How do you handle work when your personal life interferes?

I didn’t want to hear about this kind of stuff from my subordinates when I was working. I think you should do your best to keep your personal problems at bay during your work tour. That’s just my opinion. That said, I had bosses with whom I grew to be very close and would have talked about it. Perspectives are different when I’m the boss and when I’m not. You’ll have to decide since only you know your relationship with your boss.

I know there are different schools of thought on this, but my thought is don’t talk to your boss about it. He may view you in a negative light, weak and needy. When it comes time for promotions, he may feel someone without personal problems would be a better candidate. I’d keep it to myself at work and do my best.

Just to add to the above, I had one boss once who was very kind and “social worky.” She was a social worker, too, so that probably helped. Anyway, she was very kind and compassionate but I was working in the social work field, so that’s what we did with clients and that’s what we did with ourselves. She used to say “if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of other people.” She was very big on doing what you had to do to take care of yourself, whether it was some time off, leaving work early, telling people to take care of their needs regarding lunch, coffee, etc. Few and far between are bosses like that who are understanding and sympathetic about people having personal lives and personal issues.

Separate from the question about whether I should talk to my boss (I was leaning towards no anyway) what do you guys do to prevent personal problems from affecting your work?

Something that’s complicating this for me is that one of the things that has me down/anxious right now is that my boss, who is excellent, just put in his two weeks’ notice and I do not know who my supervisor is going to be next.

Change can be hard at work or anywhere else for that matter.

I’m an introverted person and usually don’t talk about my personal problems with work people. I have a relative that is sick and I rarely mention it to anyone at all. I also don’t want to be gossiped about when possible, and so I try not to give people things to gossip about.

Disable personal email and phone. Do not answer phone or texts. Take this as an opportunity to focus 100% on work! If a thought appears about that personal issue, you can try a few things to see what works for you:

1. You could just keep a piece of paper on your desk and make a simple check mark when a thought appears. Note that the thought appeared, and return to work. You will may likely end up with a whole lot of check marks on the paper, but for me there is something different about identifying the appearance of thought rather than the thoughts themselves. It gives me a way to respond to those thoughts (making the check mark), rather than trying to push them away.

2. When a thought of your personal life struggles appear, try spending a few moments to identify what is going on right now? Are the people involved in these problems with you now, or are you sitting in an office? How does your body feel in the presence of these thoughts? Are you tense? How are your shoulders? Note to yourself how these thoughts affect your body, see if you can gently relax your tension, and return to work. Repeat.

3. There have been times that serious personal issues have overwhelmed my mind during work. In these times, I usually convince myself that there is something I need to do right now to figure something out. If this is the case, try setting a timer for 20 minutes from now. Give yourself permission to sit and work on solving this issue for 5 minutes once the 20 minutes is up. Sometimes, this is enough for me to temporarily drop my personal problem-solving because I know that I have planned time to dedicate to the process.

One thing to note: it may be easy to feel that you are spinning out of control and that this is becoming visible to your boss or coworkers. This adds a level of stress and anxiety that can only make matters worse. Keep in mind that most people are not aware of our internal suffering, so your struggles are likely going unnoticed. Be easy with yourself. You know that everyone has their struggles at work that are related to home life. And you are no different.

It’s less about tension and anxiety and more about just feeling like nothing’s worth doing…

Just chill and be relaxed. Don’t worry about anything which is beyond your control. The phase that you’re describing happens in most people’s lives. I think you’re overthinking it which is causing anxiety. If possible take a short break and spend your time something you like to do most ( other than work). You’ll feel rejuvenated after the break for sure!!!

The thing that sucks is I just took a week off. Like I just got back 4/26. That was supposed to be my rejuvenation. But since that break I’ve been hit with 2 awful pieces of news and now I’m all fucked over again and I’m not going to be able to justify another vacation for a long time.

Not a good idea to talk to your boss generally. It will focus a spotlight on your performance and every imagined lapse will be due to your personal problems. Do you have any time off built up?

My company technically has “unlimited vacation” which basically means there isn’t a certain amount per year you can take off, you just have to get your boss to approve it. Sometimes it actually backfires because you don’t have some amount of time that you feel is available to you to use whenever you want. I just took an entire week off so I don’t think I can ask for more right now without looking really really bad.

That’s a tough one, one I too experienced years ago in a demanding job with a psycho boss while going through a marital breakdown and divorce. I took Xanax to cope. haha
It really helped to keep my calmer and more focused. Maybe a temporary anti-anxiety med would help.

I was a major customer service rep for a huge international import Co. and would walk into 100’s of faxes scattered around the office from all over the world, shipping containers arriving and needing transport to our facility for product inventory, dozens of voice mails and phone orders to answer/process, and my lunatic chinese boss who pulled me off task every 5 minutes to do something else.
It’s a fucking wonder I survived that time.

