I have been depressed for about 7 years at this point. At various points through that journey I have been suicidal. The furthest I’ve gotten was actually barely beginning the process, and I was a wreck in tears by the end of it. The only way this will end is that eventually I’ll plan my exit and make it, which is where my thoughts are tonight.
The messed up is that things aren’t worse. I have people that care about me, a decent support system, and I am receiving some treatment. Obviously not effective treatment, since feeling suicidal is what they want me NOT to do.
See I have this problem with normal people and talking about how bleak I feel. They give me all sorts of attention, try to make me feel better and all that crap. Which is not at all my intent in informing them. I’m trying to express how I am feeling. I do want it fixed but if I knew how I wouldn’t be feeling this way. I’m quite resourceful which is why I am sure that when I am ready to exit I will do just that.
All that is keeping me out of the hospital tonight is expense and stigma…. I don’t want the grief my family would give me for seeking help. I don’t want the guilt of knowing how much it costs. I don’t care about pain, I’m always in that. I have ceased to feel joy or find comfort in any of the things I used to, and that is causing me to spiral down lower than usual. Eventually it will probably land me in the hospital but I’m not going to be the fucking one to put me there.
6 comments
Hey Viking, sorry to hear about your troubles. Was there a particular trigger that put you back in this place?
It’s a lot to do with my issues with success or my lack of it. I got a full time job and tried to jump back into normal functioning. That crashed and burned. It wasn’t even the stress or illness that got me, it was just the ruthlessness of the people there. They expected so much out of me in terms of deception and physical effort. I suck at deception, and I have an issue of being overly ethical. I can push it with the best of them in terms of physical effort so long as I’m not hit with emotional attacks when I’m tired. They couldn’t comply with that. They couldn’t give me any heads up about what to expect, and what little they gave was not hope. I called my dad threatening to either kill myself or check into the hospital. He said he’d rather me quit than those options. I talked to my partner about it and she said quit. So I just dropped all communication. I didn’t have the energy to chew them out for leading me on. Then over the past week I’ve come to realize the failure my career has become. I have a great talent for gaining skills and experience that have no applicable market. Every company I talk to either deals in work that would push me deeper, or wants things I can’t give them.
The frustrating thing is that I like work, particularly working hard and pushing myself to my limits. So long as those aren’t my ethical limits. The last conversation I had with my ex boss ended with “If you want to be paid for off the clock work get under Bud(general manager)’s desk and *convince* him”. This is the same manager who performed the sexual harassment training telling me to go take care of his boss sexually to get the company to behave ethically. Which just triggered issues with how every job I have had has ended.
I’ve been trying to pick myself back up and feel better, but that hasn’t been happening. Last night I decided to just stop trying. I live here now, depression is just a part of my life I have to accept.
Damn. Some work places are quite toxic, sounds line this one more than many I’ve heard of, and unethical to boot. I’m Sorry. I’m glad you decided to leave. The sexual harassment is unacceptable.
How long did you work there?
5 days, about 50 hours, 4 days of that were in the field. Of course it took 2 weeks of lead up to even get the job, it’s the utter futility of the work I put in that gets me. I spent 3 weeks of good energy on a job that treated me like that. I haven’t gotten an offer from a better company in a year of unemployment. My family is sick of my shit, and frankly so am I.
In the original post you said things aren’t worse, u mean they’re basically the same as before you got this job?
That’s a shitty situation but it sounds like it was right to leave. You mentioned deception, are you comfortable telling more about this? I actually thought it was a typo till I saw it a couple times.
Well I’m saying things aren’t worse because I tend to view my condition on a year over year basis. Compared to where I was six months ago I’m technically better. Compared to right before this job I’m worse because I used to have hope in employment, now I realize dissatisfaction is just going to be the norm for awhile. Which leads to talking about deception in depth.
This whole crisis started about a year ago. I was doing utility work for a subcontractor and had been for over a year. I had gotten comfortable and thought that that line of work could continue to satisfy me in the mid to long term. Talking to older utility men I felt like I had quite a bit in common with the community. It was a horrible company, but a horrible I could deal with. Then my company lost the contract that I was employed under. I took it for what it was and found my peace with the concept of getting unemployment and finding a job elsewhere in the industry. At the time I was under the impression my skills and experience had value.
Then the other shoe dropped. Instead of laying my project off they decided to either make us assimilate to a separate project or be forced to quit. I tried to assimilate. Which is where deception comes in. The company I worked for had always had a major safety focus, and I found peace there because I could do things by the book and survive. The new boss was not wanting by the book. He wanted us to cheat and then lie to him. I was blunt with him that I would do things correctly and speed would come with time. That was not okay with him. He tried to bribe me with time at home with my family in exchange for a nod and a wink covering shoddy work. The particular work I was doing was life and death. If it was done wrong people would die, and the company I worked for protected themselves by casting blame on the people at the bottom. This is why they lost the contract.
It all came to a head 60 hours into an 80 hour week. Like I said before I’ve never been allergic to hard work and this was a temporary challenge to get through. I was commuting 2 hours each way to a nearby city, then doing what I had to to keep going. After all of that my boss sent out a passive aggressive text to the whole group talking about my sub par performance. At that level of tired I lost it. I cut all ties with the company, and the stress from this loss and not properly preparing for the failure ended up with me in the hospital for my safety.
I tried to bounce back, as I usually do. I tried a different kind of utility work and being a direct contractor. I tried that twice and both companies found creative ways not to pay their employees. I think I was collectively at both of them for two weeks. I absolutely hated it. I hated the deception of being hired on to do a job and get paid and finding out it was a scam.
Which is why it was such a huge trigger being lied to about a job. I go in and give my best every time. I have a lot of pride in working hard and taking my lumps. I can’t live with the abuse it seems like I have to endure to be employed in my industry, or in any job I’ve been able to find. Everyone wants someone to work 50-65 hours a week and that’s great for a week or two or maybe a month. It doesn’t work long term. I don’t like work to the exclusion of my outside life.
My family wants me to get back to work. They keep suggesting I do lower level work, and I just don’t have whatever the missing part is that makes people able to work a minimum wage job day after day. I don’t hate myself enough or in the right way. Every time I apply to a lower wage job I stall out because even applying makes me want to hurt myself. This is something my family cannot understand. They don’t want me in the hospital, they don’t want me on disability. They want normal. I can’t do that, therefor I am set on failure before I start because the measurements are fixed on things I can’t do.