“Above All, Never Let Them See You Cry”

Every time I cry, I get a really bad headache.  This is true no matter how much or how little I cry.  And recently, I had a nice hour-long cry… in my office at work… by myself.  While I was crying, I texted one my best friends and she stated, “above all, never let them see you cry” and “them” in this story were her boss and mine. 

All was going well with my life and my job and then the Coronavirus slowly, gradually and eventually very strongly hit my state.  Because I work in healthcare and my data supports a hospital, it was very important for me to be on the COVID-19 planning team. 

So one day I was doing my normal day to day job and the next day I was on the COVID-19 hospital planning team.  The team consisted of my boss, my co-worker from another team, and myself.  And guess who received the lead position on the project via my boss…my co-worker!  

The stress of the project was really getting to me and apparently the pressure was getting to my boss.  We started butting heads on everything and the more we did not see eye to eye, the more upset I got.  I rapidly got on a (as my friend would call it), “struggle bus of emotions”.  I was angry and depressed, and I was not hiding it very well. 

One day I completely mentally broke and left work early and went home for the rest of the day.  I told my boss I could no longer be at work and drove home to my partner calculating our finances to see if we could afford for me to quit my job. 

The next day I went back to work and my boss would not look at me let alone talk to me.  He called me into his office around lunch time to “have a friendly chat about what has been going on”.  So I told him I was struggling at work and I was really stressed out.  He listened but I do not think he was hearing me.  He was glazed over and wanted his turn to talk.  And when he finally talked, he ripped me apart. 

My boss told me that everyone was stressed out right now so my stress levels were minimal in comparison.  He told me that my attitude was lousy and that it was bringing down the whole team. And he talked about my work saying that my analytical skills were not up to par at all and that there was no road map for our job and I cannot, in his opinion, do my work well without it being completely mapped out. 

And this is when I went into my office, closed my door and cried for an hour.  I cried for the depression I was feeling and the anger that was haunting me.  I cried for myself and how far I had come at this job only to be told that I was not performing well enough.  And I cried for my family that I had moved forty-five minutes further south from the people we loved for this job opportunity. 

The next day was like a hangover from the day before.  It was Friday and I had a 1:1 with my boss.  So I flat out asked him if he wanted me to stay on his team or not.  And he said I was not a great fit and he would support me if I looked elsewhere in the company for another job. 

That weekend, I worked on my resume.  I was furious at this point and ready to move on to the next job.  I was determined to show my boss I did not need him and that I did not need this company that he worked for in order to be successful. 

To be honest, it took until Thursday of the following week for me to come to terms with all that happened to me and for me to see the situation differently.  Due to the Coronavirus, I had made friends with people in the front line.  I had befriended people on the nursing staff in the hospital. 

And on Thursday morning, I received a phone call from one of my nursing friends.  She was terribly sad because she had lost an Intensive Care Unit patient to the Coronavirus.  She had been with this patient for weeks trying to save his life and in the end the virus took his life.  And it was in this sad moment that I felt a sense of peace, awakening and new hope from within my soul.  After I hung up the phone with her, I looked down and I had my high heels on.  And I knew what I had to do. 

You see, I had gotten into healthcare in the first place because my father died of cancer many years ago.  I wanted to help the same people who helped me and my family when we were in need of assistance.  So, at 4pm I walked into my bosses office and I asked him to listen to me.  I requested him to have an open mind and to hear me out. 

At 4pm on a Thursday in late April, I told my boss I had bipolar disorder.  I told him I was medicated and that I was going to counseling.  I told him that I had ups and downs, that I had highs and lows, and that some days are better than others.  And I also told him that I wanted to keep my job and work for him.  I told him about all my strengths and I talked through some of my weaknesses.  And when I was done talking, I asked him to be mindful of his words and how he was going to handle all the new information that he now had. 

My boss thanked me for telling him and he made a few suggestions about how to handle my workload.  He and I agreed that I needed to work on my weaknesses and that we could continue to support my strengths in the projects that I was working on and the ones I would work on in the future.  An hour later, I walked away from the conversion with my job back on track again.  I walked out of his office and down the hall in my high heels back to my office with a smile on my face and peace in my heart.

No day has been perfect since then, but the morale of the team has been lifted.  My boss seems happier and I am much more content with myself, my life and my job.  This is no Cinderella story although she is my favorite Disney character.  But it is a story of hope and strength.  And speaking of strength, I want to end this post with a poem:   

You Are Strong

Maybe you don’t see it.

Maybe you don’t feel it.

Maybe you don’t hear it.

But you are strong.

When you look at your day and it seems

daunting, overwhelming, and

impossible, and yet you get up and fight

you are igniting the strength, the raw

amazing strength, within you.

Strength isn’t found in perfection.

It is found in the moments, the

minutes, and the seconds where you

give and believe and try and laugh and cry

and be the person you are meant to be. 

Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.