YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi friends.

It has been several months since I've bookended (a bookend is reaching out to friends before and after taking a difficult step in recovery).

This time tomorrow I intend to have a difficult talk with my boss, who is generally a good person and supervisor.

[Edit: I wrote a bunch of extraneous stuff here, about my current work mishegas. Though the content doesn't really matter, this is about my colleagues sending me incorrect "TPS reports". For the sake of brevity, the substance of this is in my next post in this thread, which I'll also edit.]

[Edit: here is where I wrote more extraneous stuff. The substance of my dilemma follows.]

Larger picture, friends, is not about TPS reports, but how we handle unsatisfactory situations that everyone tolerated for too long.

I can’t help but think about Mental Fairy and the courage she has to admit that her marriage may not survive their trip, and that maybe it shouldn’t survive.

That’s what I’m really getting at, not about the stupid TPS report: how can face what we tried so long to ignore?

Hi Oak.

Thank you for the post. How long have you worked at this job currently?

Currently one flight down and one more to go. Sitting in Auckland airport currently waiting for the next flight in two hours. Joes currently two pain killers in for a headache he got due to not drinking his two morning coffees.

Last night we had a surprise dinner for myself. My boss threw us a dinner party at a local restaurant with absolutely everyone, spouses and kids. I’m not a night time person so we had a bit of a late night. Crawled into bed about 9. Didn’t sleep till 11, anxious about flying again. Woken a bit jaded and fuzzy. I had to hire someone from overseas unfortunately to step into my shoes for the next two weeks. She’s from South Africa. It’s been a huge cultural shock for her. I can’t believe how scared she is of everyone outside. She can’t believe how safe it is here. She noticed someone said Kia Ora to her across the road and she flipped out and remembered it means hello. Poor women is on edge all the time. He said she’s never laughed so hard working with Donya and myself. I love that.

We did have a beautiful flight into Auckland. Got to see over most of the north island. Cold snap here currently, snowing down south where we are going.

We have walked over to international terminal to get some air. Stood in front of the international board and we were reading about all the countries people are off too. I found myself fantasying about just getting on a random flight and buggering off! One day. So close to jumping on New York flight!

Not sure how Joe is feeling currently, he is way way way out of his comfort zone currently. We had a little argument before we left, just trying to suppress that currently.

Donya and I are booking to go to Tasmania on January for a study thing for her doctorate.

Better go and find a loo! Nervous !!!

Mental Fairy, hi. I’ve been there 3.5 years, with no path up, and AI coming for my job in a few years. (Also, I’m glad your trip is going well!)

Friends, I had a necessary talk with my boss. He is a good person who wants the right thing. I’ve escalated this, and gotten it all out to an equally kind higher-up.

I am glad I had this conversation. I wish I had it earlier.

Maybe I’ll post this weekend about stuffing other truths down.

For now I’m watching a charming trifle, “Five Blind Dates”.