I'm 35 and have never had an issue with my blood pressure until a few months ago. I've also been at my job for four months. Yes, draw those conclusions.
The CEO found out I was moderately competent and have an anxiety driven sense of urgency and need to be organized. Thus, I now do two people's jobs. Yay!
I'm addition, the organization is a mess. High turnover. People don't stay more than a few months. I started in January and there have been 9 people come and go… in an organization of 20…. this isn't including contractors. This is office staff. One of which quit after being bullied for taking a week off to have gallbladder removal surgery — they expected her back 3 days after surgery. Another got bullied for taking time to be with her family after her grandmother passed.
And I struggled — as people left, i got more job duties. I thought it was me. I have one supervisor who is always breathing down my l neck and makes me feel l like I just cannot do anything right. This is a huge anxiety trigger for me. I take pride in my work and try to not make extra work for my coworkers by making mistakes.
I went from taking one anxiety med daily, with something on the side if it gets bad to two different stronger anxiety meds and, well, my “shit hits the fan” anxiety med is now my daily function pill.
I am not a fan. I do not want to get hooked on a benzo.
I posted here two weeks ago because I'm the idiot that found out the hard way that I wasn't hourly, but salaried. Apparently it is not openly discussed unless you ask and you get the side eye. Guess I volunteered 7 hours for my company that I'm not getting paid. Lesson learned. It also doesn't help that I'm given more work that can be completed in 8 hours and expected to take a pay cut if I need to stay late to finish it.
Fucking skeevy.
Last week was pretty awful. My blood pressure won't go down. Had a migraine Tuesday (read: laid in a cold dark room with an ice pack over my face until it went away because light hurt and getting up meant throwing up.
Thursday, it all came to a head. My blood pressure hung out around 160/120 and wouldn't go down. Throw in a bad headache and a mild panic attack and I ended up in the ER for hypertensive crisis.
Thankfully, I did not have a stroke. I now, at 35, take a blood pressure medication and a beta blocker. I got poked, prodded, scanned… all the things. I am okay. Just very stressed and it is starting to take a physical toll on my body.
The happy part of this story is that after I had my hard lesson on being salaried, I started rage applying and got another job in my degree field. It would be a lateral move money wise, but i would be doing what i went to school for. I start two weeks from yesterday.
New job was very specific about being hourly AND rarely staying after hours.
I took Friday off and rested. Came in on Monday to the “breating down my neck” supervisor saying “just an FYI, CEO has made mention you have missed a couple of days”.
My retort, “won't be a problem as I am putting in my two weeks today”.
The surprise Pikachu face was so gratifying, lemme tell you.
Hindsight, I should have said something wittier like “sorry me almost having a stroke was so inconvenient”. But, eh…
But, I will be using the line from Buffy (I work in the mental health field) in my exit interview — “for someone who is an expert in human behavior, you might try showing some”