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beansideI've written at least two hardcore whine-a-thon posts, which I'd then re-read, tell myself not to be a goddamn drama queen, and delete.
TLDR, for those who don't want to click the cut, I got fired, got depressed. Got a new job, am better, tapering off one of my three crazy meds, and it is kicking my ass.
Okay, all good? Yay.
In January, I got shit-canned from my call center job of six fucking years. Things had been rocky since May of last year, when they forced me to prove my disability. The doctor they chose for me to see was a total flake, and things did not go as well as they had hoped for. He flaked on the forms, was generally useless. As a result, this whole thing dragged into late June, and stressed the ever living fuck out of me. After that, things were rocky as hell.
I really feel like they wanted me gone, and proceeded to watch me like a hawk to make it happen. They started out by taking everything extra that I enjoyed doing away from me. Daily report? Oh, we don't have time for you to do that now. Medication prior authorizations? Nope. Even though not eight months ago we begged you to help us get caught up, and you originally helped to create the department? Nah. Tech support for our piece of shit patient portal? We're going to start taking that away too.
I have chronic pain and mental illness that make it hard for me to focus on one thing. Multi tasking or fidgeting is how I work. This was on the original paperwork that my doctor filled out. It means that I tend to flip between programs, fidget, write fic, whatever.
Into this, they added an instant messaging system for the office an started putting out all of our updates throughout the day through email (instead of coming through the program that we're actually in all day). It meant that regularly throughout the day, little messages would come up and flash at me. If I was on a call, I was supposed to ignore these. I was not allowed to turn these off. It was important, I was told, that I get timely updates. I did not do well with that, and checked shit all the damn time, without ever realizing I was doing it. (Sometimes, even when I did know that I was doing it, because what if this update was related to the call I was taking, or hey, that IM is from my next door neighbor, what if she'd had the patient earlier, and wanted me to know something?
I thought about quitting every day, but I was afraid. What if it turned out that I was really a shitty employee? What if my disability made me un-hirable? What if I can't handle the full schedule? I'm a fat, disabled dyke, not what people want. I don't have a college degree. I went to a trade school after I got my GED. I trained as a medical assistant, but thanks to tremors, I can't do that anymore. What if, what if...
The last six months were brutal, with multiple warnings, phrases like "you used to be such a rockstar."("what happened?" was left unsaid, but heavily implied) In retrospect, it was toxic as fuck, and it was obvious that I was on the way out. Still, when it happened, I was shattered. It took a couple of months before I eased up on kicking myself and got fucking pissed off.
The call center had only been in business for six months when I joined. I helped to build it. I wrote or collaborated on better than half of the training material they use. I created the employee incentive programs, and bought the material out of my own pockets to start. I had a wall of commendations from other offices, patients, and coworkers, and they dropped me for something that was covered in my disability paperwork? Fuck them.
After three anxious months of searching, with multiple interviews, I finally got a hit with Howard County Hospital. I'm now the new Perioperative Information Coordinator for The Center for Ambulatory Surgery. It seems like a good fit so far. The commute is longer, which does suck, but since the hospital is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital, I will have their benefits, which make up for it. Also, I work 7am -3:30pm, so usually traffic hasn't gotten bad yet.
Hopefully, this is the new beginning I've needed. I miss having a job where I feel useful.
Needless to say, I was nervous as hell about starting. My jerkbrain was whispering how I'm going to suck, and my body was going to betray me, and they were going to hate me, but I did my best not to listen. My best involved taking a Klonopin in the hopes of sleep the night before I started, which did not go well at all, for Jess at least. I don't remember a gooddamn thing. I sometimes forget stuff that I do and say right before I sleep, due to ambien. Usually, this involves an embarrassing anecdote the next day. "You refused to let me turn off the TV last night...you swore you were watching Law & Order even though you were asleep. You pouted 'No! I'm intrigued!' with your eyes closed the entire time."
Apparently, ambien with klonopin will cause me to sob, fall asleep for a couple of minutes, wake, sob disconsolately, sleep, wake, etc. I survived, but poor Jess had a handful. Poor thing was freaked out for days.
Now that I've been at the job a little more than a month (And had good insurance), I decided to start on a long delayed project: Tapering down Cymbalta, which no longer works for my depression.
Holy shit. I'd heard about Cymbalta Discontinuation Syndrome, but it is seriously shitty. I'm constantly swinging from exhausted to hypomanic and back again. Between that, and having almost no leeway between being fine and terminally frustrated, it's going to be a long couple months.
