And now the conclusion of Truthful Tuesday….
NOTE: Shit’s about to get emo. I’ll make lame attempts at humor despite my situation needing a serious game face, because that’s how I am. I’m defensive like that. I need to crack a joke at my own expense so I can at least smile at something. I apologize in advance for the break down but really, I have no clue any more.
My head is a whirlwind right now.
In brief I have no clue what’s going on with my marriage. For a while now I know I’ve been underperforming in certain aspects of my job. Today there was no avoiding the inevitable and I was put on a performance improvement plan (PIP) for my performance. I have 60 days to step up my game or I’m getting promoted to customer. Career wise I was a rising star. I was promoted rather quickly to management and then Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. I stepped down due to the stress of managing both work & home with a baby and a wife who needed me. The stress of that was having an effect on my performance.
Since then both work and home life have gone down hill. An avalanche rather. And now I have no clue what to do. I’m mad at myself mostly for letting things get this bad. My leadership skills as a supervisor to get my team to perform at levels they need to perform at are ineffective.
I KNOW I can do this. I’ve done it before. I’ve fixed problems. But something is seriously wrong in my head. I’ve ignored the fact that whatever the fuck I have going on emotionally & mentally are affecting my work. Today was a nail in the coffin that said, “austin, stop ignoring what you know you have to do.”
I’ve really got no one to blame but myself. For everything.
My wife.
My relationship with my son.
My work.
It’s all me. No one did this me. I put all my problems on myself and now the shit’s finally culminated into one big ball of “Austin, you’re a failure” and I just don’t know what to do any more. I’m usually calm and collective, but I guess I’m your typical “balls up all emotion until something snaps and then a flood of shit spews forth” kind of dude.
I’m actually confident that I can come off of this successfully, because I know all the answers. There’s just some block fucking me up and I don’t know what it is. It seems I’d rather watch shit burn with a working fire hose in my hand.
Last year I made a call to a service offered by work for mental and emotional health support. I talked to someone and they suggested a few places to call. I never made a call after that. Again, someone gave me a solution and I ignored it. I thought “I can’t be that bad off. I mean, I don’t feel depressed. I don’t feel like anything is wrong with me.”
Now there is really no ignoring anything really. The one person I want to tell, my wife, I’m scared to tell. She’ll just yell and get mad. I want to believe she cares about me as much as I care about her, but the way she talks to me tells me she’s checked out emotionally. So there’s no seeking comfort and support there. And I really shouldn’t expect it from her. I wasn’t there when she was getting chemo. I was working. Or I thought it more important for her family to be with her so I let them go with her. She probably thought I didn’t want to see her sick. And now I’m alone. I have to tell her. She deserves to know, so I’m just bracing mysel for that shit storm. Tomorrow I plan on making another call, because I cant ignore the obvious any more. Something needs to change with me. And quick. I just wish I knew what. I wish I knew what to do. I’m 32 years old and never felt so lost. Ive lost control and now I’m scared.
