The Vine: September 28, 2011
I need to leave my job. I’m nearing 40, have no retirement account or savings, and more than $15,000 in credit card debt. I graduated college 16 years ago with a B.A. in English Literature and no plan, and my life so far has borne out the consequences of that lack of planning.
The job where I work now is one I’ve been at for almost seven years. In that time I’ve had one raise, but since I’m an hourly worker and our hours have been reduced, and my health insurance (which I pay in its entirety) had gone up and up, my actual income is less than it was when I started. There is no opportunity for advancement at this job. In fact, for the past two years I have had to claim unemployment from January through May, our off season. During that time my employer paid for my health insurance, and I continued to work. I know that is illegal; it was a choice between falsely claiming to be unemployed and being unemployed for real and having no health insurance.
This past year, I did try to look for work during my period of “unemployment,” but secretarial jobs in this economy are hard to come by. I did, however, take several civil service tests, and now, six months later, I am starting to get bites from them.
My problem is that my main coworker, who had a double-mastectomy a year and a half ago, is undergoing treatment for a recurrence of her cancer. I have not asked too many questions because she has indicated that she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I get the impression that her prognosis is not good. Our job is stressful; two people who left during the past year have not been replaced, leaving more to do for both of us (although, because of the economy, demand is down in general for the products and services we offer.) She doesn’t need the stress even as things are — neither do I — but the stress would increase a great deal if I were to leave.
So right now there’s a very good chance I’m going to be offered a civil-service-type job in the next week or so. At the interview, I of course indicated that I wanted the job, but I’m not sure I do. The job is low-paying — less than I’d be making at my current job if I could be sure of working 52 weeks at our current reduced hours, but more than my income would be if, as looks likely, I have to go on unemployment again next year. Also more because I would only be paying a portion of my health insurance rather than all of it. And I thought it would provide some job security but there have been budget cuts recently and now I’m not sure.
I’m not exactly thrilled about this job — they agency I’d be working for is kind of depressing. I am at the top of this civil service list, so there’s a good chance another job will come up before January. I’m also at the top of another list, this one for a higher-paying position, so I could wait for something to come up from that list, which would be a more compelling reason to leave.
Do I wait for something better to come along, or take the job? The thought of leaving Coworker in the lurch right now makes me feel sick, but I also know that it’s my employers’ responsibility to make sure they have enough staff, and not mine. I know I have to do what’s best for me, financially and otherwise, but not feeling like an evil asshole is a consideration in what’s best for me.
On the other hand, I’ve frequently found myself alternately in tears or very angry at work over the past few months, and taking the unhappiness home with me. Neither tears nor fury are helpful when you have to deal with the public a lot. This is because of the stress of having to cover jobs I don’t feel qualified to do, because of feeling like I’ve let myself be taken advantage of, and because of anger at myself for not getting a better handle on my life.
I live with my mother in a house that she owns, and pay her rent, but my rent is much less than an apartment would be. I am morbidly obese and tend to eat my feelings — I know that if I weren’t as fat, I’d feel more confident and could find a job that challenges me more and compensates me better. Maybe even one that was interesting. I was fat when I started this job, too, but I’ve gained more than 150 lbs since I started here — it’s a wretched cycle where I overeat and don’t exercise because I’m unhappy and stressed, and so I gain or don’t lose weight, and being fat contributes to my unhappiness and stress both in itself and because it makes me feel trapped in my job. I know I need to make a change, probably many changes. Right now I’m just not sure whether to take this job. I could take it, assuming it’s offered, and leave if something better comes along, but I know that not staying at a job for very long looks bad to potential employers. I don’t know what to do.
Need a life coach — can’t afford it
Dear Coach,
Okay…this is a lot. You “don’t know what to do” about the job, but really you mean you don’t know what to do about your life, and by that, you mean that you actually do know what to do, more or less, but there’s so much to do, and you don’t know how to do a lot of it, or think you can’t do some parts of it, and it’s just a big disappointment, all of it. Except food, who is always there for you, until it’s gone and nothing’s fixed. Right?
And that sucks. Right? …Right. It sucks. It sucks big-time. You cry a lot. You don’t have enough money. You hate how you look. So the first thing you do is give yourself permission to get very very angry about all of that, without qualifying it all “this is my fault because” this and “if only I had” that.
“…Hate?” No no no no no. Deep breath, fists clenched, like so: “HAAAAAAAAAAATE! RRRRRRR! FUCK! HAAAAAAAAA — [breath] — AAAAAAAAAATE!”
Just get mad. Get mad, get sad, scream and cry and stab a thick magazine with a pen and draw dicks on people’s faces. Give yourself permission to hate your life.
Now, give yourself permission to want better from your life, and to want that really really badly, and to go after better, whatever that means, as hard as you can. Give yourself permission to choose wrong, change your mind a bunch of times, and try 100 percent even if it doesn’t work. Want things. Formulate a plan to get them. Execute the plan. At the end of the plan, if you don’t have the things, rewrite the plan and start over. Do something. Better yet, figure out what you really want to do with your life, and do that. Start. Go.
