On August 14, 2012, after thirteen years with the same company, I quit my job, with no plan about what would come next. In retrospect it was more than that; I walked away from a career, away from a six-figure salary, and toward something entirely different. Here’s why. (Part 5 of 7). Missed the start? Rewind to Part 1.
Resurrection
In some ways my challenge with social isolation (see Peeps for more) and lack of meaning in the day job were killing me. It may be that the depression was a result of spending so much time in one world, in “Corporate America”, while yearning for another – yearning for a community with Higher purpose. Over the years these disconnects only grew: I became more disillusioned with the values of the former while being increasingly drawn to the latter.
“Depression is a kind of death” says Parker Palmer, and looking back egad I can see that. Part of the death in depression is that the brain literally stops functioning properly. When it gets really bad, logic and reason stop working almost entirely, and the brain only functions using the raw emotions of fight or flight. When you work in market research and need to create and analyze, think logically, and be accurate this becomes a huge problem. At one point my mind was so scrambled that the basic calculations I did daily on the job would take three or four times as long to do. Often I’d do the same calculation multiple times, not able to trust my brain that I’d arrived at the correct answer. Sometimes I hadn’t.
The death of the job came on August 14, 2012, when I handed in the two-week notice. Not able to fend off the descent into depression that came this second time, not able to fully embrace the corporate values I was asked to foster and uphold, it seemed like the only sane thing to do. Several people close to me encouraged me to take FMLA, some time away from the job to heal up. Looking back that was probably a more viable option than I realized at the time, I just couldn’t see it from within the fog-cloud of depression. Looking forward it still wouldn’t have resolved my issues with these underlying corporate values I was never quite sold on, so maybe the whole thing would have just repeated itself again anyways.
The reasons are physical as well as psychological. purchasing this purchase viagra online In an interview last week, on ABC’s “20/20” with Barbara Walters, Peter Cook former husband of supermodel Christie Brinkley, blamed Brinkley for his affair: “I wanted a little acknowledgement, a little attention, a little thank-you every now and then for my efforts, for the amount of time I took to care for her and my family, for the wealth I was building.” The key point here is to. cost viagra There are many skilled hypnotists buy viagra for cheap in this spectacular country, who allow individuals to relish the benefits of this outstanding procedure. Circulatory system: Texts of Ayurveda eulogize this herb as a cardiac cute-n-tiny.com viagra sample tonic as it strengthens the heart. After quitting, the depression got worse for a few months, the whys and what next questions were haunting. My psychologist refers to this time as detox, where the biochemical effects of depression, including low levels of serotonin begin to return to their normal, pre-depression levels.
Then an amazing thing happened, I began to heal. Many people speak of this rebound from the ailment as when the Fog is lifted, and I totally understand that metaphor. Personally my reaction to healing was of shock, I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’m still here, I’m still here!’
Another metaphor that started to come into focus once the healing began was of being raised from the dead, of new life. Over the past several years, while all of this was playing out, I became more and more involved in our local, Lutheran church and had met and befriended many Peeps. In this other world, of faith and grace, things began to make more and more sense.
In Jesus there is a role model for death and rebirth. The rebirth can be understood as a means for how we choose to treat others, and why we do what we do. Have problems? Bring them to the cross, die to self, and be reborn with purpose. This always made sense to me on some level. After coming out of the depths of depression it has taken on new meaning. It also created some questions on where to go from here.
Continue on to Part 6 – Questions.
