[  Mood: Confused ]

Sent: 5/27/2007 10:19 AM
i know my performasnce at work has sucked, to put it mildly. so my job dialogue i felt was honest, on my part, hence the lower scores. when questioned about it at that time, i just shrugged and said i know ive slipped up in recent weeks and i know what i need to be working on.

last night i talked to the tl before she left. i wasnt comfortable leaving things the way they were, and even though i didnt really want to follow through with my thoughts, i felt my job may depend on it. so i started out by telling her "i hestitate to bring this up, and i dont know whether itll hurt or help". i also told her "i know ive been really out of it". i explained that my anxiety level was high, which i think she knew about to some extent, i told her the panic attacks were really bad lately (i later mentioned that it was all i could do to sit through that job interview without asking to leave the room, and that i almost called in that day). i told her about every five years they are like this, and one reason i quit a previous job was because i couldnt get time off for the "holiday season". i told her if they had known me they wouldnt have questioned that one, because i prefer busy (she knows that, i think), and that the summer time holidays were big in that department. she immediately replied when i mentioned not being able to get time off there if thats what i needed now. i told her i couldnt afford to take much but might ask for a few days here and there. i flat out told her (which i may later regret) that the depression has been bad the past year, and has been "increasingly" worse. i told her i wasnt sleeping, i wasnt eating much (that prompted the response of "thats not good") her response to all this was very sympathetic, and all she could say was "wow". i told her even my mom didnt know half of what i was telling her, because i tend to stay downstairs. i told her i wake up every day trying to see if i can justify calling in, and ive only been able to do hat once, when i knew i wouldnt have been able to handle it. i told her it was the last time i called in, and i just told them i had a headache. she said my attendance was at the point where i was fine, and if i needed a day off, take it. i told her "yeah, but if i actually called in every day i felt tha way, i would have been out of a job months ago" . we agreed sometimes work is a diversion, and keeping busy helps, but there were days i wondered at the end of the day how id made it through. she said "yeah, how do you do it" and i said " i dont know, but if i ever figure it out, ill let you know". she laughed at that one.

i told her that i know i need to get the feedback fornm supervisors, and i need to approach people better, but right now i told her i aslo know my perspective is really messed up, and it was hard for me to do that. she asked if it was ok she mention thjis or some of this to the other supervisors, and i said if she thought it might help. i think what she may do is just tell them that i know i need feedback but its hard for me to ask for that right now, and that its nothing personal. i told her that was a huge concern, that others would take it personal. she told me shes really putting her foot down with the supervisors, telling them if they need to give someone feedback, they need to do it right away, not come to her complaining two weeks later. (that surprised me, but im glad shes doing that. some of the supervisors are a bit wimpy, ive noticed. i told them early in the year that if i seemed to be slipping, to pull me aside and tell me right away and all agreed at that time. a couple have done that, which is cool.)

surprisingly, she told me some personal stuff about herslef, that happened back in february , (that helped me see why she seems so out of it sometimes). said she had a bad spell of about three weeks where she was barely functioning. she told me most people dont know the reason why, because she never said anything. we talked about other stuff, i mentioned my "fun" trip to the er, where i was so hyper they thought i was on something. she said it didnt sound fun(one of those things where you had to be there?), but i said it had its moments, and i had one of my brothers cracking up. told her that was the closest i ever came to manic (just didnt tell her the reason i was so hyped up). shed known about the bipolar since late last year/early this year. my mom had mentioned it at one time, and i brought it up a few weeks later one night while waiting for my mom to ge off work. told her last place i worked id mentioned it, and id ended up losing that job. i think she understood why i was so hesitant. she told me if i needed time off, if i needed a day off or to go home early, to let her know. she said if she wasnt there when i was having a bad day, to call her on her cell phone (shed given me the number a few months ago), and shed talk to the other supervisors. i kinda laughed told her every day lately had been a bad day, and hat i was afraid id lose it at work, but i thanked her. i was very shaky afterward, so went downstairs and asked the supervisor on the floor for my last break, and tried to calm down. rest of the shift, i "had" t be out on a car run, which was totally fine by me. i did feel better getting that out (and it did help relieve my urge to cut a bit, which id been doing off and on at work the past few days because of he anxiety and other goings on from work and home). but i woke up this morning again wondering if id said too much. really, what manager likes to hear their employee may be "losing it"??