It’s not that simple, of course…but then, it kind of is. I actually do have a life coach, and I can’t really afford her myself, but she’s so so worth it, and her primary challenge working with me is getting me to stop freaking out about what a catastrophic embarrassment [project] is obviously going to turn into, and just start doing the damn thing. I see a lot of that in your letter, the way you look at taking action as an impossible barrage of pitfalls: if you leave your current job, you screw over a co-worker; if you take a job you don’t want, you have a job you don’t want; if you X, then Y bad thing might happen, so you don’t do anything differently, and nothing changes.
But what could go right? What if you made a change you wanted to make, and life acquired a twinkle of awesome? What if you gave yourself permission to make your own life important — to leave the job you hate, to take the next one and see how it goes, to shoot for a much more ambitious job or to start your own business or to lose 10 pounds by Thanksgiving? As my coach puts it, “What would that look like?”
“Better than this” is a good answer. Start there; start looking ahead. The hardest part is to let everything up to this point go, kind of, and think ahead to how you can get what you need and be who you are.
So, start. Start making lists. Start getting honest with yourself about what you really want from, and in, your life, and write down every one of the 18,491 steps you think it will take to get those things. Give yourself permission to make this, and yourself and your happiness, a priority. Talk to a life coach for a few sessions — why not? Yes, it costs money; reward yourself with some help in rethinking your life. It’s not for everyone, but you might get something out of it.
Leave the current job; you hate it, and it’s making you sick. Take the job on offer for now; no more “waiting for something better.” Waiting got you here; acting will get you out. Take the gig just to make a change, and if you hate it, believe that you can handle it, whatever “it” is. Keep reminding yourself that you don’t have to feel like this and hate your life; you can change things, you can improve things. Just because this is how it’s always been doesn’t mean this is how it has to be.
Give yourself permission — to change, to get mad, to be awesome. It’s hard, but you can totally do it. You just have to get started.
(Not to segue into a plug here, but…well, that’s how we do sometimes. If anyone’s interested, my coach is Sarah Showfety, and you can learn more about her and what she does right here. You can also see her — and me! — in action at the Single In Stilettos event on October 15th. I have two free passes to give away, actually, so if you’re interested, please send up a flare in the comments. I’ll draw a winner randomly.)
Tags: health and beauty workplace
Give yourself permission to hate your life.
Best advice ever. Seriously.
I’m re-re-reading the great Barbara Eherenreich’s Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, and really, it’s about this. (And lots of other things, and she does kinda slam life coaches but the life coaches who insist the chanting of platitudes and such rather then helping you focus and do.)
Our country/society has insidiously mutated the worthy themes of self-reliance and personal responsiblility into clubs with which to beat everyone who didn’t guess 100% right 100% of the time at age 18 about what to do with their life and is now floundering. (Or were born sick rich and never had to learn how to do anything.)
So what if you majored in English? That was a worthy field of study. So what if you had to take a shit job? You took one and kept it. So what if you’re being screwed by insurance? That is because insurance has become a billy club with which to keep workers docile and afraid.
And SO THE FUCK WHAT if you are obese? Just because the allpervading media eye has deemed obesity to be the next Hitler doesn’t make it true. Using food for comfort? We’ve done that since the first Neanderthan chowed down on an entire berry bush because life was just so shit sometimes, and EVERYONE does it, and it is not bad.
So get angry and raging about the crap in your life, but don’t use it to poision yourself further. Think of it as fuel–drink it and it’ll kill you, pour it in your engine and it will fire you out of this shithole.
Books I recommend:
Barbara Eherenriech’s Bright Sided, Nickle and Dimed, Bait and Switch
Cynthia Heimel’s entire ouvre. She’s a hilarious humor writer who focuses on the negative until it dies of humiliaton and slinks away.
Geneen Roth’s ouvre. Most of her books are about emotional eating, but her latest is about money and how it’s been allowed to stand in for sprituality in our culture.
You deserve to work for a happy life, because you are you. There is not other reason needed, I promise.
Several things jump out at me here. In no particular order:
A) No decision you make needs to be permanent or the only, final path. You can take the new job, but you don’t have to stay there for the rest of your life until you die. Iaking the new job doesn’t mean being there forever, it means being there until you make your next step. That could be in 6 months, or that could be in 3 years.
B) Speaking as a civil servant, once you become a civil servant, it’s WAY easier to then get other civil service jobs. Getting a CS job is a pain in the caboose, but then getting MORE CS jobs after the first one is way, way easier. In fact, you could take the one that could be offered to you soon, just to get moving, AND THEN take the better offer in 3 months. It happens all the time.
