So yesterday I had a great talk with my boss. At least, I think it was great. It really seemed that way. Until I thought about it later. No, I'm still convinced it was good.
It started with the need to explain that although a significant part of the job of a biomedical researcher is to keep up to date on relevant literature, and, especially when forming new hypotheses to read up on past literature, this part of my job just ain't happening right now. I told him I just couldn't focus on reading papers. Now, he is a psychiatrist, and he is very adept at using gentle questions to great effect in drawing out everything I didn't particularly want to share.
He started with 'How do you mean?' Which led to the explanation that it required a concerted effort ahead of time to read one sentence and it took half an hour to read a paragraph. A series of 'But why?'s led only to my sputtering attempts to explain that my brain 'just went away in the middle' Very eloquent. I also explained that over the weekend when attempting to read a paper my mind went so far away that I stared at the laptop screen, it went black, the battery wore down, and I finally had to shut the computer off. His response. 'Oh, that's bad.' Which I guess was my goal in sharing that unnecessarily harsh picture of myself, but I have no idea why I felt compelled to make myself look as useless and pathetic as possible.
My stash of Ritalin came up (hopefully I do not now seem to be a junkie.) But I expressed doubt that a sudden onset of massive ADD symptoms was responsible for the current trouble. Then came the idea that perhaps Ritalin would help some now if it had helped in the past. I made a face and explained that if I take Ritalin when I'm anxious 'I kinda turn into a freak' Again, eloquent and appropriate for the workplace.
We got through a few more stages of 'But, why?'s, which led to the admission of the fact that in the last month I have stopped taking two drugs with psychoactive side effects (I have bad asthma) and subsequently lost 15 pounds. I expressed the view that perhaps my brain just needs to equilibrate.
Although I had started this whole thing with the goal of explaining why I was a useless employee for the time being (or rather, just telling him that I was, I guess I don't actually have a reason do I) I suddenly saw a light. I explained that I was able to do analyses. So after telling him with eyes brimming with tears that my productivity was temporarily at 0, I then proceeded to explain that in the previous 24 hours I had completed several tasks which we had expected would take days. Just not the tasks that involved reading papers. Those, not happening, for the foreseeable future.
So the end result was probably mostly that my boss thinks I'm an ADD, anxiety-ridden bipolar mess, and that my standard for what I consider productivity is ridiculously high.
I did not cry, which I'm rather proud of, because despite being someone who really, really, almost NEVER cries, I have cried in front of all but one of my advisors. The one I have not cried in front of is one I admitted a depression to, and explained that when depressed I stop eating, and therefore had been subtly avoiding lunch with my coworkers. For two weeks he would gather me up by simply saying, 'Its lunchtime, Anna.' And then if I was pushing food around on my plate too much I would notice him staring at my plate. Not me, just the plate, but I got the hint. So despite lack of actual tears, I'm pretty sure he saw all the craziest parts of my psyche.
I may well, at some point, cry in front of this boss, but I think this would have been the time. The tears were in my eyes, can't deny it, but they never actually crossed my lid. If one had flooded over and actually gone down my face, then I would have to acknowledge that I cried. This meant that I had to avoid blinking for an extended period of time and keep my eyes very open. You know when you're in that state? And you can feel the tears hovering there. But if you keep your head up, eyes open, and don't blink, they don't actually spill over. The other thing that can kill you is the voice. The 'lump in your throat' If that comes up too big, and you try to speak, but the words don't come out, its just too obvious. Obviously the first thing is to keep your mouth shut and don't try to speak if you know it isn't going to work. The last thing you want is some croaky sound coming out. However, in one-on-one situations a prolonged silence on your part can be enough of a dead give-away that the result is the same. You start to cry, not because of whatever made you about to cry, you cry because you know the other person now knows without a doubt that you were about to cry. And as you're crying you think 'God if only I could have held it together a few more seconds I would have been fine and now here I am looking like a mess with tears streaming down my face.'
After all, none of us cry beautifully like they do on TV. Eyes slightly red, shimmering, then a tear streaks down a pale face. Now, I can't say I've ever run to the mirror to see what I look like while crying, I'm usually too busy burying my head in a pillow such that no one will see or hear it. But I've witnessed others, and I'm pretty sure I look the same. Face red and patchy, body sort of occassionally convulsing as if you have terrible irregular hiccups. Eyes rimmed bright red, with the whites, well, red, you could be mistaken for a sudden onset of pink eye in both eyes. And god forbid you're a woman wearing makeup. Black tears running down someone's face are enough to make you leave the eyeliner at home (I for some bizarre reason don't trust waterproof eye makeup. If I get caught in a downpour is it really going to stay firmly in place? I doubt it.) I suppose I should not have been so sexist with that statement. Plenty of men wear eyeliner, but I haven't witnessed the effect if they cry while wearing it. Does it look as pathetic as on a woman? Oh well. I have strayed far off course haven't I.
I'm a terrible editor, so its not like I can say, hmmmm, let's chop out all that crying stuff and kill it, or save it for another post. Nope, that's why the blog is called Random Thoughts. I'm random and unlikely to stay on topic for very long. Particularly since I'm essentially having a conversation with myself here.
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