Have You Gone Mental (98)

The story of my demise.
My story began over a year and 1/2 ago when I began to have anxiety "attacks" while working. It resulted in cancelled meetings, cancelled appointments, cancelled or rescheduled speaking engagements and a lot of shame. As I tried to negotiate those long months, it seems looking back, I did so in vain.

I went to a nurse prationer who prescribed an anti-anxiety medication I could use when these were coming on or in circumstanes in which I anticipted anxiety. This worked marginally for a few months until my anxiety was joined by a deeper depression. Although the mixture of anxiety and depression all but immobilized me I was trying hard to cover up at work. My job was so important to me. I was mostly successful at this at first. I was aware my work was beginning to suffer but I was trying not to let it show. Most things I did for my job were done in the face of my anxiety and were increasingly difficult. I was extremely anxious about the meetings I had with my staff and my boss. As time went on the anti-anxiety meds were not working so I began to use some of the interventions I had prescribed for others, but with little result for me.

It was this time in which my illness continued to increase with me going deeper and deeper as the months wore on. In December 2009 it came to a head and I tried with all that was within me to go on as if nothing was happening. I was fooling others but not myself. By mid January 2010 I was under the worse emotionsl illness I had ever experienced (or more to the point) thought I could experience. I ended up taking 2 months off work to go to therapy and a psychiatrist to have my medication adjusted. My nurse practitioner told me I needed a psychiatrist as my case had become increasingly complicated during that two month period of time.

When I returned to work on March 23rd I was invited into a meeting. In this meeting I was officially "RIFFED". RIF is the term for a "reduction in force". My termoil for the past year or so crashed down on me. I had lost my job. My evaluation, given me at this meeting, was supposedly not flattering. I don't remember much about it as I knew the human resources person must have been on the premises. I suspected this because the evaluation was given in front of my boss AND the other director. This was my clue that things were not going to go well for me. As painful as this was I look at this more now with acceptance. The employer had been good to me my entire 15 years. Upon my RIF, my employer offered a package to take care of me for a short time. I look back with a degree of thanksgiving for these events although I didn't feel that way at the time. In fact, I was thrust into a downward spiral...

TO BE CONTINUED

Typos and all God Bless You!