Paranoia Doesn't Mean I'm Not Right

Before I checked myself into the psych hospital at the tail edges of my little meltdown/nervous breakdown, I let a few people know so they wouldn't worry. Among the people I told was a man who I report to for my favorite part-time job, the man who talked me into this job. His email reply was short, but supportive.

I emailed him when I got out, mentioning how I'd not done well on the job before I went in and wondering what he wanted to do about that. He usually emails me or calls me a lot during a week just to keep me up to date and to keep in touch.

I've had one text message, basically the same as the one he sent before I went in. And that's it. According to another member of the team, this man who supported me seems to have the same phobia that another good friend of mine (same age cohort as the man with the job): a fear that people with "mental illness" are never as stable or dependable as "normal, healthy" people and as such should be avoided as employees. At least, that's my fear and my current perception of this situation. 

And this situation and these reactions, ladies, gentlemen, and others, are why I choose to make this blog as anonymous as is reasonable and why I have not told my more stable job about it. I'm paranoid, but not a complete idiot. Just a partial one with a lazy streak.

Screaming Meemies

This is what my folks called "nerves" (which was probably anxiety) when I was a kid. If you were all nervous about something, you were having the screaming meemies. I think I had them a lot, now that it's come to mind. I was a hypersensitive child, just as I am an only-slightly-less-hypersensitive adult. Plus, there were all these complications from bad stuff that would have fed into my anxieties.

I am having the screaming meemies right now. A wonderful opportunity was offered to me today (not a paying kind, I'm afraid) and I jumped on it of course, but now my meemies are screaming their little ... whatevers off. After I produced a document for the guy who gave me this opportunity, I essentially shut down. I've just been mindlessly surfing the web. I feel a bit shell-shocked in a way: kind of numb, a feeling of looming dread, and the feeling that no one is there behind my eyes. Screaming meemies alright — anxiety doesn't seem to quite describe it.

I also chose to not submit my resume on a potential job today. Does that make me lazy or bad? An email came up on a group I belong to saying that the agency she was doing contracting work with needed 2 more people and that if we wanted to talk to the recruiter, we had to do it today because she is off on vacation starting tomorrow. I looked at the info in the email and decided no. Why? 1) It's with a company in an industry that I haven't been able to break into — even for a contract job — because I have no experience in that particular industry, so there seemed no point; 2) my first thought was "well, then I wouldn't be able to do these other things, which are the project I'm currently working on and this opportunity. So I chose to forego a shot at a contract job so I wouldn't miss out on a cool-but-low-paying freelance gig and a wonderful volunteer gig.

I hope the Universe helps me out a bit here before my meemies scream themselves hoarse.

OMG! I DID STUFF!!!!

It's entirely appropriate language and punctuation to use.

Today was a typical Sunday. I stayed up until almost 3 am because I couldn't sleep; finally took a pill. Then I woke up at 11 am.  At least I slept for 8 hours, which is good for you, right?

I dawdled, knowing I had so much work to do that I'd put off since Friday (down heah in the South, folks take Good Friday off, including school and gov'mint offices, y'all). Almost all of what I had to do was work-related — a press release I'll get paid for as the contract progresses, and the work samples for the potential contract, plus updating my professional web site.  I also have my therapy homework. I just couldn't start.

I wrote emails. I checked blogs repetitively. I drank two large mugs of tea.

Finally, I ran out of ways to delay myself and I started. Nothing like a tight deadline to motivate one! And then something weird happened. I. Got. Productive.

Here's the list of what I accomplished today:

• edited a press release
• added 6 or 7 PDFs to my portfolio on my computer
• added the same 6 or 7 PDFs to my web site area
• updated my web site: made minor changes to 5 pages, major changes to 2, added 13 or 14 new pages, included all the correct links (and tested and tested), tested and fixed some more (uploaded and tested and fixed and uploaded)
• via email, asked for testimonials/recommendations (from probably 7 people) that I can post on my web site (have received 4 yeses and no noes)
• swept the deck, including the deck chairs and around the door
• took took the two large boxes that have been lingering in the living room out to the storage closet on the deck
• paid a bill
• boiled some eggs
• ate some eggs for dinner when I realized it was almost 8 pm

In between were at least 30 texts with friends.

I guess the drugs have kicked in.

Temporary

Having my belongings packed into moving boxes indicates to me a temporary state, a state where I know I'm going to move again. I have lived out of boxes since 1991 when my now-ex-boyfriend and I moved into a house that turned out to be dirty and too uncomfortable to live in. In our next apartment, we kept boxes packed in the second bedroom, even tho' the apartment was more than comfortable. If I had lived there alone I might have kept it. But I left it when I left him. Perhaps we knew the relationship was, by that time, temporary.

When I bought my first house, I left a roomful of boxes packed, taking up the space in my second bedroom for far too long. Then I moved them upstairs so I could at least inhabit that bedroom as an office and a comfy place to hang out, with a twin bed in the corner where I could look outside into my back yard. I lived there for eight years — hardly temporary. When I moved almost 300 miles away because everything had changed, all I cared to take with me permanently was that house, something I long for even now 10 years later.

"I had a good day," she said with surprise in her voice.

The day was sunny, but the sunshine is not the reason I had a good day. I held few expectations for myself — just a small list of things that must be done —, but keeping my expectations reasonable was not why I had a good day. My period hit flood stage, which is definitely not why I had a good day.