I empathize, truly I do @Mariah sigh, stresses me out just remembering, PTSD lol

Sometimes vacation and a break is the last thing you need. It’s great that you are scheduling a counseling appointment. What you are going through is pretty normal, but feels awful. As someone who is all too familiar with this, the only thing that I can offer is my own take…

@Mariah: “It’s less about tension and anxiety and more about just feeling like nothing’s worth doing…”

Just keep in mind that what you are feeling is temporary. I know that probably is anger-inducing to hear, and you probably wish you could kick me in the throat for saying something so trite, but it’s true. If you felt that things were “worth doing” before your personal struggles, then they are worth doing now – it’s just that you can’t see or feel that. But you will.

It might be tempting to want to go hide or wish you had vacation, but I have found that these intuitions were always incorrect.

As a side note, here’s a true story about my coworker: A few years ago, he moved his family to a different town to get his 3 kids into a great school district. Soon after moving there, his middle son was killed at the new school by a classmate who wanted to feel what it was like to kill someone. He had picked my coworker’s son at random (and didn’t even know him).

When I started working with this guy, I had no idea what he had gone through. It was only when I happened to see him on the front page of the newspaper in tears on the stand in the trial of his son’s killer. Here’s a guy that came to work every day, was yelled at by customers, joked around, etc. but had just gone through this devastating loss less than 2 years earlier. I couldn’t understand it. I’d probably just throw in the towel due to the pain. But then, I realized that he had others to live for. Getting busy and focusing on his work allowed him some small level of normalcy.

I’m not saying that whatever you are going through is peanuts compared to this guy. Rather, I know how pain and depression can feel overwhelming when you’re in it. But while you’re in it, the defining feature is the inability to truly see. And you are left with the confused notion that nothing is worth it any more. You have to try to be patient and trust that you’ll be able to see sometime soon.

If you can compartmentalize, sometimes work can be a great relief from dealing with the personal problems. This is a trivial story but I once heard an anecdote about a contractor whom a friend saw touching a tree in his yard on his way in the house from work. When asked, the contractor said, “That’s where I leave work so I can concentrate on my family.” Some mental trick like that might help you in reverse. When my Dad was dying, my Mom would come in to work from the hospital to take her mind off of it.

But I hear that you are depressed which makes it hard to function at all. Going for therapy should be a great help. In the meantime, maybe just work at a functional but minimal level for a bit and try not to worry about performance. Figure out the most important things to do and get them done. Chances are noone will notice and if they do talk to you, that may be the time to air personal issues.

And don’t worry about your supervisor leaving. There’s nothing you can do about that and the new person might be even better. You don’t know so don’t add that to the stew.

What always works for me is exercise. You are probably accumulating an unhealthy amount of stress and it is only compounding and exercise will help you burn off that stress. That said if you have vacation or medical leave time take it. If not try to look at work as work where you go there and leave personal issues at home and it may actually benefit you mentally and emotionally to have a place to go for a while where you may not have to deal with what is on your plate.

Also break down your multiple problems into separate and distinct “problems” and tell yourself that you are going to deal with this or that at specific times so you can focus on one problem at a time. Nothing is more overwhelming that letting multiple issues cascade over you and you really do not have a chance to deal with anyone problem.

Remind yourself problems have solutions and that it is OK to ask for help as well. Wishing you better days.

When the pressures of my personal life would become too great, I would begin to make mistakes at work. I would recognize this, and give my boss a heads up. When mistakes happened, he was very understanding.

Ideally I would tell my boss that I am having problems and ask for time off to deal with my personal life. What I actually did Is that I got a doctors note for two weeks and used it to give my two weeks notice.

@Mariah I haven’t read the posts above this. Your question struck a chord with me, so I’m jumping in with a response.

There’s really no easy answer, because it depends on the nature of the problem, the supervisor’s personality, and the workplace culture.

It’s never good to overshare with anyone at work, especially a supervisor. As friendly as that person may be, he/she remains the boss, evaluating and making decisions about both you and your job performance. Too much information can make the supervisor feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, thus clouding your work relationship, or it might cause the person to view you as helpless, childish, immature, or someone who makes bad personal choices. You just really don’t know how somebody might react. It’s just better to err on the side of caution, and share too little, than to spill everything and regret having done so.

If the problem is neutral with respect to you – the death or grave illness of a close friend or family member, or a situation caused by a natural disaster – it’s likely fine to share the details. Very few people would fault you for being distracted by or taking off time for that sort of concern. Such things happen, and any decent, stable individual should understand.

For any truly personal matter, however, I’d likely tell the boss that I’m coping with something difficult, trying to carry on, and prepared to take personal leave time if the issue interferes with work. If the person starts asking intrusive questions and pressing for details, there are ways to deflect without being rude. (“I’d really rather not say,” or “Circumstances prevent me from saying anything more.”) I’d also ask for some flexibility about unscheduled leave time, until the crisis passes.

