Stressed and exhausted

This is a vent post. One of those it's better to write it out then sit here with heartburn from all the thoughts and feelings.

I'm letting my job really get to me and I don't know how, can't seem to, stop it.  I wake up just about every night with thoughts of stuff that needs to get done at work or things that could go wrong and I'm awake thinking about a new plan to fix a problem. John says he can tell that I'm having nightmares a lot too because he hears me cry out in my sleep.   I have this fantasy of just going to bed and sleeping until I want to get up; maybe like for 2 days straight.

It feels like every day that I go in to work it's just one problem after another after another coming my way.  Sometimes I choose the wrong problem to work on fixing and then some problem that I didn't fix blows up in my face.  This happens about twice a week.  Each time the customer, ICE, is mad at me.  Then my boss the warden is mad at me.  Hopefully this new woman who they are bringing in to be over me will help.  There's been more on my plate then any one person can do and I'm tired.

If I'm honest I feel resentful because she'll come in not exhausted (I've been at this for a year now; a year of loss of sleep and working an enormous number of hours).  She's also coming in and making 25% more money.  But the truth is that God is in control of my life and I need to practice contentment.

I feel guilty for feeling the way I do.  I feel like if I were a better Christian, better able to trust God, that I would be like Paul when he was in prison and just be praising God through all this hard stuff.  Instead I'm frustrated and exhausted, and here complaining.  My only consolation is that it's better to write and complain, so that I can hopefully be more positive around others.

I keep applying for other jobs but the economy is bad here and the job market is depressed.  For every job there are many, many, applicants.  So I stay where I'm at and try to do the best I can, yet I can see that I burned out.  I go to the Kaiser doctor on Tuesday and am hoping he'll write me an off work order for a few days; I've got lots of unused PTO time on the books.  Maybe if a doctor writes me off I'll really get the time off.  When I tried to take vacation days in June I still had to handle things while on vacation and they made me end it a day early and come back in on a Friday and then work the entire weekend. I made them credit back those 2 weekend days to me since I didn't really get a vacation.  I think the business manager did me a solid and just credited it all back to me because he knows I didn't totally get off.  But I did have some fun times with John.

Poor John.  I'm such a dud lately.  Wish I had a turn off switch and could just turn work off.   It would be easier to do if I wasn't on the phone so much with work when I'm not at work.  There are constant calls and crisis and situations.  I think it would help if I could get away from it all for a few days, totally away, and get a bunch of sleep and then start to enjoy other things in life again and become physically refreshed.  I feel like I need about 4 days just to sleep and detox and then about another 4 to start to have a life again and to think about all the other things that have nothing to do with work (it's like I've started not knowing what to do with myself outside of work since I'm just so exhausted).  Then a couple more days for a time of seeking God and spiritual renewal.  Then I could go back to work with a new perspective.  So, I'm praying that the Kaiser doctor will write me off work for 10 days.