Day 6 I think i made a big connection today

[Urbanjourney]

In today's journaling, i wrote about being micro-managed by a previous employer at a company that was meant to be my dream job and my escape from the bullshit chameleon sales life i'd been living previously but in fact turned out to be exactly the same.
I recall the excitement about finally following my passion (design / architecture / landscape) and working for a company that i'd admired for years only to start to see the wheels falling off quite soon.
The owner of the business was a female and had another linked company that she'd had to build up in a male dominated construction products arena. It became evident quickly that when taking me around to start meeting my new clients that she was being disingenuous and trying the bulldoze her way into getting a sale. I found it very cringeworthy and could feel the clients were not appreciating the approach but i kept my mouth shut for fear of losing my 'dream job'. It was the total antithesis of the genuine approach i believe in - real relationship building and respect.
Each meeting i was taken to i could feel the pressure building and that i was expected to just punch my way through and we didn't have time to build relationships- we needed orders to make things work. Product issues were expressed by quite large clients who had previously purchased and she'd say "yeah yeah we'll get back to you" only to not get back to them.
I really started to have this fear that i would be resented by these clients as I was just the 'typical' sales person who didn't care but just wanted money. This went against everything my character believes in. I was being severley micromanaged and really had no idea who i was meant to be anymore.
After around 8 months at the business, my wife and I took a holiday to Borneo to climb Mt Kinabalu. It was the most amazing time and i was able to just be in every moment. On returning, we had a wedding to drive to a few hours away and so the arrangement was for me to pic up my company car and head there. The owner of the company wasn't there but one of the staff told me "sorry, but she forgot you'd need your car and it's not here" This made me angry and frustrated but we grabbed our own car from home instead. I also noticed that my company emails were not being received or sent from my phone which i thought was weird but didn't pay more attention to it.
At the wedding venue, i was playing tennis and on bending over to pick up a ball i felt my lower back lock up in an excruciating spasm. I rested up and couldn't go to the ceremony but on driving back home a few days later, i was hit with another almighty spasm (as a passenger in the car) so bad that i wanted someone to kill me. I got an injection of pain meds from hospital then went home to rest up. Did not feel good about ringing my boss to tell her i'd injured my back and would need the week off but did so then on limping back into work, she had this very fake "you poor thing" look on her face. Immediately she said we need to talk to you in the office then was let go as "this was just not working out" It made sense now why my car was unavailable and work emails turned off. After trying to explain myself and my thoughts on her sales approach, she was disinterested in hearing it and i was marched out straight away.
Fear, confusion, sadness and anger ensued.

What i realised from this is that I seemed to have a re-occurence of the lower back spasm every few years or so and usually in roles where i was being highly micro managed. All of the previous spasms I recovered from reasonably quickly but the one i had this year has continued to plague me for nearly 11 months. Although i absolutely loved the work place i had been in for the past 9 years, there was starting to be some micro managing emerging last year and this year so this to me makes more sense that anything of the relationship to my current symptoms...

 

[BloodMoon]

@Urbanjourney I think you've certainly made a big connection here. Being micromanaged was something my brain really didn't respond well to either.

I think a big part of the battle is won through that kind of realisation, but perhaps the next part is working out what to do with it.

Sometimes, simply acknowledging what's not sitting well with you can be enough for the brain to feel heard. Other times, I've found that I need to acknowledge it and then actually do something, even if it's only something small, to start restoring that sense of agency and control.

And sometimes, perhaps it's about recognising just how important autonomy is to you and making that a priority in the choices you make going forward, even if that ultimately means working for yourself.

I think there's something quite powerful about recognising not just what's causing us distress, but also what we need in order to feel more like ourselves again.

 

[Urbanjourney]

I think you've certainly made a big connection here. Being micromanaged was something my brain really didn't respond well to either.

I think a big part of the battle is won through that kind of realisation, but perhaps the next part is working out what to do with it.

Sometimes, simply acknowledging what's not sitting well with you can be enough for the brain to feel heard. Other times, I've found that I need to acknowledge it and then actually do something, even if it's only something small, to start restoring that sense of agency and control.

And sometimes, perhaps it's about recognising just how important autonomy is to you and making that a priority in the choices you make going forward, even if that ultimately means working for yourself.

I think there's something quite powerful about recognising not just what's causing us distress, but also what we need in order to feel more like ourselves again.

Thanks so much for a thoughtful reply - and the generous gift of your response has also allowed another thought to rise to the surface - I have always loved working by myself on tasks or projects - I love being part of a greater team in general but I seem to like having an autonomous approach to my tasks within that team. This has been more evident in creative projects (like graphic design work or landscape / home restoration work) but in my most recent work that i had to resign from, I was being told to work more closely with a colleague that i was managing, to help him do more of his tasks that i fully expected him to be able to do himself - that meant the highly efficient and enjoyable autonomous way i'd been operating was now disrupted and i again felt that same "I'm really not sure what i'm meant to be doing now"that i'd felt in the role I had when my back injury first started...constantly questioning myself and being unsure of whether "am i meant to be doing this....or this...or wait, what does the rule book say i'm meant to be doing". The feeling of ineptitude and stupidity as my flow state was fractured.
In terms of working for myself, I did have a landscape design business I'd started probably around 2015 which i initially enjoyed but found that i needed to have people around me so it's made me fully aware of the model that works - being part of a great team whilst being able to work autonomously on my part of it.

Thanks again @BloodMoon for allowing me to gain some more important insight into some of the things I feel are greatly contributng my my TMS.