C) As upsetting as having an ill coworker may be, you are 100% correct that it’s not your responsibility to stay there to take the burden off of her. However and more to the point, literally hundreds of thousands of people would LOVE to take your old job and are wondering RIGHT NOW!! where you are so they can send a resume. They will replace you, probably so quickly that you’ll be shocked, and by someone who’ll handle things just fine, especially if you stick around to give him/her a few days of training. S/he may even be better at a few things than you are. They’ll miss you, but they’ll manage. Plus, you’re getting a new job, not moving to Yemen; if you want to come by and say hi, or have them email you a few questions over the first few weeks after you leave, that can be arranged.
D) When you’re ready to work on the excess weight, I highly recommend Weight Watchers. No one judges you, you don’t have to go to meetings (you can if you want), you get to eat real food (no buying their packaged crap), and it’s a common-sense method for living your life and eating while you do it, not just for getting skinny. And did I mention no one judges you? You can visit their bulletin boards without being a paying member, and you can read about other people’s experiences and see how they get support.
Good luck.
“The thought of leaving Coworker in the lurch right now makes me feel sick…”
Really? Because it sounds to me more like it’s a case where you desperately want to leave, but you feel vaguely guilty about leaving your coworker, and you feel angry about feeling guilty, and then you feel guilt about being made angry by a disabled person, and so you pretend like you’re going to stay because you’re such a good person. It’s not guilt avoidance! It’s noble self-sacrifice! Yay!
If you’re worried about whether she’ll cope then why not just ask her? Say “hey, I’m thinking about taking another job, I’m kind of thinking about just being all “PEACE OUT!” and bailing on this one, but should I give two weeks notice so the stress doesn’t make your hair fall out…um. Yeah, well, anyway, you know what I mean?”
Coach, while you have medical insurance, please also take the chance to see a doctor/therapist about your stress/anxiety/eating/etc. Not because you’ve done anything wrong (you haven’t) but there may be coping mechanisms you haven’t explored, anti-depressants may help with the stress, etc. I guess what I’m saying is, there may be some underlying health issues making your situation even worse than it would otherwise be. (This was my experience.)
Otherwise, do what Sars says. Maybe you can find a life coach who is also a therapist so your insurance will help defray the cost.
Wow. That sounds rough. I am not even sure which “that” I am referring to, but any one of a number of “thats” you mentioned would qualify.
Although the exact circumstances were different, there was a time in my life I felt similarly stuck in a place where nothing was going right. Over a longish period of time, I got myself unstuck, but before that happened I spent a lot of time and money in therapy trying to figure out exactly why I felt stuck in the first place. I understand that funds are tight, but maybe you should consider doing the same?
Your letter reads like a list of reasons to feel badly about yourself and hopeless about your future. Although I love life coaching, these sound more like therapy problems to me. You said you pay rent to your mother and that you have health insurance. Is the rent you pay an economic necessity for your mom? Would she be willing to reduce it by the amount of your copay so that you could see a therapist? Therapy is expensive, but psychological distress is often more expensive in the end.
Oh, and I completely agree about the job. Take the new one! You are unequivocal in your dislike for your current job, and you have a responsibility to yourself to do what is best for you. If you struggle with guilt after taking the job, it might help to talk to your coworker about it. I doubt she would want you to stay if she knew you were unhappy. You needn’t mention the health issues if that would feel odd, but you could let her know that your concerns about her workload was the primary reasons you had a difficult time leaving. She’d probably feel better knowing that you cared enough to think about her during your transition than she would knowing that you sacrificed your own happiness on her behalf.
Sars… seriously when will you write a book? This advice is DREAMWORTHY! I love every word you said here. I’m getting a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and quite frankly this here advice should be encorporated into our best-practices. Sometimes therapy gets TOO logical and not enough from the heart. I can’t express how meaningful your words are here. I love the hope you give Coach rather than saying “you have some depression and body issues, call your insurance and see if they cover a therapist and go see one” which was what I was thinking reading this. Your advice is kind and hopeful.
Thank you for making me think a bit differently about how I will approach my therapy clients.
Although I love life coaching, these sound more like therapy problems to me.
It’s different approaches to the same problem, I’d say. If you can only afford one, I’d go with counseling; understanding why you act and react (or don’t) in certain ways is extremely helpful. But then you have to go out in the world and do your shit, and the kind of coaching I’ve had is very specific and practical about doing. And I think that’s key here. As Coach Sarah once put it, “Feel free to continue freaking out — while typing.”
Oh, man, the life-and-career stuff is HARD, especially when there are other things in the mix. The only one I have anything new to say about is your concerns about your weight. I have trouble with comfort-eating too (and for similar reasons, in the last couple of years) and there is an awesome lady who blogs at Dances With Fat about focusing on developing healthy habits, rather than focusing on what your scale says. I don’t know if you will find it helpful, but she talks a lot about taking a step back and thinking about all the ways in which everyone’s body is pretty amazing, what with the breathing and the pumping of the blood and the opposable thumbs, and whatnot, and how it’s important to appreciate that about your body too, even if you want to make changes, and I’ve found it to be a great counter-voice to all the ads that just tell me I’ll never be skinny or pretty enough.
