Are you okay?

I quit my job yesterday. I have been planning on quitting ever since I had my six month evaluation earlier in the year. Admin had decided to do “merit-based” raises, which means that during evaluations, they purposefully invent reasons why an employee’s performance is unsatisfactory, so they don’t have to increase salaries. This decision is based on the fact that they’ve been in union negotiations for almost a year, with no end in sight for coming to an agreement.

During my six month evaluation, I was told my work was unsatisfactory and what I did or not do correctly even though I had a tenure binder size of proof to the contrary. It didn’t matter.

That experience retraumatized me by opening a wound from my annual performance review from my previous employer who did the same. This is a tactic used by employers in this current state of capitalist dystopian hell. It won’t be easy to find this truth about strategically naming employee performance as unsatisfactory in a simple internet search as Google has adopted the same process themselves and has recently laid off a huge chunk of its workforce in a socially and culturally popular move by the tech industry (and all industries tbh) to reduce their workforce, report gains, and win over investors. But try TikTok while it’s still legal. Capitalism is the very definition of ouroboros.

When I saw my review and was unable to attest otherwise despite evidence, I knew my time there was coming to an end. I updated my resume, put it out only for key positions that were real openings at places where the culture appeared better and also started doing some strategizing with my friends who have experienced the same. We are all so vastly talented beyond these ridiculously low-paid positions at toxic workplaces, and there has to be something better. Maybe we’ll make what we need.

The climate at my employer became more abusive and stressful after that. It was demanded that I work between 60-80 hours a week and remain on call at all times with no additional compensation. Given that I’ve already been experiencing issues with two major organs, the extra work exacerbated my conditions. Things came to a crescendo last week when the CEO told me in the most disdainful and disrespectful tone anyone at a job has ever used with me that I was to work until the work was done. Then I was requested to respond with “Yes, I understand.” when asked if I understood. And I did understand.

I immediately called off the next day, Friday, and started tracking my vitals, which were hospital admission high. Taking a few pills and relaxing helped a little, but I still ended up in the ER on Sunday, finally with child care for my youngest so I could make sure I wasn’t going to die. Not today, Satan, not today.

I decided that I would see what my supervisor had to say about throwing me under the bus for her being the reason why the project we were working on wasn’t finished, and saw that she had doubled down over the weekend. So I submitted my resignation (pre-written) right at the start of my shift. Then all hell broke loose. Mixed messages about what I was allowed to do and say after that ensued and it ended up decided that I would have to turn in my employer’s equipment today, Tuesday, and would cease to be an employee just in time to lose health insurance.

Nice touch. Just the pièce de résistance really.

My closest friend at work kept in contact through all this and had been my champion from day one as the manager of another department, but someone I worked with closely as our projects were always a collaborative endeavor. She called me last night and then this morning to check on me, asking me, “Are you okay?”

Oddly, I kept telling her I was and I meant it. I felt lighter, like I was no longer chained to a prison. A feeling I can only assume mirrors that of marriage. In fact, on my drive home after dropping off my work computer, I kept seeing the picture of Nicole Kidman when her divorce from Tom Scientologist freak Cruise is final in my mind. A mood.

I also told her that it would take me some time to know for sure because I have delayed processing due to my autism. Feelings will show up days, weeks, months, decades later and I have to assess them. This I know too well to be true. But I was okay and I told her as much.

Well, I got home, took a nap (Mars in Taurus placement, hi), and then played some video games, which always helps me process and relax. As I was collecting fruit on my animal crossing island to sell so I can fund my kiddo building out their own island on the switch they keep at their dad’s, I felt the sadness creeping in.

Sadness and I are very close friends. I can’t think of a time when I haven’t been sad. All the moving around since I was a small child, my parents’ really messy divorce when I was 6, their drug use, abuse, abandonment by lovers, loss of my career and dreams, etc. etc. ad infinitum, has made sadness a stable presence. So when it showed up, I was like, “Oh, yes, here you are, my oldest friend. I know why you’ve come.”

I am okay. But I am also so very fucking sad. Another job I’ve had to leave for my own health and sanity. Another moment in financial uncertainty because capitalism requires it. Another moment where I’ll feel like a failure even though this is a systemic issue and not on me as an individual. And yet…

In February 2017, I left my youngest child’s dad the night before my dissertation prospectus defense because his own anger and sadness made him physically unsafe for me and my oldest child. My previous partner, the “love of my life” (yes, that one I write about all the time), was there for me through that enough that it numbed the sting of starting over as a single parent again, but with two kids this time (something I swore I would never let happen, lol). I had hope we’d get back together and my life would recalibrate back into the plans and dreams I had. Well, that didn’t happen and I found myself alone that summer facing the reality of my life and choices alone. In therapy, but still alone.

It was at this time that a voice started showing up in my head that would ask me if I was okay. Completely reflexive, I would respond back, “Does it even matter?” I knew how grim that sounded, but this would happen at least once a day.

I have never told anyone this. Not even my therapist. I just lived with it. I started to reflect on what was happening and why this was my answer. I concluded that because I was alone, raising my kids without any support whatsoever, it really didn’t matter if I was okay. I had to be okay and pretend I was, but there was no one there asking me, so my brain asked me.

After some time, I began noticing that I would respond to the “Are you okay?” question with a “No.” And then it was like that for another chunk of years through Idaho and covid and my career breaking down. The no became an affirmation that I was recognizing my feelings instead of focusing on why I didn’t have anyone else who recognized them. I was not okay. I haven’t been okay for a very long time. Okay, so now what?

In 2021, I made my first New Year’s Resolution, having never made one before. I decided that 2021 was going to be the year that I learned how to love myself. I started listening to therapy podcasts (Dr. Thema is a godsend and gem). I started taking myself on dates and stopped sacrificing my wants and preferences for others. I refused to accept things other people told me about myself and began trying to figure out who I was as an autistic person with needs that didn’t always fit in or make sense in this neurotypical hellhole. I let myself not fit in. I dyed my hair turquoise, green, and purple. I fought for happy moments even if they were fleeting.

And doing all this saved my life over and over again.

The answer to my internal “Are you okay?” began to become “No, but I will be.”

That voice doesn’t show up as frequently any more. It hasn’t needed to. But, when it does, I take it as a signal that I am not meeting my own needs and honoring my feelings. I respond by making new choices and hard decisions. Like quitting my job. Or going to the doctor. Or sending scary emails to my ex telling him my feelings because what if I died tomorrow?? I have apologized to people I have hurt even if they hurt me too. I sit with difficult truths and try to learn from them. I do the scariest thing of all and love myself because no one else is for sure going to. Not my parents (though they try in their own narcissistic ways). Not a lover (who? when? where? God I see what you have done for others [insert the most recent pictures of train daddy Morgan Spector for Man About Town magazine]; I joke.) Not even my kids, though they do. In fact, our relationships are stronger and healthier than ever because I show them how important it is to love yourself just as much as you love other people.

Healing intergenerational trauma, y’all!!

So I share all these deeply personal and vulnerable truths to say that asking someone if they’re okay with the intention of being there for them no matter the answer is how we show up for each other with love. Whether it’s us asking ourselves or a friend or any other relationship. Because the world is not okay. At all. Nothing is okay. The only way we can do something about it is by recognizing what isn’t okay first, sitting with all the complicated feelings that arise by the answer, and then thinking about what needs changing to make it okay. Doing the right thing is never easy, but it’s the only way out, beyond and alive. Mars in Aries energy.

I’m not okay. Are you?

In love and solidarity <3