WyzWmn's World©

Some of you know that I have been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and now you all do…

Some of you know that I spent years of my life “acting out” as they say, and I’ve told many stories over the years about some of the “not so smart” things I did in my miss spent youth….but I lived them and while they are not things to regret they surely are things to learn from.

Still and all, there remain portions or parts of that story that I’ve not told anyone in here…that frankly no one here in BC knows …frankly there are parts that I may never remember…

All of this explains the why behind the fact that I am medicated to sleep at night…have been for years……without medication I have horrendous nightmares that often bring me out of sleep in full blown panic attacks…and have caused more than one hospital visit.

About a week ago I got this bright idea that I should stop taking my night medication because it makes me sleep too hard. Well…that’s one of the reasons….I have a fear that I am developing sleep apnea as a result of the depth of the dark hole I fall into when I sleep on medication. Another reason is the huge weight gain, my lack of interest in housework (you should not ever see my dump!), my lack of interest in sex, my lack of interest in a partner…..But mostly the idea was precipitated by a monologue from the boss lady about how I should be “in complete charge” of my body, my life, my soul, my emotions.

I’ve been feeling pretty good for a while so I quit taking that one particular pill.

I decided that a change in sleep patterns wasn’t worth it and on the 5th night I took a pill and slept like a rock for a full 8 hours. On the 6th night I went out for dinner with the VOD. We got home around 10 and I simply forgot to take the damn pill until then…and by then it’s too late…I knew I had to get up early today and if I didn’t I’d miss my ride club stuff.

So I went to bed and 10 and slept till about 2. I woke up sometime around 2 in a full blown panic attack.

I
could
not
breath.

The murderer that infests my dreams had been smothering me…and the sound of my first breath when I got away from him was the noise that woke me up. (ya know that sound ya hear in the movies when the hero’s been forced to be underwater too long? Ya…that’s the sound that woke me)

I dove out of bed completely sure that should I not “get away”, I was absolutely positively sure that I would die at the hands of the same murderer that has been threatening my sleep for 40 years.

In my panic I forgot the set up of my room (it’s only been set up that way for 10 years) and I ran into the wall beside my bedroom door with such a resounding thump that I knocked myself senseless.

I woke up on the floor about 20 minutes later….and that was it for sleep last night.

Needless to say….fuck the weight gain, to hell with the condition of my home and the boss lady can kiss my big fat furry tattoo…..I’m taking the pills from here on in…

And that, as they say, is that.

I’ve read posts on a couple of blogs in the last few days outlining several bloggers feelings of unrest over their current “employment circumstances”…And as favourable as my new job is to me in wage and low stress levels it still seems that I must join their ranks.

Working at a school of any kind means that you spend your off season (the period between the end of April running to late Aug – early September) planning for the following year. As a “start up unit” I have spent months listening to the wailing despair of my boss because she as an academic feels that she should not be held to the budget rigors as set by the local bean counters.

In my mind I hear myself saying: “yes, but it’s the bean counters that rule business…and at the end of the day…a school is a business” no?

And I have recently spent 2 weeks correlating information backed up with statistics from our own work to prepare for the “planning stages” of next year culminating in 2 weeks of pretty much sitting on my thumbs while waiting for the boss to “get herself together” enough to start planning next year. My co-worker and I have discussed add nauseum the need to focus on our core business and to make sure that our planning was based in knowledge needs not gut wants.

This morning, my boss sat at the desk of my co-worker and “whispered” with her for 4.5 hrs in setting the guidelines for the 2 of them for the planning of next year. I sat across the room on my thumbs once again. This would be her version of teamwork.

At noon I got up for lunch and when I came back the boss was gone. Without a word to me as to what I will or will not be doing for the next couple of months while she fly’s hither and yon making an ass of herself. And when I came back from lunch I had an email from her that was a major compliment for our unit…she forwarded it to me and her notation was one sentance: “it’s all about me!” – I keep thinking that she has got to be jokin…but she ain’t.

The whole thing brings a multitude of thoughts forward for me.

• How incredibly rude!
• What? Are we in grade school?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• Just how much time can I spend surfing the web without feeling guilty?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• How could I have bought into her sales pitch? How could I (jaded old me) have taken her suggestions that this would be a place to foster “real teamwork” and “exciting futures” and believed them as the truth?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• How could I have possibly come to work for someone with less “people managing skills” than the doorknob?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• How could she not think that her little tete a tete with my co-worker today could not have been construed and exclusive as opposed to inclusive?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• How could she, as a manager, and having read my resume and seen my work, not want my input?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• …are not my skills and abilities what she hired me for?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• In good conscience can I continue to sit here with nothing to do and not bring it to her attention over and over again (I’ve asked the co- worked twice a day for weeks if there is anything I can do to assist her)
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?
• Is it wrong to expect to find some sort of satisfaction and feeling of contribution and/accomplishment from my job?
• Can I get much more bored and not snap my Twinkie?

I’m concerned about the fact that I left a job that I’d been at (with some success I might add) for 3 years to come here.

I’m concerned cos it seems to me that when the bean counters ask her to do something that is my forte she puts it off till the very last minute and then brings on the full kaleidoscope of histrionics over how much she hates doing it when I could have done it in a day or a week or an hour – and she’s ever the martyr and stays all night burning the midnight oil cos she’s so hard done by….

I’m concerned that I’ve sacrificed my sanity/patience for a retirement package and the ability to further my education cheaply.

Mostly I’m concerned that someday one o them bean counters is gonna find out how much they are paying me to be a glorified receptionist or the queen of photocopying and I’m gonna end up worse off than I was before.

I’ve tried repeatedly to broach these subjects with her and her answer to me is that we’re “a team” only we aren’t – that’s pretty obvious.

When I call her on it she tells me I’m “snippy” – I can’t help but think that the time will come that I lose my temper with her…and then she’s gonna be very frightened….LoL

The VOD thinks that she’s scared of me…I think she isn’t – but at this rate she ought to be soon.