I am an antique microscope

Well, I didn’t end up taking pictures of the sock, because yesterday turned out so awfully that I was barely able to make dinner and watch CSI. This is going to be a very long post, full of emotional malarkey, so I’m putting it under a cut.

I’m not sure if I’ve made it clear that MM works at the office sometimes. She’s a nurse with a master’s and years of experience, and can offer an intelligent medical perspective on our cases. There are major problems with this that no one wants to admit – she comes in on random days of the week, sometimes not at all, her work schedule is built in around the rest of her life rather than the other way around, and because she’s the boss’s wife none of us feel comfortable correcting her mistakes or asking her to do any tasks. I think that because nurse paralegals are so outrageously expensive to hire (or even rent), all these are problems we (the office we) grit our teeth and put up with just to have a sliver of her expertise from time to time. (I want to add that fitting in work around the rest of her life is not something I’m particularly criticizing her for – she’s doing this as a paid favor, after all, not because she has to – but it makes me pretty resentful that she’s allowed to treat work this way.) It’s not a little frustrating for me, for various petty reasons, but I’ve tried to let it go.

Yesterday was quite a difficult day from the start. I was given a mediation statement to edit, and as usual, MD kept sending it back to me over and over with more and more edits. I was frustrated by the fact that, yet again, he had given it to more than one person to edit at the same time. During my work as a proposal writer, this was the single biggest problem I faced. It’s a terrible, incredibly irritating mistake for bosses to do this, because it usually means errors, rework, and confusion. I had written EP an email apologizing to her for this happening again and telling her that I was sorry if I’d stepped on any edits she had made, and she’d written me back saying it was fine. Four months ago this would have been a serious problem between me and her, but we’ve finally figured out that MD assigning us both the same tasks does not mean I’m trying to undermine her.

I had finally finished the statement, printed out the final and sent it off, and another mediation statement to edit dropped in my inbox. Agh. So I started work on it, and MM came downstairs with her copy of the mediation statement, written all over. Double agh. She called EP from my phone to check something with her, and I asked to talk to EP while MM was still in my office. I said to EP, with a smile on my face, “He asked me to edit it too.” She said “okay”, in this sort of “whatever” kind of tone, and that was all. I hung up and said to MM that it was a pet peeve of mine that MD gives stuff out to more than one person to edit it at the same time, because it’s left over from my proposal-writing days etc.

MM said, “First of all, I’m editing it from a medical perspective, just changing abbreviations and things. Second of all -” and her face became furious, and her voice rose until everyone downstairs could hear her “- HOW DARE YOU, [my name], put down your boss to another member of his staff?”

I sat there with my mouth open, blood rushing to my face. I felt like I’d been slapped. “Where are the White records? That’s why I came down here,” she said. I gave her the binder and she stomped out of my office.

This is a woman who told me eight days ago that she loved me.

Now, I know that I am far too sensitive a person. I know that any number of people would think this was no big deal at all – because she misunderstood me and way overreacted, because I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t gripe about her boss to her coworkers, and because it wasn’t like she threatened my life – and for me to react the way I ended up reacting is just ridiculous. But as my mother once explained, I am “a sensitive instrument”, and when people yell at me I get very upset. Very very upset. I staggered through the rest of the day with a rapid heartbeat, doing what I was supposed to do, and as soon as I got home I sobbed into my pillow for a quarter of an hour.

There’s a lot more involved here than just her yelling at me. It’s the whole incestuous situation of me working here and dating BF, and the fact that I am completely trapped in my dependence upon his family for where I live and where I work, and the fact that I felt I had no one to talk to about this because I couldn’t talk to BF because for heaven’s sake it’s his mother, and I don’t have any other friends, and if I called my mom for her help I knew exactly what she would say (“well, you should have kept your mouth shut”), and the fact that because she’s the boss’s wife if she has told MD and OG about this and they take it seriously I could get fired. I just felt friendless and stuck and had no idea what to do.

