My final bellyache
Jun. 8th, 2009 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4I feel like I'm retreating further and further into some kind of shell.
The weekend was horrible, not least because I spent most of it doubled up with stomach pain. Had about 3 hours' sleep last night, agonised about whether to go into work this morning (illness is unlikely to be anything infectious and I'll be in just as much pain if I stay home and do nothing, possibly worse because I won't have things to take my mind off it), eventually decided that if I dragged myself in for the (mildly important) meeting at 9am I could always go home afterwards.
The first thing my office-mate said when I got in was "Good weekend?" ("Not really, but at least it's over now.") I know you're not supposed to tell the truth in response to that sort of question, it's nothing to do with information-gathering, but I'm generally too shattered to think of convincing lies. I suppose I ought to get into the habit of giving a non-committal "Yeah, not bad" no matter what.
Meeting was productive, but the boss thinks that the reason I'm ill is "stress" and thinks I "may be in the wrong sort of job". Yes, I am stressed; being in discomfort and pain a lot of the time tends to make most people less-than-relaxed, I would have thought. But now I'm worrying about getting fired for being ill as well. (Yes, I know they can't fire you for being ill, but in straitened circumstances they're less likely to make an effort to keep the flaky sickly people, & the effect is the same.) The boss probably sees more of my emotional angst than a lot of people, but that's only because I've trusted him enough to talk to him; we seem to get on well most of the time, I've come to see him as a friend as well as a colleague (though I'm wary of using the word because it suggests some kind of reciprocality & it seems presumptuous to assume that). Now I feel like I shouldn't have given that trust so readily, and I worry that it'll just end up being used against me.
When I get up in the morning, I don't want to go to work. (I always do, though, because I know what happens if that starts seeming like an option instead of a necessity.) When it gets to the end of the day, I don't want to go home. (See above.) I am so deeply and bone-wearily tired that the effort of context-switching is just too much. If you gave me a reasonably comfortable place to sit and a simple task that would take 10 years to complete, I would probably just sit there and complete it.
It's getting harder and harder to talk to anybody about anything (online or offline). I feel like I'm watching the conversations from the other side of a pane of glass. There are a handful of conversations which I can have on autopilot, mostly set-piece rants or hilarious catchphrase-trading.
I feel as though I still have something to say but no way to say it.
I'll take a quiet life. Retreating into my shell.
The weekend was horrible, not least because I spent most of it doubled up with stomach pain. Had about 3 hours' sleep last night, agonised about whether to go into work this morning (illness is unlikely to be anything infectious and I'll be in just as much pain if I stay home and do nothing, possibly worse because I won't have things to take my mind off it), eventually decided that if I dragged myself in for the (mildly important) meeting at 9am I could always go home afterwards.
The first thing my office-mate said when I got in was "Good weekend?" ("Not really, but at least it's over now.") I know you're not supposed to tell the truth in response to that sort of question, it's nothing to do with information-gathering, but I'm generally too shattered to think of convincing lies. I suppose I ought to get into the habit of giving a non-committal "Yeah, not bad" no matter what.
Meeting was productive, but the boss thinks that the reason I'm ill is "stress" and thinks I "may be in the wrong sort of job". Yes, I am stressed; being in discomfort and pain a lot of the time tends to make most people less-than-relaxed, I would have thought. But now I'm worrying about getting fired for being ill as well. (Yes, I know they can't fire you for being ill, but in straitened circumstances they're less likely to make an effort to keep the flaky sickly people, & the effect is the same.) The boss probably sees more of my emotional angst than a lot of people, but that's only because I've trusted him enough to talk to him; we seem to get on well most of the time, I've come to see him as a friend as well as a colleague (though I'm wary of using the word because it suggests some kind of reciprocality & it seems presumptuous to assume that). Now I feel like I shouldn't have given that trust so readily, and I worry that it'll just end up being used against me.
When I get up in the morning, I don't want to go to work. (I always do, though, because I know what happens if that starts seeming like an option instead of a necessity.) When it gets to the end of the day, I don't want to go home. (See above.) I am so deeply and bone-wearily tired that the effort of context-switching is just too much. If you gave me a reasonably comfortable place to sit and a simple task that would take 10 years to complete, I would probably just sit there and complete it.
It's getting harder and harder to talk to anybody about anything (online or offline). I feel like I'm watching the conversations from the other side of a pane of glass. There are a handful of conversations which I can have on autopilot, mostly set-piece rants or hilarious catchphrase-trading.
I feel as though I still have something to say but no way to say it.
I'll take a quiet life. Retreating into my shell.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 03:48 pm (UTC)I do not believe that is the case. You certainly don't have to go into detail about things, but there is no social norm that demands a positive response regardless of its veracity, except perhaps in the minds of fools.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 05:32 pm (UTC)Sorry to hear you're feeling so set apart. I hope you regain some spark soon. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 09:38 pm (UTC)Regarding greetings, I would assume the other person doesn't actually care about me in detail, but I can avoid burdening them with what my life is actually like, I'd throw in some non-information-response like "great, went to a play" or "don't ask! you wouldn't believe how many ways a bike can go wrong in two days". Obviously, if you just want to say "go away", "fine thanks" is the correct response, and the best way of shutting down people who ask how you are when you're awful. But otherwise, I don't think etiquette demands a zero content reply.