“Just get over it”

The last thing you should ever say to someone.  Whether they’re depressed, angry, sad, or any other emotion, never say “just get over it”.  Not only is it the most useless thing to say, it’s also the most insulting and hurtful.  Nothing says you don’t care about a person more than saying this.

So thanks mom, for for bullying me into telling you what’s wrong, and then completely invalidating everything I’m feeling.

 

My job is the center of my world

And I don’t like it.

Sorry for the hiatus.  I’ve been overworked, and beyond stressed, so much so that it has been a chore to even check my page.  Since August, I’ve applied to grad school, dropped the one course I was taking (and costing me $7K in the process) and attempted to get funding in order for said grad school.  I almost at the deadline for applying to funding, and I feel like it’s all about to fall apart.  The one school I wanted to get into rejected me, and I’m kinda stuck until I hear from the other department at the same school.  Since my work is affiliated with the school, my thesis is sort of tied to that school and it associations with my coworkers.  If I don’t get in, then my research plans fall apart, and I may have to quit in shame.  I feel like it’s totally my fault, like I didn’t try hard enough or want it enough.  I didn’t talk to the right people, at the right time.  I did try, but some didn’t respond, and others didn’t see eye to eye.  I’m not sure how much more I could do without becoming a pushy obnoxious bitch. I get panic attacks when I try to email anyone now.

So the Boy got promoted.  Technically he’s sort of my boss now, but he manages a different subset of people and projects, so I haven’t had to interact with him in any significant way at work.  He’s even been kind enough to not be at my performance or salary review.  We both agreed, before he got promoted, that it would be awkward.  Not that our relationship isn’t awkward anyway.

Not much has changed relationship wise, except we no longer go to lunch.  I had recently learned that some of our coworkers have tried to “figure us out” a few years ago.  We were visibly friends at work, but we don’t even show affection in private, so I’m not sure where they got the idea.  I think they’re just bored and like rumors.  Either way, we don’t even acknowledge each other anymore at work.  Lunch together is out of the question.  What is really upsetting me is we haven’t “gone out”, either to dinner, or just be in public together since he got promoted.  Admittedly, we didn’t do that alot before, but it’s been 6 months and we haven’t even gone out for dinner, including my birthday.  I don’t know if its subconsciously trying to avoid running into anyone, or our relationship is just that boring.

Someday I’d like a boyfriend I can admit to having.

On other relationship news, I saw J once since the death of her brother last summer.  It was at a christmas party with too many people and I shutdown pretty fast.  I’m realizing that I have not much in common with her, and even less so with her friends.  I haven’t seen her sister in who knows how long.  It’s been so long that she’s stopped asking me to hang out.  Too many broken promises on my end.  Still, if I had really wanted to be with her, I would have found a way.  Instead I found excuses.

The only people I can “relax” or act normally around are a small subset of coworkers.  These people have graduated to friends, where I can see them outside of work.  The problem I’m having is if I ever leave for a new job, I don’t know if the friendships will stay.

Hence the title of this post.  Most of my day is at work. My only “friends” are at work.  Hell, even my “boyfriend” is from work.  Sometimes all we talk about is work.  I don’t know if those are real relationships or not.  It’s all I have and it scares me.  My free time is spent thinking about work, and worrying about what I haven’t done, or who I upset.  This is why the grad school situation terrifies me.  If I go, it will be even more time devoted to work (since they are sponsoring, and will benefit from my degree)

Sometimes I just want everything to collapse, so I can start over, and maybe be a better version of me.

I can’t turn off the screaming

Whenever I’m alone, I scream obscenities at myself.  It’s gets worse when I’m stressed.  And I have been *really* stressed.  It’s repetitive, and doesn’t even make sense most of the time, and I’m