Don’t be afraid to make changes for yourself, and to change the changes if they turn out not to be what you want. Give yourself permission to be happy, and value your own happiness. And I mean happiness, actual happiness, not the thing that gives you the least grief or makes someone else happy, but Your Actual Happiness.
Sars, your advice damn near made me cry. It’s so caring. I’ve had a bit of a hard day – completely different to this but hard – and yet your advice made me feel much better.
Oh, yeah, strongly second the advice on Geneen Roth’s books. Earlier this year, I took the Overeaters Anonymous survey, and scored really high. But I was confused, because I totally never thought I was a compulsive eater. Then I picked up one of Roth’s books and recognized myself. She explained things that I thought only I did, and described things in a language that I had never heard. Very, very helpful when combined with the talk therapy I was already in.
Also, I’ve been in the job-that-makes-you-ill treadmill as well. Fortunately, the one I have now is fine, but I’ve been in some real sucky ones, and it’s not forever. It *feels* like forever, but it will change, because you’ll make it change.
And nothing is stopping you from sending your co-worker casseroles and cards when you leave. You’re allowed to keep in touch. If the job is too much for her to handle after you leave, she’s an adult, and she will make her own decisions about her employment.
To sum up: lots of Tomato Nation readers/internet strangers are rooting for you. Keep us posted!
Get mad, get sad, scream and cry and stab a thick magazine with a pen and draw dicks on people’s faces.
Best. Advice. Ever.
I’ve been in your shoes and IT SUCKS. It does. It all sucks and it feels like everything and nothing are all happening at once and it’s overwhelming and whoa.
It’s a tired line, but just the fact that you are reaching out for help is a good good good thing. That’s the thing that I didn’t do, and I found myself getting my stomach pumped before a two-week stay on a locked ward and two years of required therapy. I do not recommend this.
Here’s what I *do* recommend:
1. I would take the civil service job. Like another poster upthread said, once you’re in the system it’s way easier to move around and get other jobs. You just have to get your foot in the door, and it sounds like you’ve got that.
2. Since the CS job isn’t exactly raining cash on you, could you do your current job in a part-time capacity? That would help alleviate some of your cash-flow issues and also might help some of the guilt you feel over ditching Co-Worker.
3. While you have insurance, go to the doctor. Ask them to schedule you for a half-hour appointment (so you’re not rushed) and lay it all out and ask them to help you. You have to start somewhere, and your primary-care is a good place to do that. They can refer you to counseling, if need be, help you get your dietary situation under better control, etc.
4. Weight Watchers. Seriously. Nobody judges you and it feels DAMN GOOD to get up there and be all “I lost 10 pounds already BOOYAH.” The support is amazing and SO HELPFUL. I found that going to meetings in person was better that just doing it online, and I’m socially anxious so it takes a lot to get me out of the house.
5. Go for a walk. Even 20 minutes will help you clear your head and will keep you away from the fridge. 20 minutes might turn into 30. Might turn into an hour. Eventually, you might start running, which might seem impossible now but it happens every day. If that’s not your thing, find some Zumba videos on YouTube or whatever and dance that shit out. Movement will release endorphins which will make your brain go YAAAY! Trust me, exercise is way cheaper than drugs.
6. Don’t give up. You are a valuable, worthwhile, excellent human being. Don’t let life beat you down – wake up awesome and punch it in the throat and MAKE your life what you want it to be.
Please please please look at all the GOOD you have, you’ve got a degree, you’ve got what I’m guessing is at least 10 years experience in this sort of work (you say secretarial but not exactly what type… doesn’t matter…) and you’ve held your current position for more than 5 years. If I’m looking at your resume I see a dependable person who has the experience I need in my office. I can TRAIN a person how to do something different secretarial-wise (example, I manage a law office, I can train you how to be a legal secretary but I can’t train experience, if that made any sense). You’re clearly computer literate because, well, this is the internet so you got here somehow. You’re well written (English degree) and you’re not a quitter. If I’m interviewing you, and you show me that I’m correct about these assumptions I’d hire you over the other 50 applicants I have in front of me based on the 7 years in one position alone.
What I’m saying is, YES take the job offered, but don’t be afraid to look further, I get why civil service jobs are appealing, but don’t be afraid to look out of your field in the private sector. Hell don’t be afraid to look out of your AREA in the private sector. I work outside of DC and I can tell you we go through secretaries at our firm like disposable plates sometimes because no one seems to get that you actually have to COME TO WORK and DO WORK while there. I could tell you so many horror stories. I don’t know what you make or where you live, and obviously cost of living is going to be different everywhere… but someone with your degree and work experience would start out at around $35-40k at my firm, but we’d be paying all but $40 of your health insurance, and into a 401k and into a life insurance plan, and long term disability and we’d give you short term for $30 a month, and a raise every year, and a bonus etc… What I’m saying is you’re super marketable. Don’t doubt yourself. I’ve actually had to train a person how to open a file in Word… as in “click on that little thing that looks like an open folder…” yeah, and we KEPT her. So please. Please realize you’re better than what your current work situation suggests.
