Incapable of dealing with work environments

[Guest guest]

On another thread zizazoo posted:

" Before I became a stay at home mom, I had so many issues with this - I had

trouble with every job situation I was in because I would become irate and

obsessed with various things - that someone incompetant was in an important

position, that someone had blamed me for their own poor organization skills, on

and on and on. I would bring this home and ramble on about it to my husband and

my dad. I could not let it rest. And yet, unlike you, I was totally and

completely incapable of addressing the issue with the person - even indirectly

or mildly. It was like I was paralyzed when around the person and obsessed away

from them. And it really impacted me - it motivated me to take less stressful,

and therefore less " prestigious " jobs. It caused me to quit positions just

because of my level of frustration. I think my issues may have even caused me to

take jobs with toxic people because somehow they were familiar to me. I'd like

to say that I discovered the secret of how to deal with this, but the fact is

that I did not. Instead, I stay at home with my daughter (and one on the way) -

which I love. But, the ghost of the problem remains because at some point my

kids will grow up, and I like to be busy and I like to learn. I will probably

want to work. And then, I wonder if those same issues will come surging forth

again - because at this point, I have this general apprehension and fear - that

maybe I'm not capable of dealing with any work environment because I can't

handle the " office politics " , incompetance, however you want to characterize

it. "

I am like this, too, only the issue is the work itself. I basically chose work

I would not like and would never be good at. Because it required an advanced

degree, I am now trapped in by the student loans. If I don't do this work, I

will be sued for non-payment of student loans, mortgage, etc. because there will

be no other way to earn enough money to pay (only the interest, mind you, on)

what I owe. It's just like living in the FOO...I suffer, and other people will

benefit, not me.

It was sort of like a hidden trap, really, because when you are in school,

EVERYBODY hates it. EVERYBODY says, " It will be different when you're out in

practice. It will be different when you're out in practice. " Only for me it

wasn't different, and my lack of ability to improve to the standard I need to

improve to became apparent. (After it was already too late, that is.) I was

all alone in the world until three years ago, and even now that I'm married my

husband is 21 years older than me and most decidedly not well off, so I do not

have the option of stopping work.

I wish things had gone such that I could have recognized my bad feelings about

what I was doing while there was still time to make a change. But I was too

worried about what the FOO would think. I was too worried about looking like a

" weenie. " I agreed with what they thought, and I just thought the future would

work itself out. It didn't.

I handled this for 15 years by thinking I could write. Someday, someday,

someday, someday, I'd write that bestselling book, and then I would be allowed

to correct my mistakes in life and live a life that *I* really wanted.

Only now I see that it doesn't happen. After ten years of getting a good close

up view of the book business, I can see that I what I was doing was counting on

a miracle, and after a HUGE disappointment in the past few years related to

writing, I can really see the wisdom of the poster in the other thread who said

not to set goals it would take a miracle to achieve. Basically, out of six

billion people on the planet, only four get to be Cornwell,

King, J. K. Rowling, or Meyer. People like to say it's them, all

them, and only them, but the fact is that it takes an extremely fortuitous

combination of circumstances to get them there, and if you're not at that level,

you're not going to make enough money writing to feed a mouse, if you can even

sell anything at all. I have seen by my husband's experience that how well you

write has very little to do with it.

And, of course, if you get stuck with two mentally ill handicapped relatives who

pretty much take all the time you had to write anyway, you're not going to

finish anything for years and years, and you can't sell anything you can't

finish.

Hope is what kept me going all these years, and now I can see that there isn't

any hope and there never was any. And I am having a harder and harder time

shining it on. I feel like, why do this? Why do anything? I slog through this

miserable day filled with things I don't like and don't want to do--that I chose

and am now trapped in for the rest of my life--and all I get is another

miserable day filled with things I don't like and don't want to do. It's not

like I can even say that in 20 more years I can retire and do what I want to do.

I will not be able to do that. I will still owe money in student loans and

hospital bills and will have nothing. And we all know that social security is a

joke, so I can't rely on that.

I'm really depressed about all this, and also stressed by all the family crap

that is going on. (Mentally ill relatives, grandmother dying, funeral with

nada, etc.) It's hard to concentrate at work and I'm getting slower and slower

getting things done. There's this one girl who is really obnoxious and is

picking on me about it in front of everyone all the time. It's really

inappropriate, because someone at her age and level of experience doesn't speak

that way to someone of my age and level of experience, but clearly people can

get away with it with me, because I don't seem to have the social/workplace

skills to know what to do.

It really makes me feel bad, because I know I used to be able to do better, and

slow people eventually get themselves fired. I just don't want to be there, I

don't want to do that work anymore, I know I'm stuck and trapped for the rest of

my life, and I know that that great shining beacon of hope I looked toward all

these years was just a mirage. And it isn't there anymore. I know what a

stupid little child I've been all these years, and there doesn't seem to be any

way to create a better life for myself. Any way at all.

So it's like, What am I working so hard for? It's all miserable, and none of

it's for me.

Anyway, I don't know if anyone else has had this experience. I certainly don't

know what to do about it. It seems like the only thing to do is just keep

slogging on and on, even though life has become a completely joyless experience.

It seems like with all I've been through, God could spare me a little help. My

chance to choose a work environment I could have liked and done well in is long

gone. I've prayed and prayed and prayed to God for another chance. Now that

I've learned the lesson, it seems I'm just going to pay the consequences for the

rest of my life and not get a chance to do things right the next time. There

won't be a next time.

Whatever.

--LL.