The day was sunny; I accomplished all my tasks; my period almost I survived being away from home for over three hours with a heavy period; I bought a few snacks and ate all of them (two steps forward, one step back); my brain whirred — the  title for this post came to me, I imagined a potential title and signature graphic for another blog if I choose to illustrate and sell greeting cards and other of my works, and ... I should use my digital recorder in the car because I have forgotten for the moment; my body sucked in the heat and the Vitamin D; I posted comments on blogs, I read blogs, I emailed, FBed, and Tweeted with friends; many ideas for all the writing aspects of my life ran in rivulets through my brain, just behind my eyes (where they are running now, like visual music tracks in color and motion).

None of these things is the reason I had a good day. Not one single thing made me feel better — it was the gestalt of all of them combined that lifted my spirits and the corners of my lips. On my mood spreadsheet for today, I will actually go positive on my Depressed/Happy axis. (Yes, I do keep a spreadsheet of my moods and any typical things that might have an influence on them. Then I create charts to see if there are obvious relationships. Thank Gates for something useful!)

I feel potentially productive. What this means is that my mind is churning on all the projects that I have to do and all the projects that I want to do. I can see them and hear them and feel them. (This may be my own form of synesthesia.) 

Tangent — A previous therapist of mine was quite concerned that I was wasting too much of my energy on a fantasy life I imagined every day. Finally I told her all about it, in the same amount of detail that I used in imagining this life and she was astounded. "I understand now," she said. "This is why you need to leave, to go somewhere more stimulating. If you can run your normal life and a whole yet imaginary life, your mind isn't getting anything close to the amount of stimulation and outlet that it needs." Which was entirely true, and which has continued to be true off and on — few jobs can occupy my mind fully for any great length of time. I get bored and wander off to something else. At least I give two weeks' notice before wandering off.

What this tangent means is that my mind was more awake today, more alive, and thus able to begin creating and reaching out for what it needs.

I endeavor to avoid becoming too excited over singular positive changes — they are too easily overset. I will save my excitation for an actual upward trend. (But I will continue to feel optimistic!)

Positive thinking --- what do I want?

The owner of a blog today gave us a topic to discuss and apply to our own lives.

"Think positively – and by positively, I mean simply “I want this,” instead of “I don’t want this,” – about one specific thing you want for one week. Then, next week, we’ll check in, and see what kind of progress has been made.?

I considered this and realized I was up against two of my issues: being positive, and asking for what I want.

When it comes to being positive, I've come to a place where what I think and say tends to be a negative: I don't want to run out of money, I don't want to be unemployed, I don't want to be depressed. It's like saying "don't forget your keys:" your mind skips the "don't" and hears "forget your keys." Kids do the same thing, so it's recommended that you start statements to them in the positive: "remember your coat."

As for asking for what I want, I run into a couple of difficulties. First, if I ask for something big, like enough money that I don't have to work if I don't want to (such as by winning the lottery), I then tell myself that many other people need it as badly as or worse than I do, so what makes me so special, what makes me think I deserve that? The other main issue is thinking maybe the Universe doesn't want me to have what I want. I am a non-diest and I don't believe in a pre-planned life or destiny/fate.  Yet, I am having problems because I think the Universe is playing against me, which then makes me feel that it is hopeless even to try, to want, to wish — impossible to win.

I've spent the day not being able to state my want for the week. Plus, there are SO many things I want; however, most of them require me to do something, and I will cover under a different experiment.

Here is one want that has to come from outside of me. I want to be offered work within the next week, where I can work at least part-time from home often, and that pays me my preferred rate.

I've written this and sent it out to the quantum particles of the universe. I'll come back in a week and let you know how it goes.

That sinking feeling

I did nothing today. I take that back; finally, at the end of the day, I put the dishes in the dishwasher and started it. I shook out the toaster crumbs. And I wiped down the parts of the counter I have access to, as well as the inside of the sink. And I only did that because there are these small brown insects flying around, bothering the shit out of me. I want the place cleaner before I complain to the office.

I haven't checked on the as-yet-unplanted plants in a few days. They are probably dead and I'll need to replace them. I haven't even sat out on the deck in the recycled-plastic adirondack chairs I bought in January.

I didn't leave the apartment.

One of the sites I visit, JulieLand, had a very interesting tarot card and explanation on it from last night.  It talked about having a scarcity mindset, among others things, and that spoke to me. I am practically screaming with anxiety over the scarcity of money in my life right now. In fact, I'm so anxious and downright terrified, that I wondered if I wouldn't be better of dead. No, I'm not going to hurt myself. But I've been wondering what's the point of my life anymore?

I have no family that I grew up with anymore: my entire nuclear family is dead, and my extended family is no family. I haven't spoken with most of my extended relatives, some of them for almost 2 decades.

Yes, I have friends who count themselves as family, more or less, and I have new friends who care. I know that there are people who would grieve if I died. But I have no real safety net. If I run out of money, I am out of luck. I have never been this close to absolute broke before. It's not like I even have expensive things to sell.

I've been out of my primary profession for long enough that I don't know the current tools, work-styles, and language anymore. And I don't want to work there either. It burn me out so much, I think it might kill me this time. At the same time, I need work.

The potential new profession is in its infancy and so far I'm not actually making money. Part of that is my fault — I haven't been learning and I lack the confidence to sell myself at this new work. I have almost nothing to show potential employers or clients. And because I am so stuck by depression and anxiety, I'm making no progress.

I am failing because I cannot function. And my failing is contributing to my lack of functioning. I'm in a death spiral.

I'm not a major part of anyone's life, except for my BFF. I'm the only one who knows him almost entirely. I'm the only one he can be himself with.

I cannot reach out for help or comfort when I am like this. I am sinking and I don't even feel like calling for a lifeline, because there is nothing that I feel as compelling me to live for.

i won't hurt myself: that would damage so many people and I cannot do that. But I'm not sure I would step out of the way of a speeding truck, either.

I know what I'm supposed to feel and think. I just don't.