Fired

How humiliating. I thought the last two years were demoralizing. I had no idea how much more I could hurt. I'm one of those people who puts their heart into everything they do. I buy into all that team, we, do it together, family thing. I believe it. I spend 40 hours a week with these people and I don't know how to not love them. Care about them. Want the best for each and every one of them. That I was so poorly thought of hurts. It hurts far more than I want it too. It hurts so much I get angry, I get sad, I panic.

These last few years have been ugly.  Watching my targeted friends suffer. That little pang of oh thank god it's not me. Then the guilt of that thought eating my soul. Then it was me. The panic attacks and the anxiety, the eating of Lorazapam like it was candy just to get through the day. The sitting at my desk crying from not knowing what the next right thing to do IS. That cold cold feeling that starts in your chest and radiates out of your center, turning your fingers to ice and you just. can. not. get. warm. Then the shaking. My hands shake so hard I can't control them. I walk around with these betrayers of my inner turmoil tucked firmly under my armpits and I hope I don't end up curled up on the floor somewhere. Holding my self inside. Holding my self close so that she doesn't shatter.

I received my last pay stub in the mail today. I had walked up the 1/2 mile dirt road to the mailbox as a form of therapy. I stood at the roadside holding that envelope with the logo emblazoned on the upper left corner. That logo I have been so very proud to be associated with for fifteen years laying there waiting to bite me. Take a minute, breathe two three four, and opened the pain. Rip the envelope open, tear that logo to shreds. Feel the pain flood over me, envelope me, and fill me. I sat down hard. On the rocks, in the dirt. Hurting. Holding on to me. My own self.