Depressive episode

I never had that conversation with my boss last week.

I had spent the whole week preparing and going over exactly what I was going to say in my head again and again and again, but then he was just too busy. Or didn't care. Maybe it wasn't about actually having that conversation at all, but just about scaring me and making me feel ill (which he succeeded with). I had a lousy, miserable week. It didn't help much that my union assured me that my boss' demeanour was, at best, dubious and unprofessional and that I didn't need to worry about his threats. Neither did it help that I got support from the colleagues I talked to. (I even received an email from one colleague who said that she also felt that the attitude towards her had changed after she had her baby. She referred to it as "becoming unpopular".)

So, with the union and my colleagues behind me I went to work and waited. And waited. And waited. When it got late in the afternoon and nothing had happened I started to relize that there might not be a meeting. The last half hour was probably the longest of my life. As soon as I could leave, I did. I heard my boss walking down the hallway behind me as I left, but I remembered something I learned from watching one too many prison shows: never look back!

He had his chances. I sat at my desk all day, he could have called or come over and told me to wait. He even could have shouted after me there in the hallway. I really did not feel it was my job to remind him and/or turn up voluntarily in order to ensure that he would not need to go home in the evening without having humiliated me (again).

Getting out of there and knowing that I wouldn't be back for several weeks was as great a feeling as you'd imagine. But when I got home and had the time to sit down, it really hit me. All of the stress of the last weeks, both physically and psychologically, just came crashing down on me. I only wanted to lie in bed, pull the blanket over my head and and cry until someone else had fixed my life. I did not want to be asked anything, I did not want to hear anything, I just wanted things to be over and taken care of, one way or the other.

Things are a little better by now, but I already dread the day I have to return to work. Every time I think about going back I get overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness, panic and nausea. If the reality of it should come anywhere close to my worst fears, I will go home and call in sick. Because that is what I feel.