Between this week’s cruel irony, yet more horrible back-to-back hour-long phone adventures trying to take care of problems caused by an incredibly shitty healthcare supply company, and a few knife twists at my day job in the same vein as the ones that started this worsening burnout, I have found a new depth of burnout. My back muscles are knotting up from the stress, it takes focused effort to not clench my jaw, my recently-normal indigestion is blossoming into full sourcelss nausea, and I’m so tired I could fall asleep in an instant. I am scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of what I can make myself do and I still have more stuff to do that I can’t get around. I need to go buy food for myself and my bird. I can’t put off taking the trash out for another day. I need to get in my usual overtime so I can remain financially solvent. I need to actually do stuff over the weekend so I don’t spend the whole thing wallowing in misery. I also really need to go for more walks, get more sun, and make sure I’m geared up for whatever horrible weather might or might not pass through my area this weekend (there’s lots of vague warnings about potential weather events but little that is certain [and basically none of that hit my area]). All while I’m so worn out and exhausted that there isn’t a single treat, little or big, that I can think of that would improve my mood. Everything feels like an equal hassle, which is usually a sign that I’m overwraught or dealing with a nasty depression spike, but knowing that doesn’t help me any. I have to figure out how to solve this problem because it’s not like anyone else is going to figure it out for me. I’ve got no one in my life who can do that work for me and I unfortunately saw my therapist the morning before this entire week went to hell, so I’ve got another week and a half before my next appointment.

I could always call to set up an extra appointment for next week, to get some help working through all this, but that would have me working from home some morning or evening and having two appointments this past week (my therapy appointment and then a visit with my Primary Care doctor to talk through what to try next on my antidepressant journey) has me stressed about what my coworkers are going to tell my boss when he gets back. It doesn’t help that I’m so clearly worn out and exhausted that one of my coworkers–one of the ones who complained to my boss about both not knowing what I’m working on rather than ask me what I was doing (despite having the office right next to mine) and about how often I worked from home briefly during a single month rather than ask me what might be going on in my life–commented about how tired I looked. I almost slapped the man when he followed that up by telling me I should take more time off, like him, given that he’s been dumping difficult problems in my lap before leaving on week-long vacations for the last two months straight and that I used to deal with burnout and exhaustion by taking a quiet day to work from home which I can no longer do because my boss won’t approve it thanks, in part, to his complaints. I kept my cool, though, and explained to him that I can’t afford to just take vacation without doing some financial planning around the simple fact that I will make less money, and that’s even if I don’t actually go anywhere or do anything with my vacation time. He didn’t really respond after that and just walked away to do some work, but it’s been a stone in my metaphorical shoe for the past few days now, thinking about that and his general insensitivity.

I could handle all of this so much better with an occasional work from home day. Or actually start to dig myself out with a regular one. It’s so exhausting being here, amidst all the noise, the uncomfortable warmth, the still air, the lack of sunlight, and all the people I can’t trust not to undermine me behind my back rather than express a concern to my face. This isn’t entirely on them, though. I’m sure my boss saw this as an opportunity to flex his middle management muscles and get me working within his line of sight so he can feel like he’s doing something because there are people working under his “supervision.” I mean, I’m so much less productive now that I have to spend time every day working in the lab and can’t actually do all my office work in my office where I could focus better or at home where I could get so much more done. That doesn’t matter to him, though. He just wants to see me “working” no matter what that means to the actual work I’m supposed to be getting done. It’s mind-boggingly frustrating to live in this verson of reality and to be so burned out, exhausted, and worn down that it’s all I can do to limp through a day.

Maybe once another week passes, things will be better. I was genuinely starting to feel better before this week, enough that I was actually mentally preparing for my next Dungeons and Dragons game! Now, with everything that has happened and that is slated for next week, I’m not sure I’ll be recovered enough to do anything until sometime this fall. Even knowing what’s coming next week doesn’t help soften the blow since it’s not like I’ve got the time or energy to do anything to prepare for it. All it is now is extra dread and a promise that next week probably isn’t going to be any better [it has not been, but it also hasn’t been worse, so I’ll take what I can get]. But once all that is done, once I’m on the other side of what promises to be a hellacious week, maybe things will calm down for a bit. That’s not exactly my experience with the month of August (I don’t know that I’ve ever had a good one), but who knows. Maybe enough bad stuff will have happened and I can go back to having nothing going on other than the slow collapse of the country of my birth. Because it’s not like that’s going to stop any time soon. Especially not with tariffs supposedly about to hit for real this time, or whatever other bullshit that’s going on this week that I’ve missed because I’ve had enough private, personal misery and problems that I did my best to avoid seeing anything going on outside my direct sphere of influence and action. I don’t know. It will probably be a long time before things change, so I guess all I can do is look forward to my next work holiday that I’ll be turning into a four-day weekend and hope that those four days of rest will be enough to put me on the path to recovery.