So, the organizational announcements have been coming down for the past two days, and things are definitely shifting around. Things that were built up over the past 10 years are being torn down and replaced by something else, and nobody knows just where the fit in the new organization. But so far there’s no sign of layoffs. The black cloud is still hanging over people’s heads, and it’s pretty tough to get any work done, but I’m hanging in there. I’ve dressed my best over the past two days, and people have definitely noticed. But the good clothes are cramping my style, and I’m ready to let go of that. I’ve got my letter for my file written up and printed out, just in case. I’m pretty much ready for whatever comes, I think.
I met with my neuropsych yesterday to talk about what’s been going on, and sort things through… and in the process of discussing things, I realized how I had let this situation get to me and get up in my head. I try not to let it get the better of me, but I have to admit… it was. I got some good input from my NP, which helped me get some wider perspective. It’s amazing how helpful it can be just talking things through with someone who knows how our heads can play tricks on us and make us profoundly unhappy for no apparent reason, and who refuses to get sucked into the drama for no good reason.
Most people I know are on the opposite end of the spectrum – they think everything they feel and think is the God’s truth, and they go with it — even when the have plenty of experience with that belief taking them down a very dark and unhappy path. Most people I know don’t question their thinking/feeling, because it’s just about the only thing they feel sure of. The fact that it messes them up, time and time again, doesn’t change their behavior – they just keep believing in all the thinking/feeling that messes them up, thinking that it will save them. Fortunately, my NP knows better, and it was good to have an actual logical discussion about the situation, and realize that I might be making it worse for myself than need be.
Now, re-orgs are stressful, no doubt about it. It’s really hell at times. And the prospect of layoffs is daunting. The thing is, I got caught up in focusing on the wrong stuff — all the negative stuff that I automatically jump to, when things are getting tough. Now that I consider it, I realize that I was most freaked out about not having the additional time to prepare for re-entry to the job market, and that put me on the defensive — a real threat situation. I think it’s just an instinct with me — I must protect me-and-mine against threats — but in protecting myself from threats, it puts me in a frame of mind that is not receptive and is not open to new ideas. It locks me down in the worst way, and that’s a problem. Especially in times of change, when I need all my faculties about me more than ever.
So, I’m widening my perspective and I’m considering the possibility that the upset around me in my team isn’t because I’m going to get laid off, but because things are simply changing and everyone is stressed and uncertain and not sure what’s to come. I am way too sensitive to other people’s “stuff,” actually, and I need to do better at blocking it out. I especially need to not accept their invitation to get pulled into all their drama — misery loves company, for sure. It doesn’t help me to get caught up in their drama (it is usually their drama, not mine), and it doesn’t help to keep everyone around me calm and feeling stable.
So, I need to get a grip, remember who I am, work on my stability, and not let others get me tweaked because they’re all into their recreational upset. High-strung people are always going to seek me out, looking for some sort of comfort and reassurance, and it’s not helping them (or me) when I get pulled into their high-strung thinking and then get stressed and worried, myself. There is more to this job situation than meets the eye, and I’m just finding out a lot of it, so maybe I need to just trust that it’s all going to be fine.
Maybe I need to entertain other possibilities — like, I might get promoted or moved to another job. The thought had occurred to me – I’m either going to get laid off or promoted… but I chose to focus on the layoff piece of it. In a way, that would be as stressful for my coworkers as me getting laid off, because they wouldn’t have access to my skillset anymore. So, maybe that’s what this is about.
It could be… anything. I just don’t know. And that’s the most nerve-wracking thing. I just don’t know.
But I will find out.
Until then, I need to just keep calm and keep plugging away. What comes, will come. It’s up to me to decide how I will handle it when it does come down. Because when it comes to crisis, heck yeah, I know how to do that.
It’s just the waiting game that makes me nuts.
Yada-yada… Enough talk. Enough thinking. Time to get moving.
Onward.
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 
I’ve been working under a “21 day layoff notice” for over a year now, so I completely understand. It looks like it might actually happen iin the next couple of months, which actually be bit of a relief in a bizarre kind of way, I don’t think the brain injuries help with the ongoing stress and constantly changing environment at all, but I guess we just keep on forging ahead.
