Therapy Cat

First, please see below post if you haven't. Much more important than me freaking totally out.

I have 3 cats. One is considerably older than the other two and we've been together a long time, and we've been through a lot together. We are pals. She was with me during my pre-diagnosis years, and learned how to best react when I am crying without stopping for 2 days, when I'm yelling at the wallls, when I can't get out of bed, and when I can't stop pacing. She's also very sensitive to my stress level and when I'm stressed she always climbs up and tries to calm me. Tonight she's very busy with her job.

I am going back to work tomorrow. I'm scared. I've been feeling so great and if I were going back to a good situation I'd be a little less scared, but I'm not. The first thing is just that I know working is really hard on me and I'm not likely to feel this good after working a couple of weeks. But I'm not going to a good situation. I haven't said much about this because I have a fear of retaliation if the wrong person reads it, but really not much can happen that is worse than what I'll probably be doing in a few days. My company is politely saying "leave you crazy lady". I've been reassigned to a place an hour and a half from home, a place I've never been. I am not capable of driving that far. I'm not sure anyone really should do that. I have; it was hard. I've also heard it's a tough place to work.

I have another job lined up. I can start as soon as I can start. But I have to quit first, and well, that's sort of ugly. Too complicated to explain, but therapists generally are asked to serve long notices (this one is 3 weeks). I seriously doubt my ability to work so far away that long. So I'm going to have to just quit. I'm hoping my doctor is going to say it's a medical thing and that this sort of protects me a bit from the fallout. We'll see.

The new job is only 30 minutes from here and is 8 minutes from my mom's house. It's in the city I hope to move to (which of course is even further from the psychologist and psychiatrist). I was able to get a 4 days per week deal and that will improve my life immensely. It has a better productivity requirement and better meets my needs in a ton of ways. It won't be perfect, no job ever will be, but at least they want me there.

So today I was trying to get ready for all these changes. Unfortunately the day just stressed me out. I got the employment packet. I have to sign a thing allowing a very thorough background check, at their discretion, including things like a credit report. That's the kind of thing my paranoia doesn't handle well. Small thing. Then the benefits papers don't show short term disability as a benefit. It's listed on the webpage, so I imagine it's there, but that frightens me. I also still haven't been able to determine if my psychiatrist is a provider or if I'm going to be out-of-network. I won't quit seeing her, she's been my doctor for 5 years and she's awesome, and I already pay a huge amount to see her, but still--stress. I'm trying to eat healthier at work so I bought a bunch of 100 calorie packs, peanuts, and salads to take along. I bought caffeine free pop for lunch and I'll drink water otherwise. No snack machines. I have to get a drug test. I'm on no narcotics, but it's just weird to think what if one of my meds triggers. They're prescription, so it's ok, but I don't want to start off with a conversation about my anti-psychotic. I had to buy all new scrubs so I washed those earlier. I also had to buy a lab coat for this new place. (I won't go into my feelings about being forced to wear long sleeves when getting hot is bad for me). I threw it in with the scrubs and it is now pale blue and soaking in a soup pot full of bleach water. When the scrubs come out of get-the-starch-out-wash-cycle-2 it will have to go back in. And since it needs bleached and I just did laundry it will be all alone and therefore wasting water.

And yes, that's all a bunch of run-on mumbo-jumbo, but I'm freaking out. Or I was. Better now. I just have to handle 3 days. Anyone can handle 3 days. I'm sure I can go to work tomorrow just like I've not been desperately ill, even though it's pretty reasonable to have a little time to ease in. Of course this company didn't even give that at the beginning really.

Soon I can move on and eventually we'll come back to a discussion of "how do you keep working when it is not good for your company to employ you?". I do understand their situation. I really do......