I’ve fought too hard to get this far to let work, exhaustion and old habits become my entire life again.
So, that’s another week back at work. A full week, with proper working days, commuting into London, meetings, responsibilities and all the usual rubbish that comes with having a job. On paper, that’s progress. A few weeks ago, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to manage a few hours at my desk. Now I’m getting through entire working days, dealing with people, making decisions and remembering that I’m actually pretty bloody good at what I do.
I should be feeling proud of myself. And somewhere underneath everything, I suppose I am. But I’m also frustrated. Angry, even. And increasingly worried that I’m slipping back into the very routines that made my life so fucking miserable just six or eight months ago.
Because here’s the thing. I didn’t survive my darkest moment just to go back to the same fucking existence!!!!
The Old Programming Is Still There
On Thursday on the train into London, before the working day has even started, my brain is already running scenarios. What if I’m late? What if somebody notices? What if I leave too early? What if somebody decides I’m not doing enough?
It’s exhausting. And utterly ridiculous when I actually examine it.
I’ll arrive at the office and see people wandering in well after me without a care in the world. People leave at different times, take breaks, have conversations, get on with their days. Nobody seems particularly concerned. Yet somehow I’ve convinced myself that I’m operating under a completely different set of rules.
I know where some of this comes from. I’ve worked in environments where every minute felt monitored. Where leaving before five o’clock attracted comments. Where being seen to work was sometimes as important as the work itself. I’ve also been on the management side of things, and I know how organisations can use records, attendance, and seemingly insignificant details to build a case against somebody.
So perhaps my fears aren’t entirely irrational. They’re based on things I’ve experienced and witnessed. But that doesn’t mean they’re helping me now.
Still Trying to Be a Good Boy
On Friday, I found myself staying online after everyone else had signed off. Not because there was something urgent to finish, but because some part of me wanted to be seen as a good boy. The obedient employee. The one who couldn’t possibly be accused of not doing enough.
I’m fifty years old. I’ve held senior positions, managed teams across the globe, delivered at least a couple of award-winning complex projects, and dealt with some pretty serious professional challenges. Yet here I am, worrying about whether I’ve been a good boy.
For fuck’s sake!!!!!!!!
The Frustration With Other People
There’s another side to this that I’m not particularly proud of.
I get frustrated with people who seem to treat work as a social activity, or who appear to operate at a pace that makes a glacier look enthusiastic. I don’t particularly care what somebody does if it doesn’t affect me. But when their work affects mine, when something needs doing, and people seem unable to recognise the urgency, it drives me absolutely mad.
I’ve been in situations where I’ve practically had to stand behind people during emergencies to keep them focused. I hated doing it. I knew it was uncomfortable for them, and it certainly wasn’t pleasant for me. But sometimes it felt like the only way to get something important done.
And perhaps that’s part of my problem. I take responsibility for things. Sometimes things that aren’t mine to carry. I keep problems in my head long after I should have put them down. I expect a situation-appropriate sense of urgency, commitment, and accountability, and I struggle when others don’t seem to share those expectations.
Maybe some people genuinely could work harder. Maybe some organisations tolerate far more inefficiency than they should.
I don’t expect people to spend every minute chained to their desks. Christ, I’ve worked in places where we were actively encouraged to take time back after particularly demanding periods. In my first major role, if we worked a weekend or long hours, we’d be told to ‘fuck off home’ early, or taken to the pub and told not to come back. If you worked hard and delivered, the effort was rewarded.
Perhaps I also work too intensely. Perhaps what frustrates me is when somebody else’s lack of urgency becomes my problem, when their delays affect my responsibilities, and I find myself carrying the consequences, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m so bloody tired at the end of a week.
Work. Recover. Work. Repeat.
And this is the part that’s really frightening me. That by Friday evening, I’m exhausted. Not just physically tired, but mentally drained from the constant vigilance, the commuting, the meetings, the responsibilities and the endless internal conversations about whether I’m doing enough.
It’s Friday night, and it’s not even eight o’clock, and all I want is the comfort of my bed. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes an early night is exactly what you need.
But I look at my weekend and realise I have no plans. Nothing particularly exciting to look forward to. No evening out, no gathering with friends, no new experience waiting around the corner.
Just another weekend recovering sufficiently to go back to work on Monday. And suddenly I recognise the pattern.
