When Life Takes a Left Turn and You're Still Trying to Go Straight

I know I haven't blogged in a while.  I haven't kept up on a lot of the things that I need to be.  I have been feeling really burned out and have been struggling in a lot of ways that have not been easy on me or my family.  This is really raw and emotional for me, so bear with me...

I have been working in a high tempo, high stress, retail environment for four years now.  When I first started working there, I was a rising star.  It took two years for me to implode and end up on short-term disability.  When my daughter had been born a few months before I went out on disability, it sent me into a tailspin.  I obsessed about being a supernatural provider and withdrew emotionally at home, cutting off my wife and daughter from love and companionship.  Thus, I went out on disability.

When I returned to work after fighting through my PTSD and learning to cope, I swore that I would always be prescient at home from now on.  My goal was come home from work with the energy and emotional awareness to be a good father and attentive husband.  What ended up happening is that my reliability at work and my availability suffered greatly.  It was made clear by my employer that they needed a level of reliability that I have not been providing over the past few months.

This raised my stress level at work, making work a 'non-permissive' environment - a place where I was at risk of losing my job or benefits or both if I couldn't sort this out.  It made me realize, regress my performance to a mean over time and it is readily apparent that retail work is grinding me down and taking a long-term cumulative toll on my performance at work.  That toll has sped up since I swore to always put my family first.

So now I have some hard decisions to make.  The only work I find fulfilling is being of service to others.  I have to balance what is best for me long-term with the welfare of my family.  It's not a fun place to be, but one I am confident I will work through.

I know I haven't been active recently in the community I created.  I know I haven't blogged as much.  For that I am sorry.  I needed to set myself in motion and resolve this issue with employment.  Now that I have the short-term leeway to figure it out while ensuring the welfare of my family is giving me the time and space I need to figure all of this out.

I want to thank all of those people who have reached out to me via email to express concern over not hearing from me and from my readers who reached out to ask how I was doing.  I truly value your compassion and understanding!

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