Brooke, Hi!
I am a Human Resource Manager for a large global company. I have a solid-line reporting relationship to an Engineering Director (local), and a dotted-line relationship to a Sr. HR Manager (in another state). I have worked for the company for 2 years and from day 1 I have been a wreck. My HR leadership is shifty and I don’t trust them, while my Engineering Director is lovely to work for, but not helpful when it comes to getting the work done my HR leadership expects of me. I had little to no training when I joined the company, and am really just now, after a couple of years, am past the storming phase and getting to a place where I am performing, but like most Corporate America, the politics are brutal, and I often feel scared that I am going to do something wrong and will be let go. I feel ill-fitted for Corporate America, the politics etc. In so many ways, my relationship structure at work is a recreation of my childhood: a mother who was not emotionally present for me, and a father who was a tyrant, and who often made me feel unsafe and in trouble. The feeling of not enough and in trouble are constant story lines in my life. I want to feel useful, and at peace. I want quit buffering with food because I feel so desperately alone and afraid.