TLDR, for those who don't want to click the cut, I got fired, got depressed. Got a new job, am better, tapering off one of my three crazy meds, and it is kicking my ass.
Okay, all good? Yay.
In January, I got shit-canned from my call center job of six fucking years. Things had been rocky since May of last year, when they forced me to prove my disability. The doctor they chose for me to see was a total flake, and things did not go as well as they had hoped for. He flaked on the forms, was generally useless. As a result, this whole thing dragged into late June, and stressed the ever living fuck out of me. After that, things were rocky as hell.
I really feel like they wanted me gone, and proceeded to watch me like a hawk to make it happen. They started out by taking everything extra that I enjoyed doing away from me. Daily report? Oh, we don't have time for you to do that now. Medication prior authorizations? Nope. Even though not eight months ago we begged you to help us get caught up, and you originally helped to create the department? Nah. Tech support for our piece of shit patient portal? We're going to start taking that away too.
I have chronic pain and mental illness that make it hard for me to focus on one thing. Multi tasking or fidgeting is how I work. This was on the original paperwork that my doctor filled out. It means that I tend to flip between programs, fidget, write fic, whatever.
Into this, they added an instant messaging system for the office an started putting out all of our updates throughout the day through email (instead of coming through the program that we're actually in all day). It meant that regularly throughout the day, little messages would come up and flash at me. If I was on a call, I was supposed to ignore these. I was not allowed to turn these off. It was important, I was told, that I get timely updates. I did not do well with that, and checked shit all the damn time, without ever realizing I was doing it. (Sometimes, even when I did know that I was doing it, because what if this update was related to the call I was taking, or hey, that IM is from my next door neighbor, what if she'd had the patient earlier, and wanted me to know something?
I thought about quitting every day, but I was afraid. What if it turned out that I was really a shitty employee? What if my disability made me un-hirable? What if I can't handle the full schedule? I'm a fat, disabled dyke, not what people want. I don't have a college degree. I went to a trade school after I got my GED. I trained as a medical assistant, but thanks to tremors, I can't do that anymore. What if, what if...
The last six months were brutal, with multiple warnings, phrases like "you used to be such a rockstar."("what happened?" was left unsaid, but heavily implied) In retrospect, it was toxic as fuck, and it was obvious that I was on the way out. Still, when it happened, I was shattered. It took a couple of months before I eased up on kicking myself and got fucking pissed off.
The call center had only been in business for six months when I joined. I helped to build it. I wrote or collaborated on better than half of the training material they use. I created the employee incentive programs, and bought the material out of my own pockets to start. I had a wall of commendations from other offices, patients, and coworkers, and they dropped me for something that was covered in my disability paperwork? Fuck them.
After three anxious months of searching, with multiple interviews, I finally got a hit with Howard County Hospital. I'm now the new Perioperative Information Coordinator for The Center for Ambulatory Surgery. It seems like a good fit so far. The commute is longer, which does suck, but since the hospital is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital, I will have their benefits, which make up for it. Also, I work 7am -3:30pm, so usually traffic hasn't gotten bad yet.
Hopefully, this is the new beginning I've needed. I miss having a job where I feel useful.
Needless to say, I was nervous as hell about starting. My jerkbrain was whispering how I'm going to suck, and my body was going to betray me, and they were going to hate me, but I did my best not to listen. My best involved taking a Klonopin in the hopes of sleep the night before I started, which did not go well at all, for Jess at least. I don't remember a gooddamn thing. I sometimes forget stuff that I do and say right before I sleep, due to ambien. Usually, this involves an embarrassing anecdote the next day. "You refused to let me turn off the TV last night...you swore you were watching Law & Order even though you were asleep. You pouted 'No! I'm intrigued!' with your eyes closed the entire time."
Apparently, ambien with klonopin will cause me to sob, fall asleep for a couple of minutes, wake, sob disconsolately, sleep, wake, etc. I survived, but poor Jess had a handful. Poor thing was freaked out for days.
Now that I've been at the job a little more than a month (And had good insurance), I decided to start on a long delayed project: Tapering down Cymbalta, which no longer works for my depression.
Holy shit. I'd heard about Cymbalta Discontinuation Syndrome, but it is seriously shitty. I'm constantly swinging from exhausted to hypomanic and back again. Between that, and having almost no leeway between being fine and terminally frustrated, it's going to be a long couple months.
