Aw Gudanov... this is hard. I'm so sorry. You can find your way through this.

And... looks like we might be heading toward third elections, if there will be no last minute surprises. I don't have words anymore to what happens here. I mean, I do, but it looks like they lost their meaning and impact.

On my professional capacity, all I see on that Zillow listing is asbestos and lead remediation. Argh.

Gudanov, I want you to vent here. I try not to sound critical, but supportive which is what you really need.

FWIW, I think you'd do well with a therapist who does CBT because that can help you spot where your thinking is going off the rails logically. I mean: you were in a meeting, at work, expected as a courtesy to your employer and fellow employees to turn off your phone. I mean, I can imagine exceptions being made, like if your spouse is going to go into labor, or a loved one is in the hospital in critical condition.

But a power outage is rarely that time critical, unless somebody in your family is on oxygen or an iron lung. I doubt, other than sad inconvenience, waiting an hour before calling it in is actually of much importance.

The other side of this is, why, if your wife could call you, why couldn't she call the power company herself? Why is it ONLY your responsibility?

I am actually kind of interested in asking what is your wife's thinking in not taking responsibility for this power outage? She's the one at home, she's the one being actually inconvenienced -- you're out at work, making a living so that the mortgage is being paid and the electricity isn't being turned off for nonpayment.

What constitutes your failure in this situation? It seems to me that the only action you could have taken was to not turn off your phone, but that's what we're supposed to do at work when we're doing critical work, and that does include paying full attention during meetings. If you're already sticking out like a sore thumb in your department because your wife is calling you a couple times a day with problems and complaints, that's a problem that could impact your job.

Not answering the phone for an hour is not a failure, most especially when there is a perfectly able adult -- ON THE SCENE AT HOME WHERE THE POWER IS OUT -- able to call the power company her own self. (Is it one of those automated phone trees like my local EverSource uses? They repeat the address back to you and tell you that it's been added to the queue -- or most likely that the outage is already being addressed and should be back on within X hours, et cetera.)

Unless it's a local-to-your-house power outage, calling in doesn't speed up the process of getting the power back on. All it does is reassure you that the power company is aware of it, so you can curse the darkness a little more accurately.

It is not a failure. If that's what your wife is telling you, she's not thinking straight. If she expects you to be instantly available no matter what you're doing, and if you're not you're a failure, she's not thinking straight.

I know you want to be there 110% for your wife, but her thinking is not straight, and she's making expectations, and grading your performance on a busted set of curves that NO human being is going to be competent enough to achieve.

I kind of never want to apply for a job again. We are still, at my job, trying to convince people that being in charge of admissions and registration is as high a level as low level instructional design (which so far has been typing things into Blackboard and making them work), so I may have to. One idea is to make a generic "project manager" job, and then assign me to my old job so that I can develop business processes that can be replicated, and then move on to other areas of the school that need fixing.

I have probably my last therapy appointment with EAP. I love this therapist. I am not sure if I will continue. She is not necessarily encouraging me to stop, but I only have one more EAP appointment left and then I will need to move on to someone else if I want to. What I did learn is that I was really missing my weekly check in with my old boss, and this satisfies that need, but now my weekly check in is back, at least temporarily because I am doing my old job.

Even if you weren't doing your old job, or aren't again in the future, I bet your old boss wouldn't mind doing a 15 minute or half hour checkin/coffee with you, Sophia!

One thing about your linkedin profile, msbelle, does the job title you're using accurately reflect the kind of title the jobs you're looking at have? I wouldn't worry about what your current job is but one that you want to get.

Gud different people need different therapists and therapy. I found DBT therapy to be really helpful and for awhile I bounced around to different therapists before I found one that helped.

DBT therapy and the group therapy I did a few years ago were really helpful because they focused on concrete things and actions rather than just on my actual emotions. I often had a hard time explaining or even recognizing how I felt or why I reacted a certain way so learning specific skills from DBT and then how trauma effects us and how we react to it really helped me a lot. Something like that may help you as well

Theodosia, and others, covered my thoughts. We love you, Gud. We want this to be your safe place to vent. But the advice is generally when you see something say something, so we have to do so.

Went to court today with my son for the 5th or 6th time I think. Case dropped, dismissed, done. Finally. Hope to get some better sleep tonight.

Certification testing starts at 1PM today. An abundance of pass this stuff is really needed. 6 hours today, then another session either tomorrow or Friday, and then a third. It is pure torture. And the future of my business kinda depends on passing.

That's a hell of a day, Laura! Hope the testing goes as well as court did.

Love and ~ma to you, Laura.

I'm giving myself a bit more sleep than usual with the winter that's finally here (though some of you may laugh at it and call it fall), but it's 5:00 pm here and I r-e-a-l-l-y want to nap. Instead I've got almost two hours of work ahead of me followed by an hour of studying, then grocery store and then a meeting to wrap things with my ex-landlady (and getting money that's needed back, yay!). And then, possibly, some sports because my migraines are terrible lately with the weather change and cardio training helps.

You may see now why I want this nap to happen.