I missed a couple of week notes. Lots has happened, but it’s all been a bit of a blur.
At work it’s been sifting, interviews and recruitment. Procurements and contracting. Business planning. Pinging back and forth over novel reactive issues. Correspondence cases. Performance reviews. You name it, I’ve been dealing with it; quite aside from doing any actual, proactive policy or delivery work.
At home it’s been continuing my dispute with our building management company and dealing with a plethora of family issues currently kicking off.
And it’s all getting a bit much, to be honest.
It’s OK to not be OK
I am usually very resilient.
It is arguably a superpower of gay people to be able to compartmentalise. You spend so much of your early life hiding things about yourself that putting different aspects of your life in boxes and shutting the lid comes naturally.
This past two weeks, though, things have gone too far.
It’s not any one thing that’s caused this. Both in my work life and my personal life, I have too many points of stress at the moment. Any one of these stressors would be enough to crack some people; I’ve got no fewer than half a dozen happening all at the same time. And if I am honest with myself, I’m not coping very well.
I am not OK.
On Wednesday this week, I had to physically leave my office building because I was, I think, having a panic attack. Even though that meant going out in the pouring rain, I had to get out. I got soggy feet and had to buy new socks.
I spent most of Thursday having a “fight or flight” response to every small thing around me. Email notifications. IMs. The door bell going off.
Today has been a little better, but not by much.
It is good that I recognise I am currently not OK.
It’s OK to not be OK.
The question now is, how can I fix it?
Is it better than nothing?
When you don’t know the answer to something, should you say:
- nothing?
- “I don’t know”?
That’s one of the big themes of the past few weeks.
The default instinct of a civil servant, I would contend, is to keep their mouths shut.
I would also contend that saying nothing creates a vacuum that sucks in speculation and mistrust, until there’s no ability for you to set the record straight.
Not knowing the answers is not an excuse to not turn up and listen to people. So you should listen, even if you don’t have the answers. Saying “I don’t know” builds trust.
It’s a matter of personal credibility, if not corporate responsibility.
So that’s what I’ve been going out and doing. Going around saying the words “I don’t know” to anyone who asked to speak to me about things they want answers to. It appears people are at least appreciating the honesty, even if they still want the answers.
There’s a lesson in that, somewhere.
Dinner. Friends. Wine!
Right, well, enough of all that.
I’m off to cook some dinner, spend time with a friend and drink wine. After this past couple of weeks, I suspect it’ll be more than one glass!