I fake it ‘til I make it. I Never involve the boss – or anyone else if I can help it – with my personal issues.
If I show weakness it can potentially be used against me. From that second on, every mistake or failure to launch can be blamed, whether overtly or not, on my perceived shortcoming. Confidence is shaken. Credibility takes a hit.

Keep your problems and your secrets to yourself and make it your therapy to really bear down and do excellent work.

Here’s my personal example: After my prostate surgery I was incontinent and had to wear pee pads and depends. Ugh! I never told a soul! I walked into the bathroom with everyone else and stood in front of the urinal like normal. For the week of surgery and recovery I lied to everyone saying I had to help my Mom in Florida. I lied to my Mom and said I had to work. I never let on that I was injured or hurting in any way.
I’m glad I did.
This is not easy but it does help you recover quicker.
(((Hugs)))

I don’t know if this will work for you but I use to look at all my jobs as not something I have to enjoy or think of worth doing. I’m getting paid to perform a service. How would I feel if I was paying someone to do something and they didn’t try to separate their personal life from their professional life. I once worked with a guy who would mope and get annoyed when he was asked to do his job. He was a maintenance man and I was the assistant manager. He would act like my request were personal. He was going through some personnel issues too. I let him have it one day. I explained that I no more enjoyed my job than he did and that we all have personnel issues come up. But I don’t get paid to do his job and if its too much than maybe he should quit. But none of us work because we are rich. If he is secretly rich. Quit.

I liked interacting with people but I didn’t enjoy the menial parts of my job or interacting with cranky tenants, but I took the job knowing full well it was what was expected. I would separate my personal feelings from my job. Not always 100 percent successful. We are not robots, but I always told my self if I can’t hack it then quit, or apply for something else and then quit once I land another job.
There were a lot of jobs for me because we moved so much. My husband was in the military. Lots of times it meant taking a really crappy job, but I would stay in till I got something else. I never was the type to call my husband at work to talk about personal issues and I never accepted personal calls at work unless it was an emergency.
I found it easier to separate work and home that way. This way when I went home, I left my job at the job. I didn’t take it home either.

I compartmentalized. Then I would fix the problem at home as soon as possible, because compartmentalizing may be an effective way to temporarily stay concentrated, it is essentially denial, and denial will eventually manifest neuroses. It is an effective, artificial means of getting through something.

I usually take evening yoga classes when I’m stressed. That usually helps me unwind.

For some reason I’m really good at separating these things. During some of my darkest moments (my son was in Juvinile Hall) I went to work and it was a distraction from the things that were tearing me up at home.
I didn’t realize that I had this coping ability until a co workers husband went to jail for a DUI accident and couldn’t come to work for a week.
Another co worker, who knew what I had gone through with my son pointed it out to me.
I don’t think it’s a skill you can aquire, I think it has more to do with a persons individual disposition.

I try to hang in there the best I can but there are times you need to take a bit of time off. A few years ago I went though a divorce and a long process to get my child diagnosed and treated for some problems (ADHD and ASD), while being put through the strainer by the child welfare office because I had to have a good reason to show I could keep my child as a single, foreign mother with no family here. The stress took a toll on my body and my shoulder and neck seized up. My job is very physical, so I went to the doctor. My doctor knew everything that was going on in my life and was happy to write sick leave allowances for a month at a time. We are allowed to take up to a year off sick here and the employer is not allowed to fire us or demote us. I ended up taking 6 months and I was paid sick pay the entire time. The first two weeks from my employer and then the sickness benefit comes from the government from a type of insurance fund.
Things have to be really difficult for me to take time off. I’ve been in the emergency room and admitted to hospital and then at work the next day. I think my work mates and employer know I’m tough, so when I do need to take time, they know it is for a good reason. I would hate to have the reputation of being a ‘marshmallow’.

You said it was ‘news’? Is there anything you can do? It is threatening you, personally? Your house, kids, your livelihood? It sounds like perhaps you just need a dose of perspective. Being grateful for what we have and being aware that people who have it much worse keep on keeping on tends to help me keep going. I’m with Judi on this one. It sounds harsh, but you just need to keep things in perspective.

Well I’m not going to try to minimize my problems because that actually does worse things to me. I’ve tried telling myself “yo other people have it worse than you, why are you being such a little bitch” and that just makes me hate myself. I’d rather let myself feel that my depression has real merit and is not just me not being “tough enough” or something.

First I found out I have Crohn’s disease not ulcerative colitis, so my 15 months of surgery a few years ago did not cure me and I might get sick again. Then I found out my excellent boss is leaving my company. I was already a little anxious at work with a great and understanding boss so I am nervous about what things will be like with whoever my new boss is going to be. I also have concerns that my company will go under before too long (it is a start up). And now my relationship, which was something I felt very secure in, is threatened too because I learned he still has feelings for his ex.

