The Hangover

First off, let me just say that I've never been this hungover in my life. And I didn't even drink very much. Getting older sucks.

I took Monday off, and I'm glad I did. It was a good day to stay home. Joey and I had a good heart to heart on Skype.

That day, after much anxiety over the issue, I finally called a psychiatrist. I was actually afraid to make the call, but Joey gave me a little kick-in-the-ass encouragement and I actually started to feel better about getting some help.

But then I couldn't get a hold of the guy. We've been playing phone tag all week long. He called Tuesday when I was at work. My cell phone gets such a crappy signal at the office that it didn't even ring. I noticed later that I had voicemail. So I called back and left my office number. Same thing happened on Wednesday, except the doctor said in his voicemail message that my office number had been cut off by their answering machine, so they didn't get the whole thing. I called back and left it again. Then I didn't hear back. I called again on Friday, and the secretary told me the doctor isn't in on Fridays. So I guess I just have to try again next week.

Missing work on Monday was both good and bad. It was a nice and needed break, but my coworkers made some bone-headed decisions that I had to deal with on Tuesday. For a "lead" programmer, my coworker makes a lot of mistakes in his code. I spent much of Tuesday fixing his bugs. Wednesday morning he worked on the code by himself before I got there, creating more bugs. He and I spent most of Wednesday cleaning up the mess. We managed to finish that project, but did not finish another, so our budget went down to 2.5. It was frustrating for everyone.

On Thursday, I gave our weekly demo to a packed house. All of the regular meeting rooms were booked, so we had to hold the demo in our work area, and attendance was easily the highest it's ever been. People were standing way in the back, and even sitting on the floor up close. We've never crammed so many people into our little area before.

The demo was awesome. I gave a great presentation, if I do say so myself, and people were excited about our most recent software updates. There were many ooh's and ah's as we talked about what we'd done during the past week.

Immediately after the demo was a stand-up meeting with the leadership team in which we got completely reamed. It was a huge frustrating downer, and very anti-climactic after our great demo. After that, we had difficulty staying on task during our retrospective and iteration planning because everyone was so distracted by the comments from leadership.

Thursday afternoon and much of Friday was filled with more irritation at my coworker, who thinks I'm "right on the cusp" of being at his level, even though he continues to make rookie mistakes by not paying attention to detail or following the simplest of processes.

At some point during the week, I don't remember which day, my other coworker, the one I've always thought was an unqualified idiot, talked to me about how he'd spoken to our consultant on my behalf regarding how we handle promotions and raises. He thinks I'm easily at the same level as the lead developer, and he thinks it's unfair that I continue to be paid at a lower level despite my skills and experience.

I was surprised by this, I never expect anyone else in my department to stick up for me. But it wasn't totally out of generosity, he's mostly concerned for the team and for his own welfare. He wants a promotion and raise of his own, and he feels that addressing how we handle it as a group will benefit us both. And, he doesn't want me to quit because he knows it would screw the team. He's right about that.

But I've already started looking for other jobs. It might take me a while to find something, but I'm going to keep looking until I do.

By Friday, I was completely brain-drained. I had made plans to be social Friday night, but I was losing enthusiasm for that as the day wore on. But one of my friends convinced me to go out, tired or not. So I did.

It was a night out with some coworkers from upstairs, including my boss, which was odd but fun. I like people so much better outside of the office. We planned to have dinner/drinks then see a movie, but there was a mix-up with the movie times that caused us to see the movie first (at the beer theater) and then drink.

I had a beer before the movie, on an empty stomach, pizza and pie during the movie, then margaritas afterwards. I also took a shot of Petron right before we left, which didn't hit me until after I got home. I never drank any water.

We watched The Hangover, which was absolutely hilarious, although I'm not sure it would be as funny if I wasn't drunk and hanging out with my buddies.

When I woke up this morning, I had the worst headache of my life. (Ironic, right? The Hangover gave me a hangover.) I got up and drank some water, but it made things worse. After about 20 minutes, I got sick and threw up. Nothing but water and stomach acid, burning my throat. If I can't keep water down, then I can't take any pain killers for the headache. So all I could do was go back to bed.

Finally around 4:00pm, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to get up, I was able to bring myself upright, drink some tea and eat a little bread. I feel much, much better now, but my whole day was wasted with recovery time. I didn't even drink that much last night. I guess it was just that I started on a empty stomach, and I didn't drink water. And I'm getting old. I can't drink and recover easily like I used to. It's sad.

Tomorrow I'm being social again. I have plans to meet the girlfriends (with one boyfriend in tow) for brunch, and one friend is trying to talk me into seeing a matinee afterwards. I'll probably give in because I'm a sucker for movies. :)

I haven't been this social in months. I've spent nearly every weekend being a total hermit, which I enjoy because the work week is so draining, but it is nice to get out sometimes. I just miss Joey. I wished he could have been with me last night. He would have enjoyed the movie, and it might have been fun to have him hang out with my coworkers.

