Burnt out by people
I’m 34, F, married and still being bullied by other adults. I’ve been bullied on and off since daycare before I was even in preschool. I’m so tired of trying to move forward, be positive, and expect a new outcome by meeting new people or starting a new job.
Fortunately, I was able to quit my job since my husband said he can support us while I maintain the house and care for our dog. But I’ve felt guilty the last 2 weeks not working a job and mostly being home not talking to people. At the same time, when I think about applying to even easy jobs, I figure I won’t get hired anyway because I’m so untrusting of people right now and it shows.
I want to be able to live a normal life and financially support myself again, but I don’t even know what job I could do at this point. I feel so useless.
@Fantasy111Fanatic
You are not useless at all.
You've just sadly been surrounded by not so nice people.
And it's taken its effect.
It's important that for now, you rest, accept your husband's support and build up your own assertion, and self esteem before you decide on any decisions, moving forward 💚🤗
@Amanda84 Thank you. I really appreciate that. My husband and my mom are both “tough love” kind of people so the fact you said I deserve to focus on my self esteem means a lot…
At my last job, I was working at a homeless shelter as a caseworker assistant/intake worker. I really liked my clients but we had to work with 2 other nonprofit organizations and one organization would try to make us do stuff out of our job description. The other would refuse phone calls and deny that they got our emails that we were sending over a client to get a bed at their homeless shelter, and the homeless client would come back anxious and tell us the place refused them a bed.
And then I had a coworker who said she wanted to be my friend and she found my cell number from our roster and texted me. After a few weeks, I guess she decided she didn’t like me anymore, and told our boss that I was texting her and she didn’t like it, even though she was the one who started texting me first! So then she made it seem like I was unprofessional and trying to pressure friendship onto her. It was so two-faced.
After that, she would snap at me for stupid stuff. She told me to focus on doing client assessments and not check ins, and so I did. One client assessment took 40 minutes because he was schizophrenic. After, she yelled at me for taking so long because she was alone doing check ins! And she said “Queen, that is not okay. But whatever. I don’t need help now. I got it on my own.” It was so rude. She did other stuff like that too.
And then the stress from work was causing my husband and I to argue a lot really badly because I’d come home and want to be alone but he’d get mad about it. I finally felt like I had to choose between saving my relationship or my job.
@Fantasy111Fanatic
That person at works sounds toxic and I'm sorry she twisted everything to make you look wrong. Doing what prioritises you now is more important 💚
@Fantasy111Fanatic
While you have the time maybe you feel it would be good to deal with your feelings and try to figure out why you feel bullied by others. Are you a people pleaser?
There will always be bullies but they pick on those whom they feel they can an easy target. Moving from new jobs or situations does not change that. every place I have ever worked had some sort of replication of a bully/ a whiner/ a lazy incompetent that was best friend with boss etc.
I was often an easy target at work because I was always willing to do things like change schedule stay late take the mundane project etc. Only when I stood up for myself did not back down did the bully look for some other target. The only plus of new place is you can set your boundaries from the start. You have an advantage ...that spouse can support your household.. People who are sole support have to have job often cannot be choosy, they just need the paycheck
Have you considered temp work.?
When taking a 6-month assignment for example you can not only show them your skills and worth, but you can see the office dynamics and atmosphere (see the bullies),
Then you can access if you would want to stay as often temps are offered jobs.
@toughTiger6481 I’m not really a people pleaser. I’m more like an avoidant. People yell at me, and I shut down. And then I get anxiety, go to my office and start sobbing uncontrollably. I’m on medication for my mental health problems, but they’re really hard to manage. In school, I was physically bullied and tricked a lot. In work places, I’m often isolated by coworkers when I start getting good at my job, I’m yelled at, sabotaged (ie. They change the scheduling on the computer so I get less hours, take my commission, tell lies to our boss, etc.) and I’m just so tired of being treated badly when all I try to do is be fair.
At my last job at the homeless shelter as I mentioned in my other comment, I was bullied really bad by this one chick, Lauren. And that was after when I started working there, I told our boss I felt I should take Lauren’s current schedule so she could get her old schedule she preferred. I did that to show that I respected her being at the job longer than me. And she still back stabbed me.
And I don’t think that’s people pleasing. I just thought it was fair she got the better schedule when I was brand new and she’s proven herself to the company.
I decided I’m going to volunteer at the shelters I worked at. I’m going to volunteer in the kitchen making and serving meals, and I’m also going to volunteer in donation organization. That way, I can gradually get back into my field and make some connections as references for when I apply for the other homeless organization. It’ll be good because I enjoy that work, but then I don’t have to deal with my previous coworkers much.