Published on 12, July, 2020
I can feel myself building up to a meltdown but I am struggling to find a way to ask for help or resolve the situations I am facing.
Due to unforseen circumstances I am now having to live with my partner at his house, which was fine to start with and we practicality live together anyway just we spend time at each other's houses usually. However since living at my partners house I have supressed my OCDs and routines as I appreciate it is his house so I can't dictate how things are managed etc. but I was finding this difficult so hinted at a few things such as how the housework is managed and how we can prep food better (bulk cooking) so I can cope with things better. This fell on deaf ears so I started to take matters into my own hands and started to do the housework as I normally would at home, but due to us being out of sync with how we do things, this was both exhausting and pointless so I gave it up as a bad job.
It's now reached a point where I can no longer cope with it and my anxiety is starting to soar. I can't relax when I need to, I can't listen to the music I want, I can't binge watch programmes when I just need to let my brain drift off for a while. I feel like whatever I need to do, it is a burden for my partner. He hasn't said this outright but I just get the feeling I am in the way and to be honest I do feel like an intruder. We haven't fallen out or said any unkind words to each other but I can feel myself getting snappy and short tempered so this is usually a bad sign.
On top of this I am getting burnt out and I am struggling with my job. There has been a lot of change and workloads have increased but to make things worse I have been criticised for not being socialable and networking better with my colleagues. To top it off, it now seems like everyone wants regular meetings with me or take me out to meet customers, when all I want is to be left alone to just take a bloody breather.
It feels like everyone is encroaching on me and I don't know how to manage it without me tipping over the edge and going into self-destruct mode.
I need some time out from everyone but everyone seems to be coming at me at full volume. I also find asking for help difficult but that when I do ask for help, it is either ignored or I am told to manage things better. I feel like I can't win.
Starbuck said:There has been a lot of change and workloads have increased but to make things worse I have been criticised for not being socialable and networking better with my colleagues. To top it off, it now seems like everyone wants regular meetings with me or take me out to meet customers, when all I want is to be left alone to just take a bloody breather.
Hi Starbuck, at least with the issue above there is something concrete and practical available to you, in that employers have an obligation to make "reasonable adjustments" under the Equalities Act 2010. Criticising you for not being sociable is diametrically opposed to that ethos! It's like asking a short person to be taller! Have you given them any feedback to their criticism & demands?
I appreciate I have rights, but my workplace is useless at understanding them. They look at me and think there is nothing wrong with me. Just recently my boss has said he isn't happy with me working from home when I feel too overwhelmed as it is seen as having special treatment. My boss also challenges me when I have had a shutdown/meltdown and I say I need to work from home as he always turn it around so that it is my fault for not managing things better. To summarise he is a bully and won't change. I could take things further, but it would cost me my job in the long run and could damage my career. As much as I have rights, they won't really help me in this instance as the end result will mean I have to search for a new job and I have job hopped too much really for that to be an option at the moment.
Are you saying that your career is more important than your health and well being? That you are prepared to work under a boss who you say bullies you and who you say will never change?That you are prepared to work at a workplace that is useless at understanding human rights? With a boss who challenges and not supports you, when you have a meltdown? Because if you are, it must mean an awful lot to you, so the only thing to do is to change your attitude to it.
For example, cultivate an attitude of good feelings towards your boss. For example, everytime you see him or think of him, think of at least one genuine compliment and compliment him on it and refuse to see him through the perspective of him being a bully. If you stick with this, I guarantee that not only will your whole attitude towards him change and you enjoy work so much more, but he will also change.
I read an example of this recently, but can't remember where. If I remember where, I'll let you know because it's a great example. This woman had got to the stage where she couldn't bare to hear her boss breathe and she couldn't bare to look at his ties. She had come to hate everything about him. It might have been in a book by Byron Katie, 'Loving What Is' as that's the most recent book I've been listening to.
...and it's ok to care more about results rather than people and because you know that, you can gear your conversations with him around results rather than anything else. Different things are important to all of us and they change over time and at different times. It sounds like you have managed it very well, like I did, which I don't regret, but it got the better of me. However, that was my situation and it worked out well for me. Instead of pitying him, why not send him love and do more to support him and see him as an equal, but somebody who of course puts more importance on things that you don't, and that's perfectly ok. I bet if you spoke to him more in his language, the language of results , he would pay more attention to your language, the language of people. Sometimes we have to take the first step. He's not to be pitied because he likes results, humanity wouldn't evolve if we didn't have people who were driven by results. The world needs all kinds of minds and if you walked a mile in his steps, you too would value results more over people. We don't know why he does but it's not our place to judge him for it and if anything, lets celebrate results driven minds, along with all other kinds of minds.