I’m finding communicating at work difficult at the moment. My mental health makes me brutally cranky at lighting fast speed so nearly every conversation seems like a bar fight.
I recently sat on a lengthy meeting that was just me and 8 other men and the whole thing made me furious at the lack of pace, the lack of direction and the overwhelming stench of bullshit. The bullshit was a factor for others but the frustration at not doing something was overwhelming for me. We literally just talked for 2 hours. We didn’t produce anything, we didn’t particularly agree anything other than to have another meeting
For months my pathological overdrive has been in direct conflict with my brain begging me to give it a chance to function. It’s exhausting constantly fighting with yourself and everyone else. I did the therapy hamster wheel to find there was no root cause to my problem – which when you’re a compulsive problem solver is absolutely fucking galling. I’m left with a guidebook for using words like”prefer” and “suggest” rather “must” and “should” and writing things down to help put them to one side. Clearly I haven’t written a thing down but I have this mental list of 1000 things and counting to overthink. So in theory – this is a me problem not a you problem.
But…
Is it possible, or is there actual science that says even if I smoked excessive amounts of pot and took every meeting in a haze of yoga induced zen that the outcome of situations like this, or lack of outcome, would still give me the absolute fucking shits. Because I have ovaries. And brain parts that’s are genetically geared towards getting shit done. Prehistoric instincts that drive me to make sure that everyone eats rather than having a good hard think about inventing fire. I’m now wondering if cave paintings just show early use of white boards for men to explain what they mean without actually doing anything about it.
The men I work with aren’t typical alpha males either other than excelling at trying to guard a warm cup of piss that they think is “their job” and making me endure two hours of metaphorical cock comparisons. They listen when I speak, don’t stare at my tits openly and don’t call me “love”. If anything my endearment Tourette’s is far worse, punctuating conservations with “hen” and “doll”. I would say it might actually be easier to cope if these guys were alpha males though – I wouldn’t have “helping middle aged men find their own nuts” on my list
And how does this musing help with my overall mental health? Well it’s about acceptance. Accepting I can’t “fix” these fellas or how they work and accepting ultimately that my brain works differently, my skill set is inherently different and that’s all ok. I don’t HAVE to fight them or me. Take a beat, listen and accept I can’t change however many years of evolution. So today is about acceptance, a new word for my survival dictionary.
a thousand thoughts 