Stress

I think we got the jury service sorted out. My employer asked me to defer it until December, which is a lull in their need of me, according to their scheduling (note: you can’t schedule software development a week in advance, let alone 8 months, but whatever). This still needs to be approved by the courts, but I think it’s likely they will.

In other stressful news… About 3 and a half years ago I left my previous job because it was a toxic workplace. I should have left at least a year earlier and being there every day did a lot of damage to both my mental and physical well-being. I think it caused something like complex PTSD but that’s another blog post I don’t really intend to write…

The problem was really just one particular woman. But that’s ancient history now… Or is it?

I was on a run today and guess who I saw. She didn’t see me, or possibly she saw me first and pretended to be fascinated by her phone.

Here’s my heart rate graph, see if you can guess where I saw her.

It’s the big spike just before 35 minutes.

I actually felt pretty alarmed just to see her. All the feelings of anxiety came back in an instant and I felt the rest of the run feeling sick. I guess I’m a bit surprised. Before lockdown when I used to get the train to my new job I always used to feel the stress when we passed my old job’s building, but I really thought that I wouldn’t be so easily triggered now.

Anyway, the good news is that it’ll probably never happen again. This was along the high street in the town centre and she lives in a different town, so it was probably an unusual visit for her.