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It really never ends
Jan. 20th, 2012 10:06 amI'm starting to figure out why I've never been able to hold down a successful job for very long. I think I'm just too unhealthy, either mentally or physically. I always remember that part of the excitement I feel about getting a new job is that I have another chance to not mess up my attendance.
This time... I hope I can recover. I'm being urged to take some time off by HR. Because I told a supervisor some of the mental and emotional stuff that's been happening to me. I'm not pleased about it, but I can, on some level, see where they're coming from.
It first happened about 7 or so months ago. I was riding the bus home from work, and then suddenly I was struck with the overwhelming impression that there was a dead person on the bus. Worse, that they were right behind me, watching me, staring at me. Looking in the reflection in the windshield showed that a man was sitting behind me and looking at me looking at him, through the reflection, and that he was the dead person.
I panicked. Once off the bus, I all but ran inside, and I could swear he was watching me as the bus drove away, too.
That was the first incident.
The second was less extreme. I was outside at night, waiting for the buss, and from across the road, in the bushes, there were eyes watching me. Making me anxious. I stared back, and they wouldn't go away. Normal night noises were around, and I tried to tell myself there couldn't really be a threat if everything else was normal, but I felt the eyes on me almost until I got across the bridge on the way home.
Third incident? At my new job. I was in my mentorship period, and was talking with the lead mentor when suddenly she changed. I don't know what it was that changed about , but all of a suddenshe was dead. Talking to me still, acting normally, but she was dead. And to avoid freaking out everyone in the room, I had to pretend everything was perfectly normal.
It was that day that I collapsed, if truth be told. Maybe the stress of having to sit around dead people made that happen, in combination with anemia. I don't know.
But it keeps happening. I went to see my doctor. The first couple of incidents, I could brush off, chalk them up to stress or something else, and just pretend they were random glitches in my brain. But they keep coming, and it's scary, and I can't find a pattern. It isn't the same people, the same place, the same situation. My doctor has no idea what's going on, and admitted he was out of his depth. He's sending me to see a specialist. He didn't specify what kind, but I suspect he's going to send me to a neurologist first, for a CAT scan and possibly MRI to rule out anything serious. From there? Who knows?
But now work knows that this is happening, and while HR didn't exactly force me to take time off, they were pretty insistant that it was for everybody's own good. What I suspect is that they're afraid I'll hurt somebody if I have another incident at work, and they don't want to be the ones held to blame for trying to convince a mentally unstable employee to work when they were incapable. In the end, it was easier to just give up and say I'd be back once my doctor had faxed them forms saying I'm capable of working than to try to argue and suffer the constant stares and questions by going in.
I hope this puzzle gets solved soon. I'm tired of taking time off. I'm tired of solving one problem only to run up against another. I'm tired of spending each day now worrying if I'm suddenly going to be surrounded by the dead at any given moment. But if I stay off work until that problem goes away, well, I may never go back. God only knows how long it'll take to find a solution, and for all I know the only thing I'll be able to do is "try to avoid stress." Because that's easy to do when I have to go in public every day and worry the whole time. Sigh.
But maybe this is is something that can be fixed with something like me taking reduced hours for a while and doing some yoga to relieve stress or something. Cross my fingers, because that would be preferable to taking more medication every day.
This time... I hope I can recover. I'm being urged to take some time off by HR. Because I told a supervisor some of the mental and emotional stuff that's been happening to me. I'm not pleased about it, but I can, on some level, see where they're coming from.
It first happened about 7 or so months ago. I was riding the bus home from work, and then suddenly I was struck with the overwhelming impression that there was a dead person on the bus. Worse, that they were right behind me, watching me, staring at me. Looking in the reflection in the windshield showed that a man was sitting behind me and looking at me looking at him, through the reflection, and that he was the dead person.
I panicked. Once off the bus, I all but ran inside, and I could swear he was watching me as the bus drove away, too.
That was the first incident.
The second was less extreme. I was outside at night, waiting for the buss, and from across the road, in the bushes, there were eyes watching me. Making me anxious. I stared back, and they wouldn't go away. Normal night noises were around, and I tried to tell myself there couldn't really be a threat if everything else was normal, but I felt the eyes on me almost until I got across the bridge on the way home.
Third incident? At my new job. I was in my mentorship period, and was talking with the lead mentor when suddenly she changed. I don't know what it was that changed about , but all of a suddenshe was dead. Talking to me still, acting normally, but she was dead. And to avoid freaking out everyone in the room, I had to pretend everything was perfectly normal.
It was that day that I collapsed, if truth be told. Maybe the stress of having to sit around dead people made that happen, in combination with anemia. I don't know.
But it keeps happening. I went to see my doctor. The first couple of incidents, I could brush off, chalk them up to stress or something else, and just pretend they were random glitches in my brain. But they keep coming, and it's scary, and I can't find a pattern. It isn't the same people, the same place, the same situation. My doctor has no idea what's going on, and admitted he was out of his depth. He's sending me to see a specialist. He didn't specify what kind, but I suspect he's going to send me to a neurologist first, for a CAT scan and possibly MRI to rule out anything serious. From there? Who knows?
But now work knows that this is happening, and while HR didn't exactly force me to take time off, they were pretty insistant that it was for everybody's own good. What I suspect is that they're afraid I'll hurt somebody if I have another incident at work, and they don't want to be the ones held to blame for trying to convince a mentally unstable employee to work when they were incapable. In the end, it was easier to just give up and say I'd be back once my doctor had faxed them forms saying I'm capable of working than to try to argue and suffer the constant stares and questions by going in.
I hope this puzzle gets solved soon. I'm tired of taking time off. I'm tired of solving one problem only to run up against another. I'm tired of spending each day now worrying if I'm suddenly going to be surrounded by the dead at any given moment. But if I stay off work until that problem goes away, well, I may never go back. God only knows how long it'll take to find a solution, and for all I know the only thing I'll be able to do is "try to avoid stress." Because that's easy to do when I have to go in public every day and worry the whole time. Sigh.
But maybe this is is something that can be fixed with something like me taking reduced hours for a while and doing some yoga to relieve stress or something. Cross my fingers, because that would be preferable to taking more medication every day.
