“in office”

I’ve been back “in office” for almost 2 months now. I use the term “in office” REALLY loosely – and we’ll get into that.

Lets make a list

Pros –

• Its nice to see some of my coworkers, I guess.

• Its easier to “feel out” emails and read underlying tones from my boss, or anyone for that matter, but mostly my boss. Its way easier to tell if she’s pissed or not in person vs text only.

• The coffee is cheaper than going to Starbucks.

I’ve been sitting in my office, with this list up on one of my screens, all day. Everything I did I would ask myself “is this better here or at home” and if it was better here I wrote it down. 3 things. All day.

Onto the Cons.

• Parking is a total nightmare

• No matter what time I leave the house I feel rushed. I feel like no matter when I get to the office it is the wrong time. This starts my day with anxiety.

• Its nearly impossible to make myself take a mind break here. I only get up to go to the bathroom most days.

• The walk to the bathroom is so long, what the heck I’m gonna pee my pants

• I’m cold.

• There’s too many people, everywhere, all the time.

• So many distractions, I try to keep my door closed, which probably makes me look like a b***h

• I have no idea what time it is, ever

I could keep going but I’ll get serious for a minute

How am I really doing?

To be honest, my new medication routine has been life changing. I feel more like myself, the hallucinations are ~mostly~ gone, and I feel like a fog is lifting. BUT. You don’t go through what I’ve been through over the last year and overnight become a brand new person.

Coming to realize that has been really difficult for me.

 I’m still figuring out dosage, so with every small change comes my body’s reaction to it – and some of those side effects have been brutal. There have been days I was so tired, I couldn’t drive to work and be confident my eyes were open, it was terrifying.

Another wonderful side effect of this experience is a healthy dose of PTSD – I guess you don’t just see your living room erupt in a non-existent blaze or hear voices in your head for months and come out unscathed.

Occasionally, I’ll hear a noise, or see something in my peripheral vision. To a normal person, it can go ignored, to me, I have to ask - “was that real?”.

My next thought is to locate the source. Sometimes I can hear someone in the hallway talking, I pop my head out, see a people talking, all is good.

But sometimes, I hear a muffled talking, I can’t locate the source, I start questioning if its real, I spiral into an anxiousness of what other things I am seeing/hearing, whether or not they are real too.

Rarely, if ever, am I able to just ~move on~ from an unlocated noise or fleeting vision.

At this point I have to go. I have to remove myself from the space, or I will continue to spiral. Spiraling for me ends, typically, in a “I can’t breathe”, “I am going to die”, scream cry, fetal position, heavy breathing – panic attack.

This  series of events becomes rather unfortunate and inconvenient when you work in a building undergoing a remodel, with constant construction noises/workers.

On a related note – masks….

Listen, I’m not an anti-masker. I think they work. Covid aside, look at how masking effected the typical flu and RSV spread during the winter of 2020-21. It was almost nonexistent. SO they definitely aid in prevention of the spread of contagious diseases, I will not argue that. Here’s the thing about masks for me. As I mentioned before, if I can’t locate the source of a noise, I have to question its validity. If more than 1 person around me is masked and there is talking, I begin to panic. Who is talking? Are they talking? Is this real?? I have to go.

This is why I use the term “in office” loosely. In the two-ish months I have been back “in office” I have only successfully worked 2 full consecutive days in office, once. I typically work from home Wednesdays and Fridays at least, but most weeks I have also ended up working from home on Tuesdays. So really, at best, I’m “in the office” twice a week.

Sounds like cake for most people, right?

To be honest with you, for me it feels defeating. I can’t even human enough to be a “normal” human coexisting with other humans for TWO CONSECUTIVE days?? Get it together, Howard.

I don’t *want* to function like this. As hard as I try, as normal as I want to be, it saddens me that ~this~ is my absolute best. ~THIS~ feels half-ass. ~THIS~ feels like a cop out. ~THIS~ feels like I am being a whiny baby.

I wish I had something motivational to write, like “each day I try to be a little bit more human than the day before”…

But in all reality, some days, I barely get by without having a full mental breakdown and then the next day I try a little less so that I don’t overwhelm myself.

I’m struggling to accept this as a “new normal”. I am striving to be the work-centric overachiever I was before I got pregnant. I’m mourning that person, as I know she no longer exists.

New me is the best version of me, the me I get to be for my son. She is a wife and mother above anything else. She still has goals, she can still be an outstanding performer at work, too. She will get used to this balance, eventually. She’s been through a lot. She deserves grace. She will figure this out, one day at a time. One small task at a time, she will grow.  

my home office