My company periodically has brown bag seminars. I gave one during my interview process. This week we had an experienced consultant who was maybe late 40's, early 50's and is a women give a talk. She had worked with some of the higher ups in our company on a few projects. During her long introduction, and during her mention in my project ops meeting in the am, my big boss decided to mention that she had taken many years off and worked independently from her home to take care of her mother with alzheimer's. I'm not sure why this information is pertinent. Was big boss trying to say,
she is such a hard worker, she even worked while taking care of her mother,
give her a break since she's been at home taking care of her mother
or I don't know. But this is how big boss is, very personal and into other people's personal business.
I watched the speakers face to see her impression of this type of information being told to a room full of strangers and the only emotion I could pick out was sadness, as her mother passed away about a year ago.
Its frustrating that big boss thinks nothing is wrong with sharing this information or that this type of information is important when formulating a professional opinion of someone. I wish I could get into his head and understand his reasoning.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Running
On a positive note, I've now clocked in some of my longest runs, a 7 miler, 9 miler and 8 miler*!! I actually felt great. On the 7 miler there was a killer hill from Marine Terrace 3 to Marine Terrace 4 that I had to walk up but that was three weeks ago so I'm itching to get back and try it again. The other runs have also been very hilly because my race is very hilly. Last Sunday we did the second half of the 1/2 marathon course and I'm more confident now about my ability to complete the race. Saturday night I didn't sleep well and had nightmares about getting lost. But we didn't. We did learn that we will cross a stream at least three times during the race and that maybe 50% of the single track portion is very scary! Deadly cliffs on one side, lots of tree roots and some really skinny turns. Now my main goal besides to finish is to not trip.
Maybe not my best choice for my first 1/2 marathon and definitely no PR's will be set but it's going to be a lot of fun and good energy. Five more weeks of training! Next week-end we are running a 6 mile race. That should help with getting into the race mode. The weeks after that are going to be more difficult for training since I'll be traveling. I won't have my long run partner and since I'll be away I won't have my familar trails and being on vacation makes scheduling running time more complicated. I'm just going to have to map out my runs before I travel and then get up early to complete them.
As it stands now I do one sprinty type run and one shortish run alone (or with my husband), then one sprinty type run and the long run with my running partner.
I'm exciting about this new found fun.
*I don't always trust how accurate google maps are, the runs were between 1.5 to 2.0 hours.
Maybe not my best choice for my first 1/2 marathon and definitely no PR's will be set but it's going to be a lot of fun and good energy. Five more weeks of training! Next week-end we are running a 6 mile race. That should help with getting into the race mode. The weeks after that are going to be more difficult for training since I'll be traveling. I won't have my long run partner and since I'll be away I won't have my familar trails and being on vacation makes scheduling running time more complicated. I'm just going to have to map out my runs before I travel and then get up early to complete them.
As it stands now I do one sprinty type run and one shortish run alone (or with my husband), then one sprinty type run and the long run with my running partner.
I'm exciting about this new found fun.
*I don't always trust how accurate google maps are, the runs were between 1.5 to 2.0 hours.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Therapy: Part 2
I've decided the best way to frame this is to just explained what has happened so far in my weekly sessions (4?), this should likely spark some talking points.
I found my therapist through the recommendation of my primary doctor. As I explained I went to her first and she wanted to put me on drugs (which readers have said I shouldn't be adverse to), but I'm not ready to go that route yet. I told her I needed help finding a therapist and she told me to look on my provider page for my insurance. Sure, I had done this already but there are 10's of therapist out there to choose from. Turns out my doctors mom is also a therapist, so I was recommended to her and looked her up on my insurance web site. Therapist (as I'll call her) turned out to be a 5 minuet walk from my house. I took this to be a sign of fate and called to make an appointment.
Although I don't like to talk about my feelings I am a very chatty person-especially when nervous-so in the first couple of sessions my therapist learned a lot about my life. Not deep dark secretes but an outline of my life; my different dads, boyfriends, age of first sexual experience, all about graduate school and the different places I've lived, ect. We also talked a lot about my current job. Two sessions ago I told therapist that I didn't like going to therapy and that I felt silly. She seemed shocked and was very calm and said therapy isn't silly. I told her I didn't think therapy was silly but I felt silly talking to her. I mean I have to set up my whole life for her so she can know where I'm coming from and how is this really helping? I felt like I should just be able to find a good friend, vent about my life and feel better. But I confessed that this hadn't worked, trying to eat healthier and exercise more didn't work. Telling myself that I'm smart and capable hadn't worked. I still have this darkness, this feeling of dread, when I'm trying to do something that is new to me. Like I've written before, I have this fear of failure that prevents me from trying, and when something starts to get difficult I don't feel challenged I feel defeated.