Never stay at a job more than 1 year without a raise.
That sounds harsh “in this economy,” but if you are a hard, good worker, you are worth it, and if your company doesn’t agree, you should certainly not be loyal to them. The bottom line is that you deserve better, if for no other reason than because you CARE.
It’s clear you want to improve your life, and step 1 is to leave this job. WHO CARES if something better comes along? You can leave that job for the something better. That is what you are supposed to do if you love yourself! I know… the real issue is that you don’t feel deserving of love, success, or happiness… but you are!
Give yourself permission to be a winner.
I’m not good with advice for all of this, because I am so anxiety prone that I’d be flailing right along with you at all the what ifs and trying to figure out what the right decision is.
I’m just piping up because I saw several folks mention Weight Watchers. I’ve done that before and it works pretty well, but I also wanted to throw in a recommendation for Lose It. (There’s a free iphone/itouch app, or a droid app, or loseit.com website) which serves generally the same purpose…gives you a budget, helps you track what you eat and stick with it, has forums for support and questions. But the one thing it really has over WW to me is it’s free. When I did WW I got really tired of paying, especially if I hit a plateau and wasn’t making progress…felt like I was just paying them to weigh me. :) I know lots of people on the forum who have lost tons of weight, even 100-200lbs. (I lost 70.)
So yeah, don’t mean to get all TRY MY THING! I just know for me, when my life has seemed so stuck in a rut and the anxiety of not knowing what to do has gotten as bad as it seems to have for you…finding that one thing I can take absolute control over actually helped me start getting everything else under control.
(And hey…the eventual drop in your food budget with the progress you make could make the new pay at the job you should totally take stretch even further. :) )
An alternative to WeightWatchers is SparkPeople.com
It’s an online community of people getting healthy. There’s loads of good information and heaps of support. The great thing about SparkPeople is that there are hundreds of people in the same situation as you are, regardless of the position you are in. It starts you off slowly and builds good habits, and then you also feel empowered to make other positive changes in your life AKA the crossover effect.
The other part that will appeal about it. It’s completely free, only requiring you to sign up and log in.
Good luck!
“Keep reminding yourself that you don’t have to feel like this and hate your life; you can change things, you can improve things. Just because this is how it’s always been doesn’t mean this is how it has to be.”
Write this on a slip of paper and tape it to your bathroom mirror, or to your TV, or to your refrigerator, or on the inside lining of your purse, wherever you think you will see it when you most need to see it. Because this is what will help you.
If you do seek therapy, I recommend seeing somebody versed in cognitive behavior techniques. It’s about identifying self-defeating patterns and then overcoming them.
All of the above is totally sound. Another thing I’d add is to make one huge heaping list, but then just focus on whatever is next. One thing. That’s it.
Move whatever is important to the top of the list, and don’t think about any of the rest of it until it’s next. That way, you only have to figure out how you’re going to get X done, not the eleventy billion other things.
@Anne: Really? With the “click here”? Damn.
@Jen S 1.0: I’m a huge Barbara Ehrenreich fan and Bright Sided is next on my reading list (I actually started it but got derailed by a few other books). She’s awesome. And from what I’ve read of it so far, she’s all about giving yourself permission to be really pissed off – I believe she deals with a breast cancer diagnosis and recounts how, when she expresses anger and frustration with having cancer, her support group gives her tons of shit for not thinking positively. And she’s like, wait, but cancer still sucks though, right? I’m not allowed to acknowledge that?
So yes, Coach, acknowledge that. Give yourself that permission. Sometimes life sucks. We’ve all been there. Ain’t no shame in saying it out loud and getting really mad. And then just start trying to make it better. You have a first step in hand – take the new job! And if you get a better one, take it! Doesn’t matter when you get it – a week, a month, a year. I used to feel guilty about quitting jobs too, but we all owe it to ourselves to fight for the life we want.
And I second the recommendation to take a walk. Endorphins are real. And walking or biking or yoga have always been great outlets for me to both feel physically well and to clear my head.
You can do it! I am in the middle of a rough patch (un- and under-employment), and what helps me through is, among other things, remembering something simple that my grandmom and grandpop (two of my absolute favorite people – miss y’all every day, guys) used to say: “This too shall pass.”
Third on the “take a walk” advice. Daily. Start with twenty to thirty minutes and try to take it up to an hour. Not because of some condescending “every little bit helps” weight loss thing but because it will make you feel good. And while you walk, think about what you are going to do tomorrow. Plan out breakfast, lunch and dinner. Think about the book you are going to start reading. What appointment you are going to make. The nice thing you are going to do for yourself. The opportunities you are going to research. When you get home, write it all down and then the next day, check off each item.