He's out on a mission right now. I think he's supposed to be back tomorrow. I haven't heard from him since Thursday morning. I hope he's safe.

Anyway... now that my stomach feels better, I'm actually hungry for the first time all day. Time to scrounge up something to eat.

The Customary Over-Analyzation

After my near-meltdown at work on Friday, I'm having some serious anxiety about going back on Monday. The thought of it makes me panic, in the racing heart, shortness of breath sort of way.

I feel like something inside me snapped on Friday. My last shred of patience and tolerance is gone.

My gut reaction tells me to text my boss and tell him I'm not coming back ever again.

My brain, of course, tells me I have bills to pay and I shouldn't burn bridges. Someday I'll need a reference from these people.

I keep asking myself, would this be different if Joey was home? Like, what if I was only dealing with one very stressful situation instead of two? Yeah, work would still suck, but Joey would be here to hug me every day, to talk and listen, to share meals and help around the house. He always makes me feel so calm and relaxed and cared for. I really miss that right now.

Or what if Joey was still gone, but work didn't suck? What if work was awesome? Would it be easier for me to handle Joey's absence if I wasn't mentally drained every single day by my job?

It probably seems counter-productive to ask all these "what if" questions, but really I'm just trying to break this situation down into smaller pieces so I can understand it better.

I guess the question I'm really asking myself is, is it the difficult circumstances that are making me crack? Or is it just me and my general inability to cope with stress in a healthy way?

And because I'm a nerd for astrology, I also have to ask, is it a coincidence that my last bout of anxiety attacks happened around the same time last year? Or is there something about the transition from Virgo to Libra that's especially difficult for me, that I should learn how to handle so this doesn't happen every year. If I think back, October has always been a mentally and emotionally tumultuous month for me, even without the recent extremes of anxiety or depression.

Something that always gets under my skin is when "helpful" people try to tell me how I need to change the way I deal with things.

"You need to lighten up. Don't take everything so seriously."

"Why can't you just get your own work done and not worry about what everyone else is doing?"

"You need to stop letting it get you down."

"You need to get out more. Just do something fun to relieve stress, and you'll feel better."


I get so tired of being told by others how I should change. I already know that psychologically, I'm in the minority. So I don't expect others to understand how I work. Heck, sometimes I don't even understand how I work. Although for the most part, I know myself pretty well, and I know what I need in terms of mental and emotional support to get through a tough time. What I never seem to figure out, at least not in a timely manner, is what actions I need to take to fix a broken situation. I'm so slow to process complicated life decisions, it takes me forever to make a move.

I think perhaps this is why I've spent so much time trying to learn about myself -- it's why I know that I'm a highly introverted, highly sensitive, highly intelligent, lazy perfectionist (no, it's not an oxymoron) with a learning disorder and ADD who habitually over-analyzes everything. I've gone to great lengths to understand these aspects of my personality and behavior. If I'd known these things 10 or 15 years ago, I never would have been a music major in college. But hindsight is always 20/20, and knowing what makes me tick still doesn't help me move forward.

What I know is that I can't do anything about Joey being gone, and neither can he. And I can't do anything about what's happening at work. What I do have control over is myself and my own actions.

Do I control my own mental and emotional state? Everyone else likes to tell me I do, but I'm not so sure. They call it a "gut reaction" for a reason. It's a reflex. It happens instantly and instinctively, before your brain has had time to process it. So what am I supposed to do when my gut overwhelms my senses?

And let's not forget what I've already worked for years to overcome. When I try to control my emotions instead of feeling them naturally as they come, I end up shutting them off completely, building walls, and becoming an emotional zombie who doesn't feel anything at all.

I still remember the psychiatrist who tried for weeks to illicit an emotional response from me. I was hard as stone. Eventually I said, "look, I recognize your textbook psychiatric techniques, and I understand what you're trying to do. But I'm telling you: I don't feel anything." In fact, I was rather offended that he thought he could chip away at me without even attempting to work with me on my own terms. Needless to say, I got bored with him very fast and decided to handle the issue myself.

And I did. It took a few years, but eventually I worked it out. After all that time and effort spent trying to feel again, I'm not about to turn off the fountain now.

So that leaves me and my overly sensitive, perfectionist self hanging out in the open, trying to function in a highly stressful environment where I can't control anything that's happening. Except myself and my own reactions. Or so everyone keeps trying to tell me. Personally, I would rather feel whatever I need to feel, and take as much time as it takes to let it happen. That's how I work. Unfortunately, it's a method that's not very compatible with the rest of the world with its schedules and deadlines.

But... my company's new PTO policy offers a single measure of pleasant flexibility: one "mental health" day per year. It's an unplanned PTO freebie, no questions asked. And I think tomorrow's the day to use it.

In my best Cartman voice:
Screw you guys. I'm going home.




I've been married for 5 months today. And my husband will have been gone for 5 months on Tuesday.