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Wow – a year’s worth of uncertainty. Probably would be a relief to just have it done… Good luck and thanks for writing.
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I’ve just been listening to Pema Chodron’s “Don’t Bite the Hook” and you’re so right on track. You’re taking care of self, getting insight from yourself and others, mindfulness practice, and have a ‘big picture’ view. Good for you!!! 🙂 To be able to do this when you’re being tested rocks!!! 🙂
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Thanks very much – I saw a quote today that said something like “Situations that cause you to be afraid are opportunities to be courageous.” I’m going with that today. 🙂
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That is an excellent quote, thank you for sharing! I’ve loved quotes all of my adult life, it really is amazing the wisdom, courage, and strength we can get from others who have walked through the fire.
It’s only by facing our fears that we grow into confidence and courage….lots of food for thought, thanks!!
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Without fear, there IS no courage, no bravery – only behavior, stimulus/response.
This is one of my favs “Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the belief that there is something more IMPORTANT than fear.” As we say in sho-biz, Courage Camille! (Nice reframes in the above article, btw)
Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CMC, SCAC, MCC
– ADD Coaching Field co-founder –
(blogs: ADDandSoMuchMore and ADDerWorld – dot com!)
“It takes a village to transform a world!”
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Thanks for your words – so true.
Courage Camille, indeed!
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Still waiting, huh? BUMMER! Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful nonetheless.
btw – *finally* added your blog and Edies’ to ADDandSoMuchMore right sidebar and created a TBI links category – scroll DOWN. (I don’t list a ton of “always available” links by policy, but yours has been a given for some time – follow-through time, not so much!)
Not exactly a job offer, but hoping it is validating in some small way you can hang on to when the tension gets thick.
xx,
mgh
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Thanks Madelyn –
My Thanksgiving has been going well. I’m visiting family and friends several states away, which has been great, but also exhausting. I’m headed home today – can’t wait. It’s been great seeing everyone, and we did have a great Thanksgiving, but I am reaching “saturation” with all the activity, and I’m looking forward to having some quiet — at my own pace.
Hope your Thanksgiving was a good one!
BB
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In the last year or more, I have spent so much time on “house arrest” tethered to a blog on a platform designed, I have NO doubt, solely to make me pay for the sins of several lifetimes every single day. (I’ve felt like Sisyphus, pushing rocks up hills to awaken to only to find I must make the time to do it all AGAIN.)
SO . . . I was personally thrilled with the hubbub of the T-giving festivities to which I was generously invited. I enjoyed it thoroughly and added to it considerably — long into the night!
But I can easily relate to stimulation over-“saturation.” Were you aware that the phenomenon is so pervasive in the ADD community that the Myers-Briggs litmus test for intro/extra-version doesn’t hold with our community?
Many of us who are blatant extraverts show up as the exact opposite through the lens of that test, simply because we can’t wrap our minds around the idea that we “get our energy” from “being in community” when we recall all too vividly that it wears us OUT!!
ADD-Extraverts need SO much more “alone time” to recover from the overstimulation factor than the norm for vanilla Es. (Perfectly healthy and easily explained with an understanding of the way the brain works — but, hey, what do I know compared to those “tests?” — I’ve ONLY been studying this stuff for 25 years practically non-stop. 😐 )
ADDers ALSO change type, almost as frequently as chameleons change color to reflect their surroundings, which absolutely flies in the face of MBTI underlying concepts. But that’s another issue altogether.
I had a fascinating conversation with a woman I met at an early ADDA conference, attending to gather stats via survey for her Doctoral project: an attempt to develop a MBTI version that WOULD accurately capture the ADDers misclassified under the current assessment.
Never heard anything more about it, so maybe she gave up in frustration?
The vanilla bias in that instrument (along with others) is yet another toleration for those of us whose brains, for one reason or another, must “work twice as hard for half as much.” Welcome to the club!
The concept doesn’t compute, apparently, for anyone who doesn’t experience cognitive exhaustion personally (and frequently). Even among those, like me, who adore being out and about and miss it terribly when I’m stuck at home for long, NEED to retreat to recharge.