Hi, Coach here. Thanks Sars, thanks awesome readers, for all your advice. There’s lots of good stuff here, some of which I’ve tried, some of which I will try.
I want to let you know what’s happened in the two and half months since I wrote this letter. First, as great as all the advice here is, just the act of typing it all out and looking at how objectively crappy it looked on the page helped me take some action. I was offered the CS job and accepted it. I gave my old job a full month’s notice, mainly because I knew my coworker had some vacation scheduled in the third week and I wanted to be there to cover it. I also told them I’d continue to come in one weekend day for as long as they needed, which also is helping me cover the cost of my old health insurance in the 6 weeks until the new job’s insurance kicks in.
The new job is fine, not something I want to be doing for the long haul but it’s an easy paycheck at a job that doesn’t make me miserable, so it’s ok for now. I’m keeping my eyes open for better possibilites, in civil service and in the private sector, and trying to figure out what my “dream job” and “dream life” would look like, so I can take the steps to make them real.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been walking during my lunch hour (old job had me eating at my desk) and that’s helped a lot with my mood. I’ve almost completely eliminated credit card spending, and so I buy junk food less and cook more often, and that, combined with the walking, and counting calories, has me down about 50 lbs from my heaviest weight, and about 20 in the past three months. There is work I still need to do about overeating and my other issues, and I do plan to explore my new insurance’s mental health benefits when it starts in October.
My weekend job still is kind of a misery, though I feel less embroiled since I’m now only there one day a week. My coworker is very ill and will not be getting better. My employers put up a half-assed ad on Craigslist, got about 40 responses, culled them to maybe 15 suitable people, were able to set 5 interviews, of which one person showed up and decided it wasn’t for her. I’ve been gone almost 6 weeks and they still haven’t gotten their act together, and in the meantime my coworker is managing to come in only for a a few hours most days. I did speak with her before I left, and she seemed upset, but the next day she brought me a “congratulations” card and told me she was happy for me. I still have guilt in that corner, because my worst fears about her health and my employers’ ineptitude about replacing me are being realized, and I know she feels as embroiled as I once did. But the fact that no one else seems willing to take that job on those terms makes me realize how short I was really selling myself for those years. And if feeling guilty and sad about leaving is the price I have to pay for getting out, I’ll pay it and call it a bargain.
Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with a friend who is dying? Neither one of us is religious. She’s confided that she is very depressed and angry about this, but it’s hard for us to talk about it because we’re at work and we both get emotional. And I have no idea what to say–my instinct is to try to make it better for her, but there is no making it better. Cancer is always the elephant in the room, and I’d like to help in some way, but everything feels like the wrong thing, so most of our conversations are just about work things, which feel really unimportant right now in the granc scheme of things.
Thank you again for all your advice and support.
No lie. You wouldn’t recognize our faces, but we’re pulling for your hard work to pay off. Believe that it will. Keep at it.
Sometimes all you can do for a friend is offer to listen. Tell her you think what she’s going through sucks; tell her she can tell you whatever she needs to. Tell her you care about her.
@Coach: I thankfully don’t have experience with a friend dying, but when my grandparents were dying (my dad’s parents are gone, my mom’s are still here), I would just go be with them. I sat with my grandmom in the hospital, and I sat with her at home when she received hospice care* at the very end. And we talked about what she wanted to talk about. That was rarely cancer; she knew she was sick and she’d rather talk about where I put the end table she gave me for my first apartment (she died when I was 23) and how dumb I was for thinking the shower curtain she gave me was a tablecloth (dude, it was white and kind of frilly, OK?)
With my grandpop, who passed two years ago, his kidneys were failing and he opted not to pursue treatment. And it was important to him to sit us all down and say, “I’m 86. I’ve had a good life. I saw my grandkids grow up, and a black man made it to the White House. I’m ready.” And it was hard for us to hear, but he needed to say it so we listened.
My point, I guess, is that there’s no right way to deal with this. The best thing to do is just be there for your friend and take your cue from her. If she wants to vent about how unfair it is, agree with her that it’s totally unfair. If she just wants to go for a walk and laugh at random stuff, do that. I think you could even say, “Listen, I’m not sure what the protocol is here, but if you need me, call.” She’ll appreciate that, I’m sure.
And congratulations on your achievements!
*Any hospice care workers reading this: I cannot say enough how much I value the work you do.
Advice on helping a dying friend? Sadly, this I can offer advice about. Make your interactions with your friend who is dying completely judgment-free. She can be angry. She can be enlightened. She can be scared. She can be accepting, and she can be all of these things in one 10-minute conversation, during which, ideally, you will not point out her widely vacillating emotions and/or inconsistent viewpoints. Even more importantly, you won’t make HER console YOU.
