Joy and sorrow, an anecdote

16th April 2008

Joy and sorrow, an anecdote

My university’s wellness center is celebrating this week as Body Acceptance Week. While perusing the center’s website, I happened across its Dimensions of Wellness. I’ve always insisted mental health ought be considered in our perception of health and wellness, but the center includes other aspects that I and too many others may not - but should - factor into our perceptions of health.

The wellness center defines health sixfold: physical, social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and occupational. Of these, it’s the last one, occupational, I want to discuss here.

I worked for six years as a designer in the human resources department of a mid-size company. I didn’t make much money, but I absolutely loved my job. I was the company golden girl, the one managers and top level execs came to when they needed a creative solution. To understand the connection I had with my job, you must also know that throughout this time I was very depressed about my weight. To cope, I threw myself into my job – my life was my work.

It was while working there my eating disorder developed. When it became serious, a friend convinced me to seek out professional help. I began to see a local, but nationally renowned therapist, who insisted on twice-weekly daytime appointments. The HR manager, who knew about my eating disorder, highly disapproved of my time off, even though I used benefit time.

Reading through the journal I kept throughout this time reveals the hostile work environment my medical absences created. I was constantly nervous and afraid for my job, hesitant any action or minor mistake might get me fired. I had panic attacks. My weight continued to plummet as my eating disorder grew worse. I was financially independent, lived alone and had no savings – what would I do?

The manager finally found a flimsy excuse with which she fired me. The excuse was so feeble the company didn’t bother fighting my application for unemployment benefits. I should also note the company was later investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor for violations of FMLA, which forced them to grant medical leaves and end their discriminatory practices. I remember hyperventilating in my car after the firing. I drove home and contemplated suicide. My life, as I knew it, had come to an abrupt and complete end.

It was the best thing that could ever happen to me.

I don’t like change. I fear instability, the chaos and havoc, the not-knowing, the frightening inability to control foreseeable events. At the company, I was comfortable. I had seniority and respect, which compensated for the low salary. If I had not been forced to leave, I might plausibly still be working at the company today. Sure, there was a period of hardship after the firing. I had to borrow money from my brother. My credit rating took a hit. The job search took months and months, but I finally landed a job making about $10k more a year doing third-shift helpdesk.

The helpdesk job marked no happy ending, either. It was, quite frankly, horrible and as a result, I experienced a resurgence of bulimia and gained about 50 pounds in a year. To escape helpdesk hell, I took the first daytime, design-related job in marketing offered to me and it, too, was unbearable. I was the only non-Republican in a company dominated primarily by men who made many racist, sexist and homophobic slurs. My boss was a micro-managing, technology-unsavvy jerk, who claimed my ideas as his own and summarily rejected those he didn’t understand.

But if I had never taken the helpdesk job, I would never have met my best gal pal Lisa and her family. And if I hadn’t taken the marketing job, I would never have met my husband. And if I hadn’t met my husband, I wouldn’t have landed my current and dream job as a journalist.

To know – and appreciate – happiness, you have to know sorrow. I’m reminded of the sage words of my favorite writer, Khalil Gibran, who articulates it much better than I ever could:

Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.” And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Do you have similar experiences to share? Has your work history affected your own health? How do you struggle through difficult situations?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Eating Disorders, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On April 16th, 2008, Geekgirlsrule

said:

Right now my job situation is exceptionally… “challenging” let us say, and I am having my first lapse back into serious eating disordered behavior in ten years. I spent a couple of days eating once every 20 or so hours, and I hadn’t even realized it.

Then my husband noticed and pointed it out. Right now I’m having to make myself eat at regular intervals, intuitive eating is right out right now, because when my world is this stressful, my default has become not eating, denying all hunger and surviving on coffee with splenda and one small meal a day.

He calls to remind me to eat, and that he loves me no matter what. It helps.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

2 On April 16th, 2008, LJ

Oh yes. Absolutely. I have a stress eating issue, and for about nine months I was in a horrible position — work affected my home life, my house got wreck-y, and my eating went right to hell. I would go two weeks without eating much of anything and then binge for two weeks, off and on. My health was bad, I stopped exercising (I was ‘too tired from work’ — mentally, not physically) the whole nine yards. Right down to and including bad skin that broke out daily. A mess.

