it’s been almost 7 months pp now and honestly, the amount of pushback i get when i try to set any kind of work boundary is wild. my boss, bless his heart, keeps acting like i should have magically ‘snapped back’ to 2019 me. like, i’m still figuring out basic things like how much sleep i’m actually getting and if i’ve even eaten solid food today. i told him i needed to leave right at 5pm yesterday bc naima’s daycare closes at 6 and he just looked at me like i’d grown a second head.
‘but we have this urgent project,’ he said. urgent for whom? i get it, work needs to get done. but my brain feels like it’s been through a blender and my body is still recovering from, well, everything.
i feel like i’m constantly having to over-explain why i can’t just ‘power through’ things like i used to. it’s not a lack of effort, it’s just that my capacity feels fundamentally different now. logging my symptoms and my ‘workday stress’ in careclinic helps me see the patterns, especially how much my heart rate spikes when i get those ‘urgent’ emails after hours. it’s a small thing, but seeing it visually reminds me why i can’t just keep pushing myself to the limit.
anyone else dealing with this same attitude from their job? like, how do you even work through it without feeling like you’re failing at everything?