She may withdraw as her energy wanes and choose to solely focus on her nearest and dearest. Don’t feel hurt or pushed away. Dying in an intensely personal and private act. Conversely, she may bring you in closer, as you represent a touchstone to the part of her life previously known as normal. Don’t be afraid to chat about the things you always have: work gossip or reality TV or whatever you’ve talked about in the past.
Since you aren’t in her inner circle, don’t be afraid to ask if you can support those who ARE on the front lines. If your co-worker’s sister or spouse or mother is doing a heroic job of being there for her, offer to walk that #1 support person’s dog or bring in their mail or mow their lawn. Most likely, your dying friend is worried about how loved ones will cope and are coping. Helping take care of the #1 support people, even if it’s just by bringing snacks or caffeine or giving them five minutes to go to the bathroom and splash water on their faces while you sit with the patient, probably won’t go unnoticed by the dying person.
If you do find that you are present near the end, say, visiting at the hospital, be quiet when the doctor comes in, even if the doctor only talks to your friend’s #1 support person. A lot of times, people want to be upbeat, chatty and pleasantly distracting to the patient during a hospital visit, and that’s fine, but just because your dying friend is on oxygen and/or seems kind of out of it, doesn’t mean she isn’t keen on listening to the doctor’s updates, especially if the discussion is about the amount of pain medication she can have and when.
No advice here. You deserve an internet high-five for all the stuff you’ve done over the past few months. Dude, you got rid of a shit load of credit card debt, that, in itself, is huge.
I’m in the process of paying of debt and have found the articles & community at Get Rich Slowly to be pretty cool. Oh wait, that was advice. Well then.
Coach, congratulations on the positive changes you’ve made in the last couple of months. That’s awesome.
You mention that you’re trying to figure out what your “dream life” and “dream job” would look like. I highly recommend a book called The Pathfinder. A friend recommended it to me, and I actually went through and did all the dorky little exercises and took the time it told me to take thinking about things, and it really worked for me. I’m switching careers and going off to grad school and generally feel like I have a career direction I’m excited about for the first time ever.
The best thing about the book, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t tell you that if you look deep inside yourself all the answers will come, or that you should just follow your passions (I’ve had plenty of interests in my life, but nothing that called to me as a thing to focus my life on). Instead, the book helps you take an honest look at what you want from a career, and also at what you’re good at, and then gives you the direction to go out into the world and talk to people and do research to find something that fits.
@Coach, great job on all the changes you have made so far.
My Dad is at the beginning of the end stages of cancer. Some days I think the chemo is going to take him out faster than the cancer will. I have had some rough patches dealing with it. A friend recommended the book _Final Gifts_ by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley. They are hospice nurses who have written about the end stages of life. It is directed more for the immediate family and caregivers but it brought me some peace. Maybe it would bring you some peace about the process of dying which would help you when you are with your friend.
Also, the advice about supporting the caregivers is great advice. I know that I’m more worried about my Mom and whether she is taking on too much.
Aw, this whole thread is making me teary-eyed. Coach, I am so proud of you. I don’t have experience with all the issues you’ve mentioned, but enough of them that I definitely sympathize. I’m going to make a slightly off-kilter suggestion here: try checking out Flylady.com. It’s a bit corny, and on the surface it’s about organizing your home, but in the larger sense, it’s about getting your LIFE in order. The author of the site has lots of good advice about how to tackle various projects and problems, and is possibly the cheeriest cheerleader I’ve ever come across. Reading her e-mails is like having a good friend or aunt standing behind you and whispering in your ear: You can do it! I believe in you!
Coach,
The distance you’ve come in your life in the short time since you wrote to Sars is amazing. I hope you realize that! You’ve shown a great deal of decisiveness and self-discipline, and I’m going to bookmark your letter and the responses to read the next time I get into a similar “stuck” place (different issues, same emotions).
About your friend: I agree with Jody’s recommendation of Final Gifts. A very close friend (an ex-boyfriend of mine) died last winter of brain cancer at age 50. I spent a lot of time with him in the last six months of his life, and I found that book very true to my experiences.
I’d also recommend Final Journeys: A Practical Guide for Bringing Care and Comfort at the End of Life, another book by Callanan and Kelley. Both books are written in plain language, with lots of anecdotes as examples, which helped me a lot.
Things you can do for your friend: I second all of what Angie said. My friend was engaged in the outside world, as much as he could be, until very close to his death, so he wanted to know what I was reading and what music I was listening to and what our mutual friends were up to. He didn’t want to be counted out because he was dying.
He needed a lot of rest, so on many of my visits, I would watch for signs that he felt he needed to be entertaining me and to be a good “host.” Then I would look for a natural break in the conversation to say, “Well, anyway, why don’t I finish the chapter in (name of book I was reading), and check in with you in about an hour or so?”
