Hello,

I have always had difficulties at work though I show up on paper as competent. I have a Ph.D. in a creative technological field as well as a patent. I was employed as a professor at a state university. My father is a Vietnam Vet and I grew up with him being very agitated more or less all of the time. It was constantly stressful. I have always had trouble controlling my stress level and stress reactions. I feel stress and emotional pain physically and by 24 I had developed fibromyalgia. It crushes me to have disappointing performance and/or let people down, and I am a perfectionist. I spend a lot of time reacting and not acting or thinking with executive capacities. Most of the time I strive just for the current moment to be okay. I crave peace of mind. I don't feel like I truly own who I am. I am tough, but the darkness of winter makes it my most vulnerable time of year.

I am currently separated from my husband for two, going on three, years. We have two grade-school aged children. In 2013 I graduated with my Ph.D. and moved to take a junior professor position in another state. I was very stressed and tired after writing and defending my dissertation over the course of a year. After packing my and my children's belongings, I moved single-handedly and set up a home. My husband moved to California (which was not the state I moved to with the children). When I started my position, there was a lot of expectation and good will toward me, but that eroded over the course of a year or so as I did not live up to those expectations. In the 20/20 of hindsight, I was not paying attention to the right things with respect to my new job, or to all the things I should have been paying attention to. I struggled with work/life/stress balance throughout, and skimped on sleep constantly. This lasted for two years before I was convinced by my ex to move to California so we could co-parent.

I spent six months job-searching before I left (while keeping up with my current job). It was very stressful because academic jobs in my field require a portfolio, writing samples, and multiple letters and essays....each one different for each position applied to. Interviews typically go multiple rounds culminating on a two-day on-site visit requiring travel.

The academic jobs I did get were too far from where my ex was living, so I took a very promising job at a prestigious science museum (after a lengthy, multi-round interview process totally 10 hours and requiring work samples in response to a posed problem). I was happy that I could land on my feet in the new location! I was also super tired and stressed. I packed up the house and the kids again and moved across the country. I had not had a free personal day for over a year. I was so, so tired.

When I started the job soon after moving, I found out that the job had previously been two positions. I was hired to manage a department and (I didn't fully understand this at the time) to save a project that was two years behind and had still failed to produce anything. The project had run through three previous people in the position I was hired for (one had died, one quit, and one was fired). I also had a previous commitment to teach a course at a local university, which I didn't realize was so far away from my full time work site.

Okay, well about three weeks into the jobs, my ex unexpectedly went to jail for two months. He was arrested while with the children the day before they were to start their first day at their new school. That same weekend, my mother announced that she had terminal cancer. I was also looking for and moving into a new apartment, as there was a misunderstanding about my first apartment taking in my dog (a detail not on par with my mother's announcement, but moving is a bit deal).

For the two months that my ex was in jail, I got the kids to school on time every day, moved the household once more, and thus kept the dog in the family. What I messed up on was keeping up with my main job. I was tasked with producing a prototype in 4-6 weeks (4 weeks was the original deadline and it slid to 6). I initially said this was unrealistic, but was told that it had to be done. So I put a bright face on and said, okay, let's do it. A week later my husband went to jail and my mother announced that she had terminal cancer and my kids started school and I began the process of moving. I thought that I could still finish the project (well actually I was more determined to finish the project because I had given my word that I would), but for technical reasons I failed to realize the project at the last moment. When asked how long it would take to finish, I said, realistically, 5 months (the honest time allocation for such a project). The project manager clutched her head and told me "you can't tell me this will take 5 months." They then took on three graduate student programmers who worked long, Red Bull fueled hours for two months to finish the project, and took me out of the loop except for smaller tasks.

During the time my ex-husband was in jail, my work behaviour became a little erratic. I was late to some important meetings (partially due to inexperience with the local public transportation but also because I cut it too close). I was sleeping minimally and waking up at 4 am just to make the day work, and swilling loads of coffee. So I was prone to speak a bit stressfully and dramatically and overemphatically during meetings (no meltdowns or outbursts though). So here are my ultimate troubles:

. I miscommunicated with a lab tech at the university I was teaching at and ended up taking course materials out of a storage closet that I should not have. He complained about this and I got a very public, multiple paragraph email lashing from a senior professor effectively ending my reputation at that university.

. I failed to deliver the project mentioned above at my full-time job, and have been caught in multiple miscommunication issues throughout the project, causing the project leads to call meetings with me (one of which I was very late to) to express their disappointment.

. I was too emphatically protective of my department's time in regard to helping out with a project from another department because it seemed ill-formed and I didn't want us to get sucked into it. This caused some sort of ripple. Not sure what though.

These troubles, particularly those with respect to the main project discussed, are causing me amazing amounts of internal pain and depression. I hate disappointing people. I hate doing things wrong. The semester has ended for the university job, so there will be some relief as I put that behind me, but my mistakes or misalignments at my main job are a source of constant suffering because I am consistently presented with the disapproval and disappointment of the project leaders. I am getting called into another meeting first thing Monday morning to discuss yet another miscommunication as well as the fact that I copied too many people on an email thread which held the miscommunication. The only way I can face this meeting is to think about quitting, else I get very upset. I could maybe last a month or two without a job. I have skills and could pickup something else, probably, maybe, in that amount of time. So after all this storytelling, my questions are these: Is this the right idea? What am I doing wrong? Am I going to survive this, because I am getting a little suicidal in a way that I've never felt before. I am so, so upset.

Also worth mentioning is that throughout all of this, my mind is failing. I can't remember basic or recent things. And I get disoriented. I will pick up a brush to brush my hair, and get caught up in thinking, and find myself many minutes later in another room. Then I can't find the brush. I have no idea where it is. And I should be rushing to catch the train to work because I have fallen behind.

What do I say tomorrow morning at the meeting that was called to discuss my shortcomings and miscommunications?