Medicated depression, day #156
Woke up early, before 07, got up at 09.
The other day I woke up early too, but from a nightmare, I was getting fired from work, as they somehow had discovered and proof of me working on my own stuff during working hours. I was really upset and sad when I woke up and realized it was only a dream but the sadness and stress level remained during the day.
I purposely separate work and spare time, I don't mix them, either time-wise nor device-wise, I have a separate work phone, which is put on charger in the home office when I arrive home from work, it is set to "not disturb" mode between 19 and 06, with only a few select that can call through, emails are not checked between the hours unless I happen to glance at it while computering in the evening. I have a separate work computer which are never logged on to private accounts of any sort, strictly work stuff.
One of my fears that cause angst is just the fear of being fired, terminated, separated from my job. I have never been fired from a job, one job where I was on probational period wasn't continues as I burnt out during the period and was on sick-leave for 3 months. Another job fizzled out as the company no longer could pay my salary but they wanted me to stay on and work for benefits, had a new job within weeks.
I challenge myself everyday to keep thinker running, as I think of the brain as a muscle, it needs exercise and needs to be challenged or otherwise it will wither away. I do this with other things than what I do for work, but most of the thoughts and thinking are basically the same, solving problems on a large scale where messages are parsed, transformed and passed on to next step.
When thinking about stuff on large scales, this is where my thinker is broken, I can't really think in abstract ways any longer, or imagine complex systems, nor visualize internally how something would work.
I've been on sick leave for 53 days. I can't see that it have gotten better yet. I've talked to friend who have been through similar experiences earlier, they say it took them up to about 6 months or even a full year before they where back at capacity.
I don't wanna wait for that long, I want to work, but as I haven't seen much improvement yet I guess I have to just wait, let the thinker rest and recover. I was in a hurry last time I burnt out, sick-leave for three months and were scaling the walls at home, itch and eager to start working again, but weren't really done with the mental parts yet. I was clearly not ready but took a job anyways, that at first looked really good but it deteriorated into a really bad experience, toxic environment, a- and b-teams where the first were the "superstars" and the latter were the "leftovers", since I had zero desire to brown-nose management I was on the b-team together with the QA-team members, some of the cried on the subway to work each morning, as the environment was so toxic, during my almost 2 years with that company, about 23 people were fired or quit, out of a quite small development department.
Heard later that the department director got transferred to another position and the tech-lead were escorted out of the building, the whole QA-team except one quit.
I sent the CEO an email after I quit and told my story, about how toxic it was and how it affected the whole production and all interactions, he wrote back and thanked me for providing the information but thought it was sad that I had done it after I quit, that it would have been better if I had told him while still working with the company. One point in the email was just about him being remote and peripheral, not being available for discussions.
Tomorrow I'll get a reduced salary, as I've been away from work for a while, this is another aspect that is causing some stress onset, my economical position, I've been the main provider of the family for the last 10 years, with a portion of my salary not being there, reduced, it puts strain on our common economy, which in turn puts a stress onset on me for being sick.
Later: Looked at the analytics for this blog, yesterday somebody read 140 blog posts, possibly in a single go. Wow, somebody really got stuck and read most of the posts in this blog. I mostly write for my own sake, some combination of diary and therapy, where I process thoughts to words, to keep sane, to vent.
If this blog can help anyone or be of some entertainment, I'm happy for you and wish you best of luck.
Later: I'm almost falling asleep at my desk at the home office, so tired. Almost like I spent all my energy on writing this post, one cup of coffee this far but still tired, almost narcoleptic.
Later: Dozed off for a bit in bed and later had lunch with son and got some more energy, had another cup of coffee.
Later: Gonna go to bed earlier today, there is no reason why I would be awake after 23, there is nothing on and nobody to talk to.