Some of what's been happening

I meant to post this last night, but I had a very long day (up early, drove an hour to the psychologist, drove an hour to work, worked 8 1/2 hours, drove over an hour home) and I kinda fell asleep. Plus there was much emotional drama in there....

I quit my job yesterday. I have a new one starting in a month which I am very excited about. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate leaving what I do now and the new job is an area I find less challenging, but I don't think I can handle the stress of a challenging job anymore. Also it's only 20 minutes from home. That's a dream after years of driving over 2 hours each day.

I am still going to be pretty quiet about what has been going on that was so bad, but I knew when I went on disability that a chunk of my illness and the severity was because I did not get the support I needed and deserved. I asked for help, repeatedly stated I was getting sick, and I didn't get help. Various things to improve that were supposed to be in place when I returned. That did not happen and the pressure to do things I couldn't do was immense.

There were many other factors. But I started looking tentatively about 1 week after I returned and when something that sounded good came along I interviewed. By that point I had changed to "if I get it and they'll pay remotely what I make now I'm gone". Long story short they offered way more than I expected and so now I'm a lame duck. 29 days and I'm done.

Emotionally I'm not handling this well. I'm having a lot of mood swings. I've had more ativan in the last day than in my usual 2 or 3 days. I feel like there is so much to get done, telling people is horrible, and I still haven't told most patients. I'm mourning the loss of the job I had a year ago. But when I talked to the vice president of the company yesterday (more on that after my notice is served) I told her I have been in bad situations since January with a manager, the only one who can help me, lying to me directly and repeatedly. I think 9 months is about enough of that.

Conversely, I'm so glad. I made some very hard decisions to do this, and they are right. I know they are. Being back has shown me how hard working is for me. Compared to a few years ago it is a million times harder. I seriously doubt that I'm going to be able to do this for a tremendously long time. I'm arbitrarily picking 5 years as a point that I hope I still will be working. I finally know that I need to do what I can to preserve my ability to do this at all, instead of pushing to show I can do the hard stuff like everyone else.

The hardest lesson of 2006 is that Just Me just isn't going to get to live normally no matter how hard she pretends.