all, the crisis that i was directly involved in has been resolved, and i understand more clearly what i am missing in my current work. There remains a larger issue, but "it's not my fault" or responsibility, and it might even be in the process of being addressed. Some larger management issues above me continue to make it hard to work well: it seems possible that these will be resolved.

However, having been caught up in crisis mode, i need to "stand down," but i take a long time to leave the reactive state.

Meanwhile, my body has, under the stress, been in a long term flare. Between the stress and the feedback cycles with my body, i'm a nervous wreck. I think the tears are mostly the delayed response to the previous three or four months. I wish i could explain to my body and my deep emotions that it's over, the threat is gone, get back to our regularly scheduled program. But the trauma patterns i have make standing down very difficult.

So it's going to take a while, i guess.

Instead of going out to meet friends, we walked downtown to our local farmer's market. The bright sun made me feel overheated rather quickly, but we got the exercise in. I had still held out hope of going to Meeting for Business, but while i sat in the deck chair eating brunch, i felt so tired. I spent the time i would have been in Meeting for Business meditating on the deck. I rested the remainder of the afternoon, and managed, too, to get laundry done and fix dinner. Psychologically, it's hard for me to let go of the "getting things done" measure, so to have something done i'd planned to do for a week helps.

This morning i already have my "right hand self" on, the self that gets me through and holds back the expression of my vulnerable self.