So I made dinner, and I wrapped a couple of Christmas presents (what? I had them, and wanted something mindless to do with my hands), and when BF came home he knew something was wrong, but I still felt it would be wrong to talk to him, so I just told him that MM had yelled at me and I didn’t feel like I should tell him about it. He was very sweet to me all night, watching CSI with me instead of playing Spore, going to bed early with me, and finally, listening to me after the lights went out and I couldn’t think of anything else but what happened.

After explaining everything, after crying, after comforting, after BF said the same things I thought (misunderstanding, overreacted, yes she’s very scary when she’s angry), I started rambling about personal bravery, and how people with mental illness or emotional problems complete remarkable acts of bravery every day without others understanding that it’s bravery, and about how when I had my last car accident in 2005 I still had to get up and get back in the car and drive the very next day because FBF needed a ride somewhere, even though I was scared. I was required to, so I found the courage. Just like I’m required to go out and interact with the world every day when I’m terribly afraid to. Just like I was required to come into work this morning even though I wanted to hide in my house for the rest of the week. I’ve always been confused about my own mental/emotional state (depression? social anxiety? imagining things?), and whether I’m just narcissistic and want to believe that I’m “special” and therefore deserve special pats on the back when I do normal things. Thinking that the narcissism thing may be correct makes me depressed and sends me into having to hold myself up by force, which is then an act of bravery, which makes the circle go round again.

This is the hardest thing to talk about, for me, this terrible cycle of feeling bad, thinking there might be something wrong with me, thinking there’s nothing wrong with me and that I’m a terrible person for trying to make excuses for myself when real people are suffering from real mental illness, feeling bad, lather, rinse, repeat. I don’t know how to get out of it.

This morning I woke up firmly believing that I need to change jobs. I had it set in stone in my mind that I was going to stay for two years, because I’ve never stayed longer than a year anywhere and I’m getting to the point where it really shows on my resume, but I really, really hate this. I’m being suffocated by the swollen emotions in this situation, by my own fear and trapped-animal-ness, by the social terror I feel about interacting with anyone in this office where the walls have ears and what is heard comes to the dinner table.

I told this to BF – or rather, I told him I’d woken up with the idea that I had to change jobs - and he said he would support me no matter what (of course). I’m going to sleep on it again before I submit any resumes…but now I know why my intuition was telling me to go on and apply for a job I found on the judiciary website in early September.

This morning OG sent an email saying that DT would be handling the mail instead of me from now on because of private ADR mail that shouldn’t go to the whole office. (Aside from any political machinations this may or may not represent, it makes me sad, because I really like doing the mail.) I don’t know if this is related (it’s probably not, I’m probably imagining things), but it seems like it’s a few points of trust that I’ve lost. Which makes me think that MM told OG and MD what happened after all. I kept trying to tell myself yesterday that if she did, they would probably tell her so what, [me] was stressed and she blew off some steam, because MD is such a mild man that that seems like exactly what he’d say – and everyone but MM knows that there’s a sort of office affectionate joke about MD and his habits. “You know MD” (eye-roll) is a common phrase around here, and I would be surprised if he didn’t know about it somewhat.

Also this morning, MM came in, bid me good morning quite normally, asked me for some records, and did not apologize. I’m surprised about that, because the last time she lost her temper at the office (also directed at me, but because I hadn’t done anything wrong I was able to avoid feeling bad), she apologized the next day. Funny - MD didn’t apologize for the incident in February that also made me cry hysterically for a quarter of an hour. I guess that’s what happens when you get older: you stop thinking that anything you’ve done is ever wrong.

I hope I won’t have anything to add to this post throughout the day, although I do plan to ask OG if I’ve done anything wrong to warrant the mail thing. My guess, because of the way the email was written, is that MD is starting a few mediation cases in the next couple of weeks and OG just wants DT to see this stuff and not me for some very good reason of her own, but it’s faintly possible that I might have done something and/or this is connected. I distinctly remember not scanning in Attorney Grievance mail that we received in the last couple of months, after checking with MFA, so I don’t think I’ve specifically erred in this area. Oh well.

Wish me luck today. This delicate instrument is feeling pretty fragile.