Type A Personality Crisis

I’ve had this low-level anxiety permeating my life for the past few months, and I thought it was all a normal part of moving and starting a new job. Then I had an epiphany this morning that helped explain this sense of unease that has been following me about since December or so.

Here it is: I suck at my job.

And that’s mostly OK. I’m still pretty new at it.

Several people I’ve worked with in the past had even told me this would happen. I’d check back in with someone after they had been gone a while from the little circle of hell we’d shared, and they would say “Well, I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing some days.” I’d think of course, a whole new job.

But it didn’t really register that I would just flat-out not know what I was doing for any length of time. I had been at my old job for so long that the work was never really the challenge; it was the slow political death by a thousand papercuts from above. When the work did become a challenge, it was because I was doing extra work from various people who had fled the scene. So all I had to say over a missed deadline was “We’re down 4 people” or whatever.

Now I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, to be honest.

I’m learning, but there’s a lot to learn, and for every time I feel like I have something figured out, I make a mistake. I know all of this is normal but mistakes aren’t good for my OCD. I didn’t do myself any favors staying in my old job for so long. I was clinging to that lovely level of stability that comes from avoiding leaving a situation until moss grows over you and you’re so used to the dysfunction that any other environment seems completely alien.

Now I feel like I’m bumblefucking around in space as an untrained astronaut. Missing the fact that I only have three hours of air left to focus on trying to eat m&ms in zero gravity, or something. I SUCK AT THIS.

I am glad I realized this, because it’s going to take time and a lot of effort to be good at what I do again. I need to chill out and give myself a break.

I’ve had a lot going on lately, too: everyone’s been sick, and the landlord let a dog family move in next door after all (he’s playing amateur allergist; he told us THIS dog would be hypoallergenic because it’s…old and slow?) so we are probably going to have to move this summer.

I’ll figure it out. I may even need to switch up my medication or find a therapist in my new city.

Sometimes it just takes me a little too long to catch a clue when I’ve let my anxiety levels creep up to “affecting life quality” levels.