I Temporarily Lost My Mind

So everything has been kind of a blur to me since Saturday when I woke up at 3:22am for work. I just finally snapped inside and had enough of the shitty hours I had to work because my store apparently repels team members and they all quit. I just woke up Saturday morning feeling like I couldn’t do it anymore.

By 3:30am I was in full blown tears and in panic mode. Gotta love when that flight or fight mode kicks is, right? I told my mom that I was going to text my boss, lie and say that I fell down the stairs and got hurt and was heading to the ER. My boss told me he was away and to text the woman taking over for him. So I said the same thing to her. Decided to say fuck it and went back to sleep.

When I woke up, I went to hang out at a friends house. While I was there, I decided to go even further with what I had said and when my boss text me that he hoped all was well and for an update, I lied even more and said that I had a breakdown at the hospital and that they were sending me to this one psychiatric hospital I was in before called Brooke Glenn Behavioral Hospital, or something very close to that, and that I’d probably be out of psych within 48-72 hours on good behavior. I can’t believe I fucking did that not knowing if my plan B was going to come through but luckily it did.

About a month ago, I got a job offer for $21.50/hour to basically be an administrative assistant for this growing health care company that one of my former supervisors opened and started and I accepted it but never put my two-weeks notice in at the gas station. But Saturday when I got up (after I went back to bed and before I went to this friends house), I was riddled with anxiety because I was like, “Oh, fuck. Now I’m going to need another job…”

I called up my old supervisor and asked her if the job offer was still on the table for the administrative assistant position and she said yes. Today was my first day! I had a psych appointment yesterday and my doctor asked me when I was going to tell my boss at my present/former job as store manager that I am not coming back and I just kept saying I don’t know, because I really don’t know. They think my mom has my phone so they asked for an update today and tomorrow I’m going to reply back that, “Samantha is still at the hospital.”

I mean fuck it. After I “went to the hospital,” I had an inside person at my store that would keep me updated on the store. My upper management and employees wanted to complain about everything I did and didn’t do. That store is literally falling apart without me there yet they want to try to say that I did absolutely nothing? Fuck that shit. My worth is better than that.

I need a position where I am going to be respected and treated with dignity and not have to work 60-70 hours a week to only get paid for the first 48 hours and that’s it?! I am so done. I’m already loving my new hours. Just six hours a day, five days a week from 10am – 4pm. Best of all, I am back to having weekends off so I can get back on a more normal routine for myself.

I can’t believe I lied to my job just like a teenager would. I went over-the-top dramatic. That’s not like me anymore. That’s the teenage years me. And then for me to just go back to sleep afterward without being stuck awake and overthinking is unheard of. Usually, after doing something life altering like quitting a job without knowing if you have any other doors to open should have been scary to me.

Knowing that I can be done with the store manager position is like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel free in this strange way. I started to realize months ago that manager job was deteriorating my mental health but I never realized by how much until today.