through the fog of post-trauma

Well, folks, my new job is going splendidly. It's a strange and wonderful thing having bosses who care about me not only as an employee (they are encouraging and -- again the gasp -- they train me in nearly every task) but as a person. I can't quite get used to it yet.

That's not to say that things here are totally relaxed. Most days spin into a whirlwind flurry of legal forms and paperwork that have to be in the mail by a certain time or someone is totally effed. I'm usually running around with a hand clamped to the top of my head, trying to remember what it was I was doing.

Overall it's enjoyable, even the stress, because I feel that I've earned the right to lounge about my apartment in languid indolence in the evenings.

The downside of everything is that the whole summer is starting to catch up with me. I sat at lunch yesterday adding up the various stressors that I've undergone since January, and most especially since June, and it's left me wondering vaguely how I'm still sane. Here's a brief timeline:

***

JANUARY:
Leave much-beloved though exhausting job with adorable though frustrating toddlers. Worry that friendship with Meg might disintegrate as a result of switching to Development side of services. Plunge headfirst into entirely new job with which have had no experience whatsoever.

MARCH:
Fumble through huge, Great-Wall-of-China-sized charity event of which pretend to be in charge but internally panic over since must figure most of it out on own. Pull off in 2 months event that realistically takes 8 to 12. Make it best one participants have ever attended...but fundraising goal is not met. (Which is not responsibility of self.) Begin hanging out more with new coworkers. Think self belongs, but suffer heart attacks of anxiety because spend much less time with real friend Meg.

APRIL/MAY:
Begin to feel overwhelming sense of disapproval from higher realms of administration. Feel strongly that self does not belong. No one talks to me. No one tells me what I'm doing wrong. Begin to make more rookie mistakes as result of nervousness and paranoia.

JUNE:
Put together and pull off amazing Golf Tournament charity event by self. Lose job in humiliating, Gestapo-style way, on same day as incompetent fool who has never done anything right in his entire year of employment but was given far many more chances than self. Lose people had thought of as friends. Force self to return to old job for one week where have nervous hyperventilating panic attacks in hallways, office, and bathrooms. Take three-week leave of absence. Realize personally for first time that being good person not always a shield against bad happenings. Fear being forced to leave self-made home, lovely apartment, and few real friends self has left. No family closeby. No connections to help self to new job. No idea what to do next. Hate all job prospects but cannot enter grad school without applying.

JULY:
Spend three weeks lying around in fog of depression. All friends except Meg and Phillip busy, out of town, no longer friends, or inconsiderate. No energy to call college friends and tell story over and over again. Rack up huge cell phone bill talking to Mom, other friends and prospective employers who don't have Verizon plan. Prostitute self in harrowing, demeaning interview process with jobs know will hate.

Run into people from old job. Pathetically wish still were friends while wanting to shred their tires resulting in stilted matter-of-fact fakey conversations where self assures people from old job that am fine and staying in South Bend and sure things are for best and hope to see them around.

Let apartment go to shit. Plants die. Hate self, hate life, hate old job, hate bad friends, hate future, hate apartment. Spend nights dreaming horrific old-job old-friend unemployment monster dreams. Disappear from old job like exorcised ghost.

Find new apartment for MP. Finish Buffy and Angel in two-night mega-marathon with Leigh Ann. Keep terrible nightwatchman-undead-style hours.

Get new job. Get wonderful new employers. Begin to learn complicated, exacting duties of legal secretary. Is challenging and refreshing but still monumental and new. Have had no time to absorb and recover from past month of terror of joblessness and moving home a failure. Sudden divine-Providence-style success inexplicably almost depressing. Press on.

AUGUST:
Close friend totally absent. Have not had hug in three weeks. Beloved, only-ever-present-friend-cat consumes vast quantity of elastic webbing which nearly kills him. Spend entire weekend crying and begging God not to let only life companion die.

Life companion lives. Self now very poor. Realize have not been to church all summer and have built self's house on sand of previous employment and feeling of solidarity with former colleagues and homeless people. Realize self has been stupid.

Grad student friends begin to swarm back. Excited but overwhelmed: Have spent entire summer curled up on self trying to nurse self alone through trauma, betrayal, terror, stress, rage, sorrow, hurt, loss, shame, disillusionment and despair; and now people will be around constantly. Is sort of psychological culture shock. Feel as if have been hit repeatedly in head with Whiffle ball bat by maniacal five-year-old and now must talk to grown-ups who have no idea what has been going on. Must gird self's loins to sketch out facts of summer story to curious questioners while still internally bleeding from after-effects but not seem overwhemingly desperate for sympathy and support. Fear becoming social pariah as have forgotten how to make jokes or laugh. Wit dead. No funny stories from work. Feel uninteresting, two-dimensional, cardboard-style person.

Begin to crack in moments of stress at new job. Face lots of walls in effort to contain tears. Panic at each error with instant throwback to terrible Job-Losing Conversation. Replay friend Melissa's advice over and over in head: "You've been through a traumatic experience. You're going to have moments at your new job where you get paranoid and think that it's just like your old job. You're going to think people are plotting against you, that you suck, and that you're going to lose your job again. That's post-traumatic stress. It's going to happen. Just take it a day at a time and breathe."

Have constant headache.

***

And believe me, friends, this isn't the whole thing. And while I've made light of my summer, it really, really sucked, and I think it's finally washing over me since I don't need to hold everything back and be as brave anymore; I have a job, I have an assured paycheck, and therefore I have time to process everything that I went through.

Not pleasant. My current plan is to sleep a lot and try to balance social interaction with alone time, so that I'm not unloading everything on everyone I know, but at the same time not spending massive amounts of time alone and obsessing. And to charge back into churchgoing. I've gotta have something that stays constant and unchanging no matter what might happen with jobs or friendships.

But the new job really is going fantastically well. Last week my boss told me that it's been decades since he's been able to trust this level of work and document preparation to a secretary.