I'm not sure about posting this in here, but the thread title is 'the Mental Health tread', not 'the bad mental health thread'. So I am going to go ahead with this. Firstly I look at this pretty much every day, life is a bit **** really, but humans (in general) are not and this is shown so often.
OK, I am going to say it. I AM IN A GOOD PLACE
There, I'm happy (is that allowed?)
Now a long story.
I've had a rough 10+ years coping with the end of my marriage, without going through all the details (they are in this thread somewhere) I have sleep walked through my 30s and am now in my mid 40s. I have been on and off antidepressants (never managing to stay on them, always deciding 'what was the point' and stopping.) I've slowly put on weight, become progressively unfit, eat crap, drank more. I was a poster boy for a mentally troubled single 40 year old man (and we know what the statics say about that)
One thing had remained constant through that time, my job. I've made no secret that I didn't like aspects of it but I didn't really understand how bad it was for me until recently. My doctor (who is great btw. basically my shrink) said that the way I describe work is akin to mental and emotional abuse (not the same, not saying that, but traits of it).
They left me feeling useless, with no confidence at all, with no belief in my abilities or desire to develop/improve. They sucked the life out of everything. I felt so useless that I was trapped, why would anyone else employ a duffer like me, so I stayed in this 'toxic' relationship.
I was existing, dreading Monday mornings, getting to Friday drinking/eating in some celebration for 'surviving' and then by Saturday afternoon the 'dread' returned. As well as that I was always counting down to the next holiday, I was just wishing my time on this rock away.
Fast forward - I applied for VR in May and eventually it was granted in September. Dobbie was free.
However I wasn't ready to jump back into work (that was the plan). I actually got worse for a while, eating, drink and hardly bothering to get out of bed. My fear had moved to finding a new job.
I randomly went back to the doctors in October (a subconscious cry for help?) and went back on the pills with the promise I won't stop them (which I haven't) .
I'm going on a bit here, Christmas came I still felt ****, new work was looming. However I hosted the family for Christmas day, cooked the dinner and in retrospect this was a turning point, it was a good day. I promised myself to find work in the New Year.
To facilitate this (and with the pills kicking in) I made some changes, decided to clean up my eating, do dry January and ensure I showered, got dressed and did some exercise everyday (even if it was just some laps of Tesco)
I also enrolled onto a few teaching agencies (not something I really wanted to do but I didn't feel able to go for anything else). This unfortunately played out like I expected I did two (horrible) days in a school and told them 'nope'.
THE TURNING POINT
This would have knocked me back in the recent past, but this time it didn't next day I got up and applied for several jobs. I got lots of interest with two contacting me within 24 hours and in just over a week I was interviewed and offered a job in the Private Sector (scary for a Public sector boy)
I started late February and it has changed my life to be honest. I am valued, praised, they care about my development and I actually want to go to work. This has had a knock on, without 'fearing' Monday I have my weekend back, I am no longer counting down the days and can actually think about living them.
I am still 'dry' 101 days, lost a huge amount of weight (I don't know what my 'max' was, but I am 16Kg down from my recorded high in September.) I no longer ache when I wake up (my knees and ankles would hurt in the morning after pizza, late nights and wine.)
Lastly I am reducing the happy pills with the doctors blessing with the aim of coming off them early summer. I'll still have bad days, I am still a loaner (but cool with that) and I now a 'boring' non-drinking, gym going, calorie counting sod but I am happy with that.
I suppose the moral of this story is, things can get better and no one should put up with a **** job (but I understand why it can be difficult to leave.)
Hope this helped, made someone think.
Wolf.