evaluated

yesterday afternoon i went through that annual process that no one looks forward to in the professional world, but we all must endure - the performance evaluation. my particular dread of this activity is not founded in my experience of it with my current boss but is more related to first, past bad experiences and second, a basic uneasiness about what is unknown and to some extent unpredictable.

i should share at the outset that the review went fine. of all the elements upon which i was evaluated, there was only one that i wished i had received higher marks. all in all though, i was pretty satisfied with the results. the interesting aspect of this year's evaluation was my boss expressing concern on not my performance but more my overall health. absences due to illness and my overall subdued energy level over the course of the year had become an increasing concern to not only my boss but my colleagues as well.

as a result of this expressed concern, i shared some elements of the struggle i'm having with my clinical depression. i didn't go into the full details but did speak to some of the dynamics with which i have been dealing.

i've shared here before that one of the challenges of having this condition is how little people know or understand about it. while supportive and caring, i experienced this same issue in my discussion with my boss. the same "can't you just"s and "maybe you could try"s were a part of this conversation as they have been with so many others.

while i recognize the care and desire to help, it is always a fatiguing exercise. i think the reason for this is primarily because it is having to explain a condition that ultimately is about what is broken within me, something that overwhelms and frightens me and for which there really are no easy solutions. even the experts in this realm of science don't completely understand what interventions will work and to what degree in each individual case. in short, defining a condition that you feel is killing you to people who don't really comprehend what you're experiencing is the very definition of difficult and disheartening.

needless to say, i left the office yesterday not in the best mental/emotional space. can't say i returned in all that much better a condition either.

woodburning - toad the wet sprocket