So, after the "I feel silly session," I went back and the therapist decided to tell me her diagnoses. She said I have a mild underlying depression (and gave it a fancy word I can't remember) that probably started when I was a child (I saw my father die from a heart failure and had to call 911). Unfortunately I had to disagree with her. My depression feeling didn't start until I started writing my masters thesis, then got better and then went up and down toward the end of my dissertation, getting really bad while in post doc town. I remember being a happy child and while I've had a lot of hard things happen to me and may have felt sad at times I don't remember feeling depressed. This is not to say that my life up until graduate school didn't create this poor way of dealing with stress that I'm just now having to deal with, I just, didn't think I was depressed as a child.
So I feel a little weary of my therapist and am not sure how much it's helping. She was receptive to my comments and said, well, then we will have to deal with this issue.
I've started two new projects that I'm now the project manager on because-oh yeah didn't I tell you- my supervisor has quit for a new position. So here I am again being given a new project where I'll have little supervision and I'm going to have to learn new things. Yesterday I had that same feeling of trying to do something I don't know anything about and feeling stressed that I don't have the "consulting time" to do it and so instead of just busting some ass and doing things I feel like I shouldn't even give it a try.
I really wish I had a magic wand that could just make this feeling go away.
I found my therapist through the recommendation of my primary doctor. As I explained I went to her first and she wanted to put me on drugs (which readers have said I shouldn't be adverse to), but I'm not ready to go that route yet. I told her I needed help finding a therapist and she told me to look on my provider page for my insurance. Sure, I had done this already but there are 10's of therapist out there to choose from. Turns out my doctors mom is also a therapist, so I was recommended to her and looked her up on my insurance web site. Therapist (as I'll call her) turned out to be a 5 minuet walk from my house. I took this to be a sign of fate and called to make an appointment.
Although I don't like to talk about my feelings I am a very chatty person-especially when nervous-so in the first couple of sessions my therapist learned a lot about my life. Not deep dark secretes but an outline of my life; my different dads, boyfriends, age of first sexual experience, all about graduate school and the different places I've lived, ect. We also talked a lot about my current job. Two sessions ago I told therapist that I didn't like going to therapy and that I felt silly. She seemed shocked and was very calm and said therapy isn't silly. I told her I didn't think therapy was silly but I felt silly talking to her. I mean I have to set up my whole life for her so she can know where I'm coming from and how is this really helping? I felt like I should just be able to find a good friend, vent about my life and feel better. But I confessed that this hadn't worked, trying to eat healthier and exercise more didn't work. Telling myself that I'm smart and capable hadn't worked. I still have this darkness, this feeling of dread, when I'm trying to do something that is new to me. Like I've written before, I have this fear of failure that prevents me from trying, and when something starts to get difficult I don't feel challenged I feel defeated.
So, after the "I feel silly session," I went back and the therapist decided to tell me her diagnoses. She said I have a mild underlying depression (and gave it a fancy word I can't remember) that probably started when I was a child (I saw my father die from a heart failure and had to call 911). Unfortunately I had to disagree with her. My depression feeling didn't start until I started writing my masters thesis, then got better and then went up and down toward the end of my dissertation, getting really bad while in post doc town. I remember being a happy child and while I've had a lot of hard things happen to me and may have felt sad at times I don't remember feeling depressed. This is not to say that my life up until graduate school didn't create this poor way of dealing with stress that I'm just now having to deal with, I just, didn't think I was depressed as a child.
So I feel a little weary of my therapist and am not sure how much it's helping. She was receptive to my comments and said, well, then we will have to deal with this issue.
I've started two new projects that I'm now the project manager on because-oh yeah didn't I tell you- my supervisor has quit for a new position. So here I am again being given a new project where I'll have little supervision and I'm going to have to learn new things. Yesterday I had that same feeling of trying to do something I don't know anything about and feeling stressed that I don't have the "consulting time" to do it and so instead of just busting some ass and doing things I feel like I shouldn't even give it a try.
I really wish I had a magic wand that could just make this feeling go away.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Therapy
I should have done a follow up post many weeks ago but have been putting if off. Well I'm going to put it off again. I have another therapy session today and I'll post later this week (hopefully) about how it's going.
In general, I hate talking about my feelings so therapy is pretty lame but I'm sure it will help in the long run and positive it won't help in the short term-these things take time.
The therapist I ended up choosing is well, old, but she seems sweet and nice and I'm comfortable talking with her but I keep wondering if it would be better to get someone who might understand me more-but then I think of all her experience and how that might be helpful, and I think about having to do the start up appointments with an entirely new person and that well, sounds lame.
In general, I hate talking about my feelings so therapy is pretty lame but I'm sure it will help in the long run and positive it won't help in the short term-these things take time.
The therapist I ended up choosing is well, old, but she seems sweet and nice and I'm comfortable talking with her but I keep wondering if it would be better to get someone who might understand me more-but then I think of all her experience and how that might be helpful, and I think about having to do the start up appointments with an entirely new person and that well, sounds lame.
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