So yeah, I’m depressed right now and I think I’m allowed to be.

@Mariah: I don’t think anyone here said you’re not allowed to feel whatever you feel. What I saw above is that most people (if not all) said don’t discuss it with those at work.

Sorry. Feeling touchy.

@Mariah For all those very valid reasons, counseling will be a great help.

@Mariah “Work therapy,” or throwing oneself into the job to push through and distract, might be effective for some people or in certain circumstances. Things aren’t always that simple, though. Your situation is further complicated because part of your concerns are work-related; the job is adding to the Perfect Storm, not serving as a refuge.

I have great empathy for you, because I’ve experienced the same lack of focus and inability to produce. I truly wish you the best. Maybe talking to some Jelly pals will help? Unlike your boss and coworkers, we’re anonymous and uninvolved.

I had depression/anxiety/PTSD for years. The last episode of it came after my husband and I got married and we used all of the money we got at our wedding to hire a lawyer for my husband to adopt my son (conceived when I was 15 through rape).

The SOB rapist showed up at the initial hearing in front of the judge to prevent the adoption!! We had to go back-and-forth to “come to an agreement” so that the bastard would “agree” to the adoption, even though we legally didn’t need his permission but that would have required a hearing that would have been like a trial and would have cost more money than we had. Long story short, we ran out of money and dropped the whole thing and my husband never adopted my son. And I had major PTSD from seeing the rapist.

I had to go out of work on disability. I couldn’t function and there was no way for me to fake it or get any work done. Period.

Short of going out on disability, I would encourage you to take a few days off. Either vacation or sick days. Either in a row or not. Take a half day and watch a movie. Go for a walk. Get a massage. Figure out whatever will bring you joy and do it. Set so many days aside, schedule them in advance, change your sheets, sleep naked, wake up whenever you want and do the things that will rejuvenate you.

You are sad, disappointed and worn-out. Those are legitimate physical, emotional and psychological things.

Feel your feels then fill your tank.

Do it.

Jesus, @Cupcake, what an awful thing to go through. I’m so sorry all that happened.

I’m working from home today, which feels good. Luckily that’s an option for me. I’ve obviously been spending a lot of time on Fluther during work hours these last few days, but I’m trying to get my focus back.

I focused a lot better at work today (helps that I finally figured out how the hell to do this project) and the counselor called me back and I have my appointment scheduled. Feel like shit is getting back under control.

Yay you!

Before your current boss leaves, make sure you have contact info.

I agree that you need to be going easy on yourself but I am concerned about what you said about being allowed to be depressed.

I think it is a really bad idea to allow any kind of negative mood take hold of you. The way I understand it is that feeling depressed causes low mood. This causes chemical changes in the brain. These chemicals then make your mood low once more so you feel even more depressed. And on it goes in a vicious circle.

Keeping your mood elevated as much as possible is really important. By natural methods if possible but once it is sets in, you may need chemical help in the form of medication. We all know about Prozac but mentioned above is exercise which has really good evidence to support its role in dealing with mild to moderate depression. So getting to the gym or out for a good walk will really help in conjunction with the counselling.

I hope you do feel better soon and I think that you are doing the right thing seeking help both with the counsellor and your support network including your friends here. But not work. Keep that separate.

I drink.

I drink and eat sugar. lol nah, actually I rarely drink anymore but I do like sugar. lol

Yoga helps

Well. I don’t have this problem anymore. Because I just got laid off. Not because of my performance. A bunch of us got cut today. The company is struggling.

Fuck me, right?

@Mariah So sorry to hear this!

@Mariah What unfortunate news. You were already above your quota on sadness and struggles, and you didn’t need this.

I won’t annoy you with trite, upbeat platitudes, which have never helped anyone.

@Mariah So sorry, man, when it rains it pours. The same thing happened to me years ago. Going through a high stress relationship/divorce, high stress work environment and when I asked for a raise my boss let me go after 3 years of above and beyond performance because she was cheap and could replace me with someone for less money. Life..sometimes, bah!!

@Mariah Sorry to hear about the job situation but it looks like you are taking it in stride; looking on the bright side (at least it is no longer a problem). Good luck with everything; hope you get a new position quickly.

BOO! I hope this miserableness turns into an opportunity to find a job that is better paying and better suited for you, and with a company that is growing instead of downsizing. Good luck!

@Mariah Were they really that clueless? I will PM you.

@Mariah I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s really bad luck. I feel for you – I got made redundant and it took me a while to get over that. But don’t forget that it is bad luck and nothing more. You have some really good skills and now have the experience that job gave you so I hope you can get out there and find something good if not better.