Work. Recover. Work. Recover. Repeat…
Weeks become months. Months become years. And somewhere along the way, life becomes something you endure rather than something you experience.
I’ve lived that way before, & I cannot go back to it.
Perhaps Being Angry Is Actually a Good Thing
There’s something I’ve been thinking about since Friday evening. I’m annoyed. Really fucking annoyed, if this is what annoyed feels like.
Annoyed that I’m still worrying about things I know shouldn’t matter so much. Annoyed that work occupies so much of my mental space. Annoyed that I’m exhausted. Annoyed that my weekends feel empty. Annoyed that, after everything I’ve been through, the old patterns are still there waiting for me.
But perhaps there’s something positive in that anger. Because, in the past I think I might previously have simply accepted it.
I would have gone to work, come home exhausted, spent the weekend recovering and repeated the process. I might have complained occasionally, but fundamentally I would have treated it as the way life was supposed to be.
Now I’m questioning it. More than that, I’m rejecting it.
Of course, being angry isn’t going to magically create friendships, fill my weekends or stop my brain inventing workplace disasters. I know that. But perhaps it can be the thing that stops me simply accepting the situation. Perhaps it can push me to have the difficult conversations, make the plans, protect my time and start building something different, even if I have to do it slowly.
I Want an Ordinary Life. Just Not My Old One.
I’m beginning to recognise that being able to work full-time isn’t necessarily the same as being well enough to sustain a full and satisfying life alongside work. And perhaps that’s something I need to discuss with my therapist, because I don’t want the success of returning to work to become the thing that undermines the rest of my recovery.
I need time to rest, certainly. But I also need time and energy to explore, connect and actually live, to have an ordinary life.
When I talk about wanting an ordinary life, I don’t mean returning to my old routine. I mean the ordinary life I see other people enjoying. Particularly other gay men who seem to have friendships, communities, relationships, adventures, weekends away, spontaneous evenings and people who actually want to spend time with them.
I don’t expect every weekend to be exciting. I don’t expect happiness to be permanent. I know ordinary life includes boredom, disappointment, loneliness, sadness and all the other messy things that come with being human.
But I want some of the good stuff too. I want to be a gay man living his life, not just an employee recovering from his working week.
And right now, I’m frightened that there simply isn’t enough of me left at the end of the day to make that happen.
The Dark Moment Was Supposed to Change Something
This is probably the hardest part to explain.
A few weeks ago, I experienced the darkest moment of my life. It was terrifying, and it could have ended very differently.
In the period afterwards, something changed. For a little while, I experienced a sense of calm and clarity that I’d been missing for years. I felt stronger. More grounded. More connected to myself. I began to think that perhaps I could finally stop being so frightened of everything.
And I hoped that experience might become more of a turning point- no, not a turning point. I hoped I would be able to recognise and hold onto a part of the strength it took to step back from the edge. To take some of that strength, that energy, that unexpected sense of hope, and turn it into something powerful. Something that would finally allow me to stand up for myself, tell people to go get fucked when necessary, and stop being so bloody frightened of everything.
Now I’m back at work, worrying about arriving at 8:30, leaving at 17:30, whether somebody noticed I signed off, and whether tomorrow will bring some imagined confrontation.
Where did that stronger version of me go?
I know change doesn’t happen overnight. I know decades of habits don’t simply disappear because something profound has happened. But knowing that doesn’t stop me feeling disappointed.
Sometimes I feel as though I’ve let myself down. As though I was given a glimpse of a different way of living and somehow failed to hold on to it.
I Haven’t Worked It Out Yet
I wish I could finish this by saying I’ve found the answers, I haven’t. I’m still frightened of slipping backwards. I’m still exhausted. I’m still trying to understand how to be a capable, conscientious professional without allowing work to consume everything else.
There are moments when I feel proud of what I’ve achieved. There are moments when I feel stronger. And there are moments when I feel as though I’m right back where I started.
But perhaps progress isn’t always about feeling better.
I survived my dark moment. I returned to work. I’ve proved that I’m still capable of doing difficult things. But I don’t want survival and professional competence to be the sum total of my achievements.
I want a life. A proper, messy, interesting, occasionally boring, sometimes wonderful life.
And perhaps the fact that I’m so bloody annoyed at not having that life yet is a sign that something inside me has really changed. I’m not willing to go back to merely existing. I want more than that.
I haven’t worked out how to get there yet. But at least I’m no longer pretending that what I had before was enough.