Looking for honest opinions

[TipsyPlumUser]

I work in the public relations industry. I came back to it seven months ago after a break of almost 10 years due to drumroll please… Child raising, aggressive breast cancer, domestic abuse.

I was working during that break, but I spent my time in social care roles working in areas that dealt with children and adult trauma.

to begin with, I really loved the job. My direct line manager is incredibly supportive of me and has stood by me when I had to take extended mental health leave due to being diagnosed with PTSD. It’s like all of the events that I’ve been through crashing down around me. The trouble is outside of me and my line manager.. The young and very enthusiastic person who came in second for my job was also hired into another role within the wider team and since then he has been telling everybody. How he came in 2nd to me. He is incredibly well connected and was in the industry elsewhere so knows a lot of people within the organisation already and has key contacts outside of it. Me, on the other hand, doesn’t know anyone and I’m starting fresh. Occasionally he has asked to cover our team inbox out for lunch and there is a recurring theme of him taking my work and completing it whilst I’m out and when I was on leave, he stepped in to offer some cover for the team and our head of department said on the all team meeting how he very clearly is born to do my job.

I returned from my mental health leave six weeks ago and the first five weeks went fine but within the last week I felt the young team member has been getting involved in my work to the extent that I was waiting on some information from a contact who had already briefed him and I was told to wait until he could brief me. I now have zero confidence and feel very unsettled yesterday I spoke to my boss and was trying to explain everything professionally except I burst into tears two days before in a meeting my mind went blank and I said how my brain is offline.

I tried talking to my partner about it, but he’s a senior manager at his workplace and is very solution focused so he doesn’t really get the emotions and that I need to vent and panic. if I’m truthful, I tend to think I’m doing the wrong thing or not doing a good job wherever I work and I’m prone to burn out. I just would like to hear what normal people would do in this situation.. I don’t feel like I fit there but I don’t feel like I fit anywhere.

Speaking honestly and obviously only based off what you've written, it sounds as though (completely understandably given what you've been through) you're still quite fragile and probably experiencing quite an heightened reaction to a relatively commonplace work problem. The freezing, mind goes blank and catastrophising /panicking sounds very-PTSD/trauma driven reaction, are you still going through treatment for your PTSD? Don't get me wrong, your young colleague does sound really annoying and I think it would be natural to feel irritated by him taking over your work and/or insecure or comparing yourself negatively to him when lots of positive comments are being made about him by others (I think most people would feel the same), but I think your context and situation is probably causing you to feel as though it's much more of a problem and much more personal than it is. Do you have a counsellor or therapist you can talk this over with and perhaps develop and practice some coping strategies? Like you say, it's great to have a supportive partner but sometimes what you need is more of an emotional vent and/or an objective person to help you work through things on a deeper level.

I've been where you are and supported others too, and my advice although it's much easier said than done is to try and cultivate more of a detached, don't give a shit (sorry for language) attitude to work. The great thing about a corporate job is although people like to act as though it's all very important and consequential, at the end of the day how much difference does any of it make, particularly on an individual level, if you do a stellar job the company may make a bit more money, if you do a pretty average or poor job maybe a bit less, but ultimately how much do you need to care and tie yourself in knots about that? I'd be imaging, if you were in the role of a kind but detached friend advising you, how would you answer questions like - does it really matter if your colleagues think this guy is the golden child and you're just average/OK? Not at all I'd say, let them think that, what they think doesn't need to affect you and your life at all. Does it matter if he tears through all the work at a million miles at hour and you just plod along steadily - again who cares, the work has been done at the end of the day and you've earned your salary either way. Does it matter if he gets the next promotion and you stay as you are for longer - no, sounds like you are OK financially and just managing to stay healthy and back in work in your 'new' (returned to) career is an enormous win for you. There's no need to heap pressure on yourself that in addition to everything you've already done you somehow also need to achieve some intangible or unachievable super-woman goal of being the very best PR person in the whole world as well. An objective friend would never say that is a reasonable or sensible goal for you at this time.

If there are things that on calm and careful reflection you find are important boundaries for you, e.g. you need your colleague to not take over your work midway through because it annoys or stresses you, then I would try and work out a way of calmly and concisely explaining this, in way that will work for you and not cause you to freeze or panic. If explaining in a meeting is too hard, how about writing it in an email, or writing a script for yourself so you can read from it if your mind goes blank. It's great you have an understanding and supportive manager but you do need to help her help you, which she can't do if you aren't able to communicate.

Best of luck, I'm sure things are on the up for you from here...