Back to blogging (as much as I can*)

It was five weeks ago when I tried to post here again. It seems like it was five days ago, with the robotic lifestyle of the recent weeks the time kept passing really quickly. I have written a post “Back to blogging, depression is over” and I have managed to write one sentence:

“It has been seven weeks that I did not post anything.”

So now it has been … twelve weeks? I had this bloggers'-writers' block that Dr Isis writes so eloquently about (go and check the excellent figure she uses to illustrate the point if you have not seen it already!)

I had been away. I have been back. I have been busy. I have kept myself busy as I decided I am not going to let the situation mess up with my mind again.

When I was away I though I would not be coming back to the previous place of employment, but I did. I feel held hostage by BOB’s and university admin’s implicit threat to make my next employment in Japan difficult to obtain, well, actually, impossible to obtain, within the time scales of its availability.

Initially I thought it would be possible to quit the frustrating and mind-numbing job with BOB and start working with Young Professor in June. Due to May’s holidays we delayed the paperwork for a July start. But BOB did not accept my resignation. I could not leave my job. Officially my employment became my prison.

This inability to control my fate resulted in major depressive episode. My mental health was not good. Tried antidepressants, it didn't work, side-effects too weird. But for a brief week I was on them I realised what “normal” is, the vicious circle was broken chemically. I knew what I had to strive for to go back to the “normal” state.

In this “normal” state I was suddenly able to feel again. I was able to feel love for my husband, and enjoy being hugged, and I was able to smile. I was able to feel things that I have not felt for several months previously. The stress from work had spread all over my life, into every corner of it and I could not longer disconnect from it after going home or at the weekends. I was overwhelmed by stress and tension and nothing could not help it.

Fig. 1. Vicious cycle, better described as downward spiral, driven by a constant input of workplace stress. A great illustration of my life in the 2009. (Source: Moodjuice's A Self-Help Guide to Depression and Low Mood)

When my husband was returning home after his one-year stint with me in Japan, I negotiated with BOB and Captain to take a break and go home for one month. In return I agreed to stay on (and be held hostage in this employment by them not giving me permission to leave).

Going away was the first step to break the vicious circle of depression. For a while it let me regain the impression that I have control over my life. Surely I did not want to come back here for another 2 1/2 months of my contract (actually it was another 4 1/2 months, but I negotiated to cut the two month extension... this is still not official and they can still screw me over, so keep your fingers crossed for me).

I wanted to wait a little, let them fire me and after this was completed to come back and start afresh in the new job. I know there is a positive atmosphere in the new group, why would I want to go back to the old place, where I suffered so much?

Well, I had to. I was on standby when I was in Europe, even though I pretended to myself that I was in control of my own life. Young Professor, my hopefully future boss, asked me to come back to work with BOB... I guess it was somehow related to the Japanese concept of “loosing face”. So I cut my unpaid stay short, in order to meet some bureaucratic demands of the university administration about the exact date when I come back.

Before I left there were some hiccups in communication along the way. It was a three-way communication game between BOB (Player 1) and university administration (Player 2) and me, with the first two Players both thinking they are the most important and should have control over the situation. On top of that Player 2 was angry with both Player 1 and me, Player 1 was angry with me and Player 2. And I was angry with both Players 1 and 2.

Player 2 refused to communicate with me in English and only communicated in Japanese with Player 1, insisting that he then passes their demands to me, which Player 1 did, but he refused to pass on my requests of clarification back to Player 2. Player 1, BOB, “did not have time” to help me to clarify the gory bureaucratic details of my unpaid leave with Player 2, the office*. So it got messy. Nothing was “officially agreed” and I had left the game without signing any of the forms, among them the application for university owned accommodation, which I knew would be empty when I arrive back.

So, yes, I did come back to the same old conflict-ridden place in Japan. It was a pushed and rushed decision with me booking the flights four days before coming back and notifying Players 1 and 2 of my exact dates at the last minute.

So what happened then? Well, nothing, big black hole of suspense and implied threats.

When I came back I discovered that our university administration takes two weeks holidays around the time of mid-August. Of course no one told me during my discussions before leaving, as usual I was supposed to read the collective Japanese mind and know that this is a fact of life that “everybody know about”. For example some of my readers could assume that everybody knows what Thanksgiving is, and what it this holiday for, but for example I do not know anything about it apart that you are supposed to eat Turkey. So how would you know that university administration closes for two weeks for Obon in your first year here?

I arrived at the beginning of this period. I could not get the keys to the university owned accommodation. I did contact administration by email, and the reply they hinted that I am probably not employed any more, because I have left “without getting their permission”. BOB did not know whether I was employed or not either, as it was the decision of the administration.

I arrived here with little money, and taking a loan to finance the flight tickets, back to the employment that hold me hostage, only to be told I will be made fired. So what was the game for? It was for the prestige and “saving face”. If I quit I would be a winner and the university administration would be a looser: “someone quit on them, what a shame!…” If they fired me instead, it would be shame on me, presumption that I am guilty of that situation, and the university did not do anything wrong. It was this bad, misbehaving foreigner’s fault. I guess it was their thinking.

But somehow to fire me Player 2 had to also get the permission of the grant-holder, Player 1, BOB. And he preferred me to stay, even if it were for just two more months. Crazy as it was, he had changed. Maybe the time away gave him time for reflection, and he took on the new, friendly, grandfatherly attitude to me when I came back.

So they did not fire me. But sure they made the process of obtaining key to the empty, university owned apartment very lengthy, as I was only allowed to put in the application after the administration was back from their holidays In total I was in suspense for four weeks, where I did not know if they even let me stay there, or I should search for accommodation on my own.

I was very lucky to have a friend who let me stay with her for a week, which later dragged onto another three... I lived in a nearby big city, from where the commute takes between 90 to 120minutes, depending on the connections. Hence the robotic lifestyle described in the previous post, where something had to give, it was either the work time, or sleep time, and the commuting time had cut into both.

Two weeks ago I have been given a key to the university owned apartment. It was a very strange feeling to be back there. It is the same apartment where I stayed for my first half a year, for two months on my own, and later with my husband. I was weary that the place may trigger some bad feelings, but I was ok. Well, I avoided being there as much as I could in the first week, but this weekend my things arrived and I can slowly make myself at home there.

In total I had lived out of the suitcase for ten weeks now. It has not been an easy time. But I am back now. And it seems I have broken that terrible writers block on blogging too. Yey!


* “as much as I/we can” is a security phrase over-used by Japanese, added to any declarations that they make, to make them seem well intentioned, but not responsible, if they do not fulfil the said declarations.

** There is a phrase in Japanese language that translates “wasteful administrative practices”. The old government had a big campaign in the last year to clamp down on them. But they failed. They had to have bureaucracy permission to clamp down on bureaucracy. The new government has similar goals. I wish them luck!