Hi Ladies, thanks for understanding, and for your support. I'm sorry that you've all had to experience this as well but I guess it's pretty common..... basically there are just some humans that suck. I have a LOT of support and backing from volunteers, staff, and some board members and I would hate to leave them because they are all incredibly grateful for the changes I've made and the way I handle things. The President has only been President for about a month - the elections were the end of last year. And he seems to be a very "real" person who I can talk honestly and openly with and wants me to give him the chance to go in and make things better. Apparently he is going to speak to the board members in a few days and lay the new ground rules on what their roles are, what mine are, and basically to stay in their lane unless I ASK for help or guidance.
Here's the biggest part of my issue which I don't know if there will ever be a solution for. There are a lot of people there and some have formed cliques or groups or teams. They will stand by each other thick and thin, maybe even bend the truth a bit to prove their side and/or attack the opposing side. As you can imagine, every one of these groups has tried very hard to befriend me, get me on their "team", and all of them proclaim to love what I'm doing and to "have my back" if I ever need them. Which of course feels wonderful, but I think I'm lousy at knowing who to trust and who not to. As you can imagine, I have the opposing teams telling me NOT to trust the other teams. I am not a very good judge of character - I trust everybody.
And here's the biggest problem: I have been a member of one of the "teams" for almost as long as I've been at the shelter - I socialize with them often and we consider ourselves friend. They've even coined us "The Fabulous Four" because we go in after hours and paint walls, clean storage rooms, make positive changes, etc. It's me and 3 female board members and they started including me while I was still a cat staff person. Here's the kicker: it's those 3 woman who are causing me all the problems! So I'm really torn as to whether they are all just emotionally damaged women who are power hungry and control freaks, I know they are all very insecure and perhaps over-compensate, and all of them are in therapy because of their messed up emotional state, hell, one of them is a social worker and the other works with autistic children. So now not only do I feel like they are my problems at the shelter, I can't exactly vent to them at night or turn to them for comfort and venting because it's THEM I am so angry at.
I think this is going to get ugly because when the President tells them they need to stop interfering, the "friendship" is going to deteriorate. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but there is one of them I do truly feel close to and would like to not lose out of my life. And even if we can manage to be friends outside of work, she's constantly going to be in the middle of me versus them.
Anyway, that's not something anyone on an anxiety thread wants to hear about - sorry. I did keep waking up last night every hour or so in a slight state of panic so I guess the anxiety is trying to leak out. I have booked two hotel nights at the casino and I am going to step away from the shelter for 2-3 days to go to my favorite getaway and I will let all of them know that I will only be checking my mail and messages twice a day at most and that they should handle everything that comes up within those 2 days unless it's something that absolutely needs my attention. I love being useful and needed, we all do, but when you feel like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, you get defeated quickly.
Thanks for listening. It's nice to know you all understand, but sad that we have to deal with this type of drama. Gee, I wonder why we're all anxious?
Sue