Vanillas get it when they’re sick, etc. – but that sends them off in another direction that is probably more misleading.
hmmmmm . . . mayhaps I’ll blog on the topic ere long.
In ANY case, I’m happy to hear that you had a break from listening for the sound of one shoe dropping, in a happy situation with enough force of presence to keep you from having enough cognitive bandwidth to ruminate. I pray that mental exhaustion doesn’t lead you to return there.
Ruminate on THIS instead (gleeful gloating allowed): if they are dumb enough to let you go, they DESERVE whatever the bozo they hire to attempt to replace you does to the company!!
Recover, then get your butt outa’ there and over to a place where they will be gratefully amazed at what you bring to the table. (Remember, “the devil you know” is still the devil!)
Happy belated Turkey Day & welcome home.
xx,
mgh
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Thanks for all the food for thought, Madelyn. Good stuff! The sound of one shoe dropping… classic. I like it – it says so much.
Yeah, about that MBTI testing stuff – that’s great info you shared. Now I understand why my neuropsych (who also works a lot with ADHD folks to help them keep on track) is so dismissive/derisive of that “test”. It always seemed quite contrived and “dumbed down” to me — I consider it just a starting point for people to understand themselves a little bit better. But is hardly an ending point. And when businesses build their dynamics around it, I have to wonder. I think of the “types” more like modes that people operate in — you can be anything you want, any way you want, depending on the situation. And people who spend a lot of time “typing” other people (with Myers-Briggs especially) strike me as – sorry – a little dense. I shouldn’t be one to throw stones in my glass house, of course. And yet…
So, yeah, mental exhaustion. I could have stayed till today and driven home from my parents’ place, three states away, but I chose instead to come home yesterday and have today to unwind, relax, and get my act together. I had intended to do some work stuff over the holiday, but I got to see family members I only see once or twice a year (if that), so I put everything else aside and just focused on being there. I think it helped. Now I can get back to my regular routine — and sleep. I am really looking forward to sleeping later today, after I take care of some proverbial irons I’ve got in the fire. I’m also looking forward to getting back to eating the kinds of foods I like to eat. My family has a very different diet from me, and one of the things that has stressed me in the past has been the food stress — being too affected by the dairy and sugar and fats. This year, it was better somehow. I did over-eat on Thanksgiving, but for good reason.
Regular breathing helps. Stepping away is huge. And realizing when I was getting into the “red zone” with overwhelm and over-stimulation. With 22 people at Thanksgiving Dinner, and 17 of us being very active and energetic at my parents’ house around the clock, it was a lot to handle. But we came back with a day to spare, so I’m sure this will help.
Anyway, life goes on. The holiday season has officially kicked off, and I think it’s going to be a good one.
Cheers
BB
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You underscore so many important things we have to note and keep in mind (true for all of humanity, IMHO, but essential for us to remain aware of)
Overstimulation wears many faces:
==========================
* change in diet: timing, amount, eating patterns, types of food
* too little sleep – never a good thing, but in overstim situations we need MORE and usually get less
* too many conversational threads to track – whether all at once, or sequentially
* NOISE – simply because so many of us gather together on holidays and most of us see the rest of the group far too seldom, so everybody chatters. That gets loud, even if everyone is speaking normally (and when does that EVER happen when families and friends gather? 😀 )
The best part is your model of leaving “early” to give you some “come down” time. I’m always better off when I do that – although I must admit I truly hate to leave any party *early* :: huge grin::
Take it away, Santa Claus, you’re next!!
Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CMC, SCAC, MCC
– ADD Coaching Field co-founder –
(blogs: ADDandSoMuchMore and ADDerWorld – dot com!)
“It takes a village to transform a world!”
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Thanks – yes, I’m now “re-entering” my regular life, which is a huge relief. Right now, it’s quiet, I just got about 7 hours of sleep, and nobody is talking to me. I also just had my simple breakfast and now I’m having my simple cup of coffee.
I loved being with my family, but there’s a reason I live like this 🙂
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