I quit the job — didn’t even give two-weeks notice — and have never, ever regretted it. Six months later, I’m healthier, happier, saner, exercising every other day, eating better and feeling better. I’m still working on the stress-triggered disordered eating, but I expect that’ll be a lifetime issue. At least now I have the breathing space to do it.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

3 On April 16th, 2008, Ducky

OMG, Rachel, you have no idea how much I needed this today.

After quitting my job at a toxic corporate office to go back to school full time, I’m now done with school (for now) and hunting for a job. The years I took off from work were some of the most challenging and frightening years of my life. They were also the most joyful. Taking those lessons and coupling them with job hunting has been difficult to say the least yet I’m confident I’ll find just what I’m looking for. Thank you for the reminder.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

4 On April 16th, 2008, msruth

I partially blame the beginning of my injurious relationship with food on the sexual harassment in my first job when I was fifteen and the stress it caused me. At the same time my hair started falling out and it wasn’t nutritionally related loss, my skin condition flared up, my nails started to come away from the nailbed and I became prone to abscesses. I completely believe these can all be attributed to the fear and worry. The job was well paying and extremely flexible and knowing I needed to fund uni I didn’t feel able to quit for a long time. When I did all these things (apart from the food thing) gradually cleared up. I have always thought that work is important to health, when I talk to patients I always try to ask them how work is going, not just from the ‘how is your condition affecting your work’ perspective but asking how is work affecting your condition as well.

On the other hand, the fact that men I worked with thought it was okay to tell me they were going to rape me, thatvthe company seemed to think it was okay, and the girls my age who I worked with not only thought it was okay but also thought it was funny made me so incredibly angry that I started to actively identify and think about feminism. So, again, there is usually some silver lining.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

5 On April 16th, 2008, Toni

My experience with my most recent job is similar to yours. I was very good and very fast at what I did. To the point of uncomfortably outshining my peers. Long hours, nose to the grindstone was the expected behavior.

When too many late nights, with ordered-in dinner and no time for the pool or even a walk led to a major flare of my fibromyalgia, I had no choice but to reveal my condition to my boss. It was impacting my ability to concentrate, my mobility, and my physical appearance.

Of course, he claimed to be totally understanding. I scheduled all my physical therapy appointments and other doctors visits for 7 am, or 7 pm. I never left work for an appointment, or to go to the gym without first completing all my assigned tasks. But, I did stop staying late every night just because everyone else was, and did start doing some of my more routine tasks from home late at night. Of course, I still put in 50+ hours a week, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t in the office for ALL the regular work hours.

But *anytime* the boss would walk by my desk as I was talking an aspirin, or anytime I was walking slower than average, wearing flats instead of heels, or asking if someone else minded driving to the client meeting, since I had a stiff neck - he would roll his eyes and sigh.

The behavior on his end got much worse, very quickly. To the point where he did not speak to me, even when I asked him a direct question. Finally, after 3 months of silence, he couldn’t avoid talking to me about an issue - which quickly turned to him screaming, me crying and then him firing.

The reasons he gave for firing me were completely bogus, and several times as I was packing my desk, he made references to making sure I took “all my medications” with me. He also made numerous comments to other members of staff after I left about how I had abused his generosity by calling in sick “all the time”. I had only taken the 4 alloted personal days that year and no more.