He also liked it when I scratched his head or massaged his hands and neck. People who are very ill often don’t get touched outside of a medical context, and touch is important to everyone. It reminds us that we’re cared for and loved.
Charge, congratulations! I’m happy for and proud of you. I know we’ve never met, but that doesn’t make it not true.
As for your freind, I am so sorry. My only pieces of advice are to check out Anne Lamott’s nonfiction (her fiction’s great too, but in this case, her other stuff). She’s a very funny and occasionally profane writer who talks a lot about dealing with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. (Geez, I recommend a lot of books.)
My other thought is: feelings about dying aren’t linear. That is, I don’t think most people dispair, find peace, and move on in a straight line. Most humans bob back and forth, up and down, and it’s perfectly possible to feel like the Dali Lama’s sister one minute and absolute rage the next.
So even if you don’t automatically feel good after being with your freind, it doesn’t mean you didn’t do good. Six months, a year, ten years from now, when random memories emerge about this time, you may feel sadness, but also grateful that you were able to be there for another human being.
Chances are that the local hospital has a cancer support group. Maybe the two of you can go together. Usually at those, somebody says the thing you’re thinking about, and it doesn’t seem so huge anymore.
I read a pretty good book not long ago called something like, “How to be a Comfort”, not really from a caregiver perspective but more like you, a member of the circle. It had a LOT of info about what is a hurtful way to phrase something, and what is a gentler way to say the same thing. There’s also a lot about how to just sit with a person and let them set the tone. It also had a lot of references for various kinds of support. Depending on if she has a social worker or somebody who can help her, this could be a resource for you to use.
Congratulations on taking such big steps. I think you’re a wonderful person to consider the repercussions on your ill coworker left behind, who presumably still needs the job. I suggest you not worry one bit about what the company will do when she eventually leaves and you are not enough to get all the work done. If they are meant to stay in business, they’ll get busy and hire staff. Thanks so much for the update!
Also, this post might be helpful:
http://captainawkward.com/2011/09/12/reader-question-110-how-do-i-claw-my-way-out-of-this-depressing-living-situation/
In lieu of a life coach, check out Barbara Sher’s stuff, especially Wishcraft, which is helpfully available in its entirety for free online (www.wishcraft.com). Her approach is very practical and down-to-earth and makes mountains look eminently climbable; the book is very positive and inspiring without burbling nonsense about “thinking positive”.
I’m so sorry about your friend.
I just wanted to take a minute to note how compassionate, caring, non judgemental, and thoughtful this thread has been, from Sars’s original advice through all the comments … not that I would expect anything less from the Tomato Nation, but it’s such an uplifting thing to read. So many corners of the internet are full of hate and vitriol, but I always know when I come to TN that I will find intelligent, caring, thought-provoking commentary, from Sars and from all participants.
Coach, I have no good advice, but I wish you all the best and am glad to see your update with the steps forward you have taken and I hope you stay on that path. Your friend is also in my thoughts as she fights her own battle.
Wow, Coach, that’s a lot of progress in a couple of months. Rock on!!
I just want to reiterate how awesome you guys are. I read all this advice through pretty quickly the first time because I wanted to update, but having gone through it again, and checked out the links, and written down the books, YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! I’m going to print all of this out. I don’t think I’ve really given myself permission yet to get really angry, which seems like the catalyst for real and lasting change– I don’t want to settle for a little bit better job and a little bit of weight lost, I want to really go for it, a happy life. I do deserve it.
I’m a huge fan of Anne Lamott’s nonfiction. She’s the only person I’ve ever read who writes about religion in a way that makes me want to sit next to her at a dinner party. I have also read Barbara Ehrenreich and some Geneen Roth, and though what she said felt real and resonated with me, it didn’t make me change. It’s probably time to reread her now that I feel like changing again. I also want to correct a misimpression I gave– I still have the credit card debt, I’ve just mostly eliminated new credit card spending. But I’ll tackle the debt in time.
And @ TLP_Reader, who called me out a little for trying to give myself and others the impression that I’m “such a good person.” You have a point, I will reluctantly admit. I saw myself doing it again when I updated, making sure I told you all that I gave my extra notice. Something else to bring with me to therapy.
I too think Sars should write a book.
Re the credit card debt, you’re on the right path – we’re rooting for you. Good luck and blessings to you and your friend.
Coach, our family has grieved through multiple deaths in the past decade. In each case, a family friend — not the same person for each death, but someone who was not mired in family drama — would step up and become my go-to person to help me coordinate all of the various needs that become apparent on the journey. I needed a box of human wee-wee pads pronto? Twenty people needed to be given an update? I was out of stamps? This person would assist in so many ways, and I will never forget their generosity and kindness. There is someone in your friend’s family who is keeping all the balls in the air and s/he is exhausted at this point. Perhaps you could help your friend and her family by offering this type of personal assistance? You are so obviously organized and kind and competent.