I have been on maternity leave for 12 months and am returning to work soon. One of my resolutions was to be a bit tougher upon my return. I worked up until 1 week before due date but ended up in a bad place mentally as I took on too much work and any attempts to talk it over with line manager were met with a wall of silence. I told the CEO I was pregnant in person (small organisation) who after this time spoke to me like I was something you would scrape off your shoe.
In hindsight I wish I'd spoken up for myself more and challenged times when more work was put on me. I want to research how to do this in a calm and professional way. My response before would be to despair about it (usually cry in the work toilet/train home) and then stay up until 2am to get it done to a deadline of the next day.
I have a new line manager now - they started just a few days before my maternity leave - so I want to turn over a new leaf and see my return to work as a chance to reinvent myself.
Any suggestions of materials that I could mull over that may help? The culture of the organisation is overall good, plus I enjoy the work when there's not immense pressure under ridiculous deadlines. So I'm keen to stay.
I definitely suffer with imposter syndrome which doesn't help, I think this was heightened with CEOs obvious change in attitude to me during pregnancy (my colleagues also noticed this change).
Thanks!