At the moment, I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But, now, it’s 6 months out, and I’ve never been happier or healthier. I’m piecing together part time work, I’m working on projects that matter to me, and just enjoying life. When I finally have to go back to full-time employment, I’ve got NO idea how to find a job that will actually work with the life I HAVE to have, now that I know better.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

6 On April 16th, 2008, Bekbek

I’ve quit two horrible jobs this past year, and seriously contemplated changing my career. I love what I do, but sometimes my colleagues… The first place I was at for six years, six years of constant comments about my and everyone else’s physical appearance,ethnicity, orientation, etc, but I kept staying because I also fear change and instability. I finally moved on after thinking about being there five years down the road. The replacement for that job was at a much larger place, with an even split of nasty and nice. The hour killed any regular schedule. I had some serious insomnia and other issues because I was never sure when I would be working. Now I’m steadily progressing toward opening my own business, and that’s its own special level of hades, where demons wield red tape. But reading things like this remind me that it will be completely worthwhile to control my environment.

posted on April 16th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

7 On April 16th, 2008, Bekbek

I’ve quit two horrible jobs this past year, and seriously contemplated changing my career. I love what I do, but sometimes my colleagues… The first place I was at for six years, six years of constant comments about my and everyone else’s physical appearance,ethnicity, orientation, etc, but I kept staying because I also fear change and instability. I finally moved on after thinking about being there five years down the road. The replacement for that job was at a much larger place, with an even split of nasty and nice. The hours killed any regular schedule. I had some serious insomnia and other issues because I was never sure when I would be working. Now I’m steadily progressing toward opening my own business, and that’s its own special level of hades, where demons wield red tape. But reading things like this remind me that it will be completely worthwhile to control my environment.

8 On April 17th, 2008, Anna

My husband, bless him, had to talk me into quitting a job where I regularly was trying to get myself flexible enough to be able to climb out the window and jump. It was high enough that if it didn’t kill me, it would leave me completely destroyed physically. But hey - I wouldn’t have to go back, right? Right?

Of all things, the last straw for me was them sending me home without pay on talk like a pirate day cuz I was wearing a hat and a frilly shirt. I laughed and laughed and laughed until my husband got me to the hospital.

But hey - the whole experience made me lose weight, since I stopped eating due to the stress. People told me that if stress caused me to get thin, I should have stayed.

Those people aren’t in my life anymore, funnily enough.

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 12:14 am

9 On April 17th, 2008, Fat Girl

For me, the return to graduate school after a crappy but relatively low-stress situation has been really rough- I’ve actually gone on medical leave at this point.

But the hard thing about it is that I definitely feel like I can’t be honest with people about why I am really needing to leave. It’s just this feeling like they are going to look at me and think “Mental problems.. we don’t need her in our program.”

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 12:34 am

10 On April 17th, 2008, Fat Girl

Just adding- Added to the fact that grad school is stressful almost ALWAYS, I’m also at a large Ivy League university and I have no funding, and the competition… Well it never used to bother me that much before that I’m not the shining star, but it bothers me now. I forgot how STUPID this university makes me feel.

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 12:35 am

11 On April 17th, 2008, Melissa

I quit a lower paying job where I had higher status because of intense stress. I was leaving work with severe migraines often and constantly complaining about how I hated my job and felt used because I always worked more than my share.
I think my moment of revelation came when I was hiking in the woods one day.
I think my repititive negative thoughts about my work had cease to circulate in my head and I had this clear moment of the whole picture, even if it was for a second.

I just told my husband that I was quittting and staying home to raise my son until I found my real path.

The realization was that I can never change how anyone else behaves or feels, I can only change myself or choose to be on a different path . If I had stayed at the job it was only for comfort and it felt like I would be accepting the entire “dysfunctional family” that the job had really become.

So currently I am still raising my son (I quit about 9 months ago) and I know things will go on from here just smoothly. And yes I had anxiety about quitting at first but the need for mental and spiritual awarness was so much more that it pushed the fear away.

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 1:10 am

12 On April 17th, 2008, Charlotte

FatGirl, I’m with you on the grad school thing. I’m about to complete my first year of grad school (seminary, if you want to be technical). It’s been great, but I’ve had so many personal problems this year (especially this semester) that it’s really put a dent in my work. I used to be able to keep my personal life out of my school life, but in grad school, they’re melding together.

