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Catch up: Chapter 2: July - Dec 2022

It was July 5th. I had just come back to the house I supervised. One of my residents (B) had just come back from a home visit. I was talking to my staff and she was saying I looked like a strong breeze would knock me over. She assured me she could handle the house and urged me to go home and get some rest. Typically, I would check in with all my residents, especially if they had just come back from a home visit, but this time I listened to my staff and went home. I had been home for about an hour (I lived about an hour away from the house I supervised) when I got the call. B had been found unresponsive in his room, paramedics were there working on him. I called our on call and informed them, made the call to B’s mother and went back to the house. Before I could arrive, my executive director called me to inform me that B did not make it. I arrived to the house to the wails of B’s mother in the kitchen and a house full of people. I stayed the night as my staff was traumatized from finding B and was up till 3 am consoling my other residents, talking to leadership and coming up with a plan for the coming days.

I ended up staying the rest of the week as my staff stated she could not return to the house. I couldn’t even allow myself to grieve as I wanted to be a touchstone of normality to my residents and my one remaining staff. I know all too well the dangers of suppressing my stuff, but wanted to make sure everyone else could move on and felt if I could just get through a few months it would be worth it for everyone involved.

What followed was the longest and one of the most intense depressive episodes in my experience. I was just going through the motions. I was struggling with derealization, which is already unsettling, but this lasted for MONTHS. My voice kept talking me, if I had just checked in with him I may have been able to do something, that he would have lived if I’d been less selfish and just checked on him before I left. That had I found him, my CPR skills would have been better and I could have saved him. I had urges to bash my head into the wall repeatedly just so I could feel something, to swerve of the road into a tree to prove everything was actually real, because NOTHING felt real to me. I wasn’t closed off about it either. I told my boss, other supervisors, the director, “I’m not ok! But I’m trying” I was still covering my house at least half the week, running the day program, and helping at the other house.

I was getting sick of it, especially since the other supervisors in my department were not helping at my house or the program, or the other house. They were even asking for help at their houses from me. It all came to a head when my boss got a complaint from a parent that their son’s room was dirty. Now, we had just done a deep cleaning of the whole house as we were looking for a new resident to move into B’s room and had potential residents visiting with family. My boss met me outside and started laying into me about that room, when I said, I don’t think it was as bad as it was portrayed. She got pissed and marched into the house to inspect the room herself, only to find a clean room. “I guess you were actually able to get your staff to clean it since yesterday” she huffed. “Yeah, you saw the goals I wrote for him and know that yesterday was his cleaning day” I replied. She didn’t like that and started going off on everything she didn’t think I was doing and then said “I’m only upset because I give a shit and I don’t think anyone in this house gives a shit!”

Over a room that wasn’t perfect for a day.

After everything I’ve done and everything I put myself through.

After MONTHS of me saying that I wasn’t ok, that I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep going the way I was.

She didn’t think I gave a shit.

I told her I needed to leave and someone would have to cover my house for a change. I wrote a strongly worded response in an email, let it all out and then contacted HR. I took some time and wrote out a proposal for a new position. Someone to help with retention of staff, something we needed because we just couldn’t keep anyone company wide.

I was turned down. But they did offer me a new position. To run the day program attached to our retirement center. They were in desperate need for supervisors out there as 3 turned in their notice at the same time. Red flag for sure, but they assured me that they were restructuring things out there to make it run better. They told me I only had to focus on the day program and I would have an 8-4 schedule unless it was my week for on call. Plus they would give me a $5,000 bonus for going out there and helping with the restructuring. I accepted.

(Continued later)

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Catch up: Chapter 1: 2022

I had returned to my old job in 2022. My old boss had heard through the grapevine that I was leaving my job with the Autism Society and reached out to me with an offer for a position. She assured me the house she wanted me for was easy going and getting staffing to cover was not an issue as the house was easy going and most people volunteered for it. In short, I wouldn’t be as overworked as I previously was which was led to me leaving in the first place.

I accepted and in very short time was back into my old cycle. I was working even more than I previously had. This house had a sleeping position for 3rd shift which proved VERY difficult to cover and I soon found myself staying at work for at least half the week including weekends. Even when I did have the staff, they would move my staff to another house to cover shifts, which meant I had to cover my house. I got to a point where now I was spending WEEKS at a time there. On top of that my boss wanted to start a new day program for our department and with my experience running a program for the Autism Society, she wanted me to build it and run it in addition to me running my house.

At the same time, one of our most intensive houses and hardest to staff, lost its Supervisor. Since my house was “easy” I was also tapped to help supervise and cover that house as well. My days went like this. 5:30AM, get up and start getting my residents up, 7am, my relief came in and I went to other house to help them with their morning. 9am, start the day program (unless one of my residents had an appointment) 3pm finish the day program and go back to the other house until 6pm when I could go back to the house I supervise, make dinner and work on my resident’s goals. 9pm do all the paperwork for both houses and the program until I could clock out at 11pm at which time I ALLOWED to sleep, although I never slept well at work. There were residents up and down all night which would wake me up because I needed to be sure everything was ok. My only reprieve was Thursday’s during the day when my son had therapy and MAYBE one weekend day. I was averaging 90 hours a week.

(Continued later)

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Updates:

So, for starters, I want to apologize. I was MIA for a really long time and then popped on with a few posts for my GoFundMe after I had a heart attack, but didn’t hang around to let people know how things were going with it. A few of you were so kind with words and contributed and/ or reblogged the post and I didn’t even keep anyone updated. I can’t say how much I appreciated it, words will never be enough. I plan to play some catch up over the next couple days, I don’t want to write the longest post ever, and will incrementally tell all that’s happened since I disappeared a couple years ago. For those that are still here, thank you for still following me.

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Thank you sir! We truly appreciate the donation and the share!

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Jaws music, but on a xylophone

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I’m a one time NSFW, one time fitblr, one time shitblr, one time mental healthblr , one time natureblr, then an abandoned blogblr, and now I sign in every couple months to rant and scroll for 10 mins before leaving for months again. But I’ve followed you this whole time. So…

At this point, most of my followers are either

Fitness blogs that put up with my other nonsense

Other blogs that put up with my occasional fitness nonsense

Which are you?

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NOTHING about what I’m doing is “easy”

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It’s 75 degrees outside here today 😑

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Anonymously tell me how you feel about me. I can't reply, I just have to read it and post it.

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Ve ben her gece, yıldızlara seni sevdiğimi söyleyeceğim.

Ama sana asla...

Victor Hugo...

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