Thursday Therapy: So How’s Work?

Tuesday’s therapy session was devoted a great deal to issues I’m having at work. Work has been not so good. Work has been in turmoil, not the least of which was a result of the changeover in supervisors in my area. In addition, a new coworker (who I addressed in last week’s edition of TT) came in with guns ablazin’ ready to change the world.

Fortunately, Freud has been very helpful to me in dealing with these issues. First we talked about how I am dealing with the new boss. After putting to use some suggestions Freud shared last time, I was able to report that things are getting better. I did something that was very difficult for me in a private conversation with my boss recently. I told him just how hard it is for me to speak up. Do you have any idea just how hard it is to speak up about the difficulty one has in speaking up? Yeah, well it’s difficult. Trust me. I thought I was going to have a blood vessel in my head explode when I finally said it. Of course, it was all anti-climactic from there. Boss doesn’t really understand my difficulty, but at least he seemed to respect the fact that I could give him concrete examples of how hard I’ve tried the last month to be a better communicator with him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely comfortable with Boss (yeah, that’s what I’m calling my supervisor on here), but I’m trying not to be terrified of him. I think he’s trying a little not to be so terrifying to me. I’ve never had a boss before that I was afraid of so this is new to me, this learning to be strong and push back rather than roll over. I’m used to everyone trying to play nice with one another. He’s got more of a hard edge, a rough way of speaking, a tone that intimidates. I will keep on trying to toughen up to it.

Last week at this time, the letter I wrote and posted on my TT post was an accurate reflection of how I felt at the time. Since then, my opinion has tempered somewhat. It appears that perhaps as the new kid on the block this coworker mustered up a big bluster of bravado. That’s how some people deal with the anxiety of being new. (Thanks Freud for this insight.) She and I went to lunch together one day and had a really nice talk. Although she does have a few quirks (who among us doesn’t?) she’s really not such a bad person. It is interesting to watch her go head to head with Boss because she is really good at pushing back. I think if you added some of her push back to me and gave her a little of my laid back you’d have pretty near the perfect person. ;-) Also, she helped me see that the way I see certain people here at work is not as far off as I thought I was. I’ve never been particularly impressed with one coworker who has always been held up as the model of all employees. My new coworker sees her in the same light as I do, which is to say that we see that this employee isn’t quite the deity others make her out to be nor is she very willing to share information and teach others. Instead she prefers to hoard knowledge, perhaps as job security for herself. Having my observations validated, particularly as the new coworker offered her assessment without having heard my opinion, made me feel better about the whole work situation.

Freud and I finished our session by shifting from work life to personal life. I shared with him for the first time about my ongoing relationship with M and how I feel it helps me stay relatively content living with W as roommates and pseudo spouses. We didn’t have much time to delve into the topic much, but I was pleasantly surprised that Freud didn’t react to my revelation with any negativity. I suppose that therapists aren’t supposed to react with much emotion to things, but there’s a part of me that always expects everyone to react to my affairs with horror and disgust as happens publicly when politicians, athletes and celebrities are caught (even though I have no elections or endorsement deals to lose nor do I have much risk of landing in the tabloids). As for me? You aren’t likely to catch me throwing stones at anybody, but I’ve always kind of thought I was the exception rather than the rule. Now, don’t for a minute think that I think Freud is endorsing my relationship with M because I don’t. I just appreciate that I can talk to him about it without him getting all judgmental on me, ya’ know? He’s willing to talk to me about it from the standpoint of its impact on me and my psyche without burdening me with the whole guilt and responsibility of protecting everybody else because I truly don’t think I can take on that burden until I work on me for me. Part of my problem is that too many times in my past I have put others and their welfare in front of mine to the detriment of me. Until I learn how to balance that out better I need to focus just on my welfare and wellbeing.


And in other news:

I feel a really big angry rant brewing inside me. I know anger is one of the phases of the grieving process. I thought I’d pretty well worked through the grieving process over someone yet it seems perhaps I was just caught up in the denial phase. By year’s end (so in the next couple of weeks) I do believe you can expect to see me letting off a bit of steam here in the form of one really big angry rant at someone who I feel deserves it in spite of my defenses of him in the past on this blog. You know, even a pressure cooker will explode if you let the steam build up too long.

On the medical front, I’m scheduled for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Although I’m a bit younger than they normally start doing them, it is recommended since my dad’s colon cancer now puts me in a higher risk category. While the procedure itself doesn’t scare me all that much I am quite annoyed with the regimen required beforehand. For five days prior to the procedure I can’t use Advil, and naturally I’ve had a raging headache the last two days. Also, I haven’t been able to eat nuts, seeds, or popcorn, and I’ve only been able to eat fruits and vegetables without their skins and seeds. Let me tell you I had no idea just how much I eat that would be forbidden. Even the bread I normally buy has seeds in it. Plus today I’m liquids only all day, followed by a lovely laxative cocktail this evening. Today happens to be our company’s holiday luncheon. Great timing. . . Oh well, at least tomorrow after the procedure I get to go home and be lazy all afternoon.