On the topic of jobs, during Christmas I had a seasonal position at a big electronics retail chain (I’d rather not say who they are). They ignored my availability hours and pretty much chewed me up and spit me out at the end of the holiday shopping season. I worked at least 35-39 hours a week during the last weeks of the fall semester (needless to say, I’m now on academic probation) and I often had to close, which meant I would get home from work after midnight and then turn around and get up at 6 a.m. to go to class. The job did a number on me physically (I was on my feet a lot); there was at least one part of my body that was in constant pain almost everyday (especially my back, ankles and feet). I almost jumped for joy when the general manager said they had to let me go at the end of the season. I may be broke and jobless right now, but at least I’m not exhausted, in pain, and am able to dedicate more time to my schoolwork.

Sorry for the rant! *blushes*

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 1:16 am

13 On April 17th, 2008, Bri

Oh yeah, I know all about the toxic job… I think the topic might merit its own post on my blog…

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 7:09 am

14 On April 17th, 2008, Geekgirlsrule

FatGirl, I STILL haven’t finished my thesis because just thinking about it makes me hyperventilate and break out in hives, and I’ve been out of grad school for five years now.

My therapist and I are working on it. I WILL finish the damn thesis. Even if they don’t give me my MA I have a publisher lined up already.

posted on April 17th, 2008 at 11:54 am

15 On April 18th, 2008, Carrie

I might blog about this, too.

I, too, had several toxic jobs. One was just stressful. The people were by and large wonderful. But my desk had a proverbial “The Buck Stops Here” sign on it. I didn’t feel qualified to be making some of these decisions. I eventually got mono and relapsed into the eating disorder and had to quit.

My last “real” job was one that was marginally tolerable, but then I sunk into a suicidal depression and ultimately overdosed. I returned 6 weeks later, still shaky but at least not sussing out the trees and bridges for something solid to drive into. I arrived and found everyone had gone on a group diet. Never mind that I was 20 pounds under my healthy weight at the time- I was critisized for eating chocolate. I couldn’t escape the food/weight talk, and I ultimately quit and moved back home.

I had already been accepted to the science writing MA program I’m currently finishing when I quit. But without the breakdown of my depression, I don’t know I would have worked up the guts to make such a break with my previous career path.

posted on April 18th, 2008 at 10:05 am

16 On April 18th, 2008, i-geek

FatGirl: “Just adding- Added to the fact that grad school is stressful almost ALWAYS, I’m also at a large Ivy League university and I have no funding, and the competition… Well it never used to bother me that much before that I’m not the shining star, but it bothers me now. I forgot how STUPID this university makes me feel.”

I hear you. I’m a grad student at a well-ranked state school, and holy hell, it’s stressful. I regularly feel like a prize idiot, even after passing quals. If not for my highly supportive advisor and labmates, I probably would have gone insane from stress a year ago.

My most toxic job was the waitressing job I took during an undergrad summer. It was at a restaurant which shall not be named (but was lampooned in the movie “Office Space”), so strike one was the awful uniform I had to wear, plus the requisite amount of “flair” (aka weird and stupid crap pinned all over the shirt, uniform hat, uniform suspenders (!), etc.). Strike two was the awful clientele. I had some great customers, sure, but those were outshined each night by the ones who would run me for two hours straight and then stiff me on the tip (and on a couple of occasions, the bill). Strike three was the Friday night when another waitress didn’t show up or call off and I got stuck with her section as well as mine. So I had 8 tables to cover for a 9 hour shift (forget mandatory lunch breaks; counting after hours cleanup, I worked 11 or 12-hour shifts with maybe one bathroom break if lucky), and as the wait for a table was running 60 minutes plus, each of those damn tables was filled the entire night. About 9 pm I was racing around the kitchen trying to put together salads for three tables (as of course the salad guy had disappeared). I knocked a soup bowl off of the shelf, went to catch it, and caught a piece after it had hit the edge of the counter and cracked in half. I ended up having stitches put into my left hand (which had been split open to the bone), came back to pick up my stuff, was told that my customers had been complaining about the service while I was in the ER, and was told to report to my next scheduled shift. Yeah, HELL NO.

