Boredom

Boredom is bad for me. I think too much. I internalise and worry about things. I overthink. Over complicate. Analyse and worry. A small thing can become big. Huge. Something that has no significant meaning suddenly becomes intensely impactful. It’s stressful.

 

That’s why shift work, and the isolation of an 830E Komatsu wasn’t working out for me. One thought of “I don’t enjoy this” led to a depressive period that wasn’t any good for me or my family. It wasn’t something that got better with time as I adjusted to the job. It got worse. And just doing normal things became hard for me. I was consumed with thinking about how much I didn’t like the job, wishing it was different, and hoping for a way out.

 

At first I was able to cope by using two thoughts. One – the job was going to be good for my family. I’d be able to provide for Rach and the kids. And two, once I got back on to the 12 hour crew and had a regular roster and days off, it’d be better. And that got me through the 6 months of training and then being a floater. And for a while when I got back onto crew, it was better. I was home more. I knew when I’d be able to attend BBQ’s with friends and I could play basketball every other week.

 

But then the monotony of the job struck. And the sadness hadn’t dissipated enough. The melancholy had only dropped just below the surface and wasn’t gone completely. So when we found out that there weren’t going to be permanent jobs to look forward to, due to the down turn in the coal industry, I was stuck in the cycle again.

 

My thought patterns with work went a little like this:

 

Wake up on the day of work thinking “It’ll be fine once you get there. Just make sure you’re on a run with phone reception so you can message people and check facebook and twitter and it’ll be ok. It’s only two or three days/nights”. At work it was a combination of breaking down the shifts in sections – A quarter of the way. Half way. Three quarters. Home time. And trying not to think about how miserable I was. But my biggest issue was finishing the shift on the last shift of a cycle. Unlike most people who would look at it like “Yes, two days off!” I could only think of it as “Two days until I have to be back here. It’s going to go too quickly. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to come back!”. Then my days off were filled with not enjoying the time off, but consumed with thinking about having to go back to work. About being isolated and bored again. About not wanting to leave my gorgeous wife and children and not really being able to spend any time with them for the next few days.

 

This wasn’t something that had peaks and valleys. It had peaks and plateaus and was an ever ascending mountain to overcome.

 

And I thought that I had to keep climbing. That I had to overcome. That I was weak if I didn’t. That I was letting my beautiful girls down. That no one would understand why I didn’t enjoy the job and why I wanted to stop. That I was being selfish. That I chose to do this job and it was my fault. That I should enjoy it and I was dumb not to.

 

And I started to not be me. Which affected my relationship with Rach and my girls. And I wasn’t fun for my friends to be around. And mostly they just thought “He’s just tired from the shift work”. But they didn’t know. And that’s my fault. I didn’t even tell Rach how I was feeling until it was too late. Until the thoughts had become a dark frame around everything I could see and do. Until the weight of the sadness maybe me feel like I couldn’t breathe properly and at times couldn’t move. And it took all of my strength to get out of bed every morning. Rach and I were arguing a lot and I wasn’t playing with my kids as much as I should.

 

But I was wrong. I should’ve said something sooner. I wasn’t weak. I should’ve got help. People would understand. And I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself. After all, it was just as job. But fatigue and depression do funny things to you mind.

 

After lots of talking and explaining, I made the decision to quit. And things got better almost immediately. I started to be myself almost straight away. And I started to get happy again.

 

So please let me be a lesson. There are lots of people out there who will help and listen. Don’t let your sadness consume you. It’s ok to be happy. Please get the help that you might need. It takes strength to ask for help. You are not weak.