How bad IS it, Doc? (or, Why am I going crazy?)

The therapist didn't realize how bad my situation has gotten until yesterday, I guess. She'd seen me cry and try to explain what I was having to do to function last week. Until she saw me calm(er) and showing her the notes I take and put in my purse, stick to my mirror at home, on the computer monitor just to remember where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do, she didn't understand how deep this goes.

"Sue!" she said, "This isn't YOU." Well, Sister, it's me now. I don't like it a damn bit, either.

The word she used was "splintered". Sounds right to me. I'll look it up.

She asked about what the psychiatrist said, and what we're doing about meds, and when it's projected I can return to work. From what she and the pharmacist said, it may take as much as a month to see how well the new stuff will work--especially since I'm weaning off the old one and ramping up on the new one.

That would mean the rest of the month of July to get me to the point where I'm totally on the new regimen, and the month of August to see whether or not it might help me deal with the pressure of work added to what I have here.

On the GL front, I'm basically down to visiting. That's usually once a week, but if I can't take it, it can be stretched out a bit. I don't like to do that to her, but we can talk on the phone more often to compensate. Even the caseworker at the nursing home says I should let them take care of more. My part should just be going for visits and answering staff questions or giving permissions when necessary. I can deal with that.

OS is looking for work, albeit not in the manner I would hope. He helps around the house, and is generally easy to get along with, but he eats like a horse, and his presence makes it necessary to run the A/C all day long. He has great ideas and plans. It would be good if one of them could gel enough to provide him with some income, sooner rather than later, please.

That leaves work. From what I understand, so far nothing has changed and everything is still hanging, hanging, hanging. If the damn shoe's going to drop, let it go, for Pete's sake! At least then people will know what they have to deal with!

A co-worker I like a lot gave her two-week notice last week. She just can't take it anymore, and she and her family are in a financial position where they'll get by nicely for a few months while she decides what to do. I'll miss her a lot. She was one of my "sanity checkers", along with being smart and supportive and a pleasure to speak with on almost any topic.

She is also one smart cookie. If she's bailing, it makes me wish I had the same resources so I could do it, too. She, however, has a spouse who makes a good living, money in the bank, is more highly educated than I, and will fairly easily find another job in her field when she's ready. My professional education is spotty, as it has gone on as the skills/information were needed, rather than through a cohesive program. Having a bachelor's degree only gets you through the door these days.

I will have to try to stick with it, however the chips fall. I just wish they'd fall, already. In my current mental state, the atmosphere of total uncertainty causes an inability to focus or concentrate on anything. Try doing database queries with an anvil hanging over your head...then the anvil starts to swing...and you can hear the rope creaking...That's where I am. If the anvil's going to land on my desk, let me know so I can scuttle out from under it in time.

I'm good at surviving disasters, oddly enough. I do good cleanup. The disaster has to happen first, though. Right now, I'm watching a tornado in the distance that's headed my way. It may veer off one way or the other before it gets close, or it may keep heading for my street. It may jump to another street, or it may take out three houses on my block before it does. One of those houses might be mine, or mine might be left standing while my neighbors' are destroyed. Yeah. That doesn't make me nervous.

Two weeks before she died, my mother told me, "Honey, I'm not afraid of death--I've been there. It's the dying that I fear." She referred to clinical death she'd experienced two years before, and the prospect of chemo and surgery she would face if she decided to fight the Stage 4 lung cancer they'd found a few days before we spoke.

That's the way I feel about work right now. If they're going to shoot me, just get it over with. Don't keep shooting at my feet to make me dance, or over my head to see if I jump. Just do it, or leave me alone to do my work.

People tell me I take this stuff too personally. It's just Corporate America. Decisions aren't made about me. They're made for the business as a whole, and many people are affected by those decisions.

Well, it's happening to me. You can't get more personal than that, in my opinion.