I think I lasted 6 weeks at that job. That was six weeks of 12 hour shifts with no food, little sleep (as I was taking community college classes during the day), extremely high stress, a nasty injury, and not a lot of money to show for it.

posted on April 18th, 2008 at 10:53 am

17 On April 19th, 2008, Meg Thornton

I had one job which drove me to the edge of suicide. I was working for a major government department, and the problems started with a mismatch between my mindset (I wanted to help people) and the departmental one (they wanted to administer an act of parliament). It wasn’t helped by a manager who frankly enjoyed playing mind games, and quickly latched onto me as a very good target (young, depressive, low self-esteem, overweight - hey, I didn’t say she was wrong about it!). I was recommended for counseling (which helped - I started pulling my rather tattered self-image back together, and realising I could be more) but the moment I came back from a counseling session, she’d be playing the usual games, convincing me I was on the edge of losing my job altogether. In ten months, I’d gone from being reasonably happy (part time work, part time study, starting to pull my head together after too many years of dieting and shit) to a neurotic, suicidal mess.

The trigger to leave? I’d worked out a suicide plan, and I was taking the first step necessary to complete it. I’d gone to a nearby GP during my lunch break, and mentioned problems sleeping, and requested something to help me to sleep. [I was planning to head to a few more in the area, and request the same thing each time. Then I'd go to a few different chemists, and get the prescriptions filled. When I thought I had enough, I'd take the whole damn lot with a bottle of vodka, and put myself out of my misery.] However, when I was walking back to the office, the thought occurred to me: y’know, there was an easier way out of this mess. So instead I went back to the office, and gave six weeks notice.

My one quiet satisfaction with the whole mess is I met my partner through it. He was at the office I trained at (a different one to the one I worked in) and we started our relationship not long after I quit. It actually kicked off during the one manic episode I’ve had, which was directly triggered by quitting that job: I felt bulletproof, I felt like I could walk on water, I felt like I could risk telling this really nice guy that I was absolutely crazy about him. So I did, and we’ve been together ever since. He was the one who gave me the confidence in my own PC skills to start working in tech support and start training for it as well, and I’ve never regretted that. I’ve sinced worked a number of different helpdesk jobs, and while the job itself may well be frustrating, annoying, and high pressure at times, the satisfaction I get from helping people doesn’t change.

posted on April 19th, 2008 at 4:09 am

18 On April 19th, 2008, dragonfly

I am going through this right now. I had to leave a job I loved because my husband’s employer closed the branch he worked at. It was one of the bigger employers in the area, so jobs were very scarce. He was fortunate to find an even better paying job at a more stable facility, but it meant we had to move and I had to leave my job.

I can’t do what I was doing before. (It’s a really long story, but it isn’t anything sordid–I was just employed to do a job I didn’t not have all the qualifications for on a provisionary basis, but because I had to leave my job I lost that status.) I have been trying to find something else for almost a year now. I have had no luck at all. I’ve only gotten one interview. At least I know my size isn’t the issue, since I never actually get any face-to-face interviews. I have two college degrees and experience in several different fields, but I have no connections here at all, and still, no job. And, the longer I go without a job, the bigger the gap in my job history gets.

I was doing ok for a while and had made some big improvements in my eating and exercise habits (since I had a lot more free time on my hands, anyway), but lately I’m eating poorly again and skipping the gym. I have horrible insomnia.

Wow, it feels so good just to get all of that out. Thanks for talking about this. As the economy gets worse it will be harder and harder for people to leave jobs they hate, and harder to find a job if they have to (or decide to) give up the one they had.

posted on April 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

19 On July 8th, 2008, Eating disorder discrimination » The-F-Word.org said:

[...] is rendered, but I completely empathize with Ferguson because I, too, have been there. I’ve written before on my own workplace battles during my eating disorder at the company I had worked at for 6 years [...]

posted on July 8th, 2008 at 11:40 am

20 On July 15th, 2008, afto

Oh.My.God.

I’ve known who Lisa was (online) since 2001. It’s amazing how paths cross.

posted on July 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

21 On August 4th, 2008, ebleeck

I can’t even get a job and I just got rejected by Target. But it’s nice to know that bad job experiences can turn into great job outcomes. Thanks for the inspiration

posted on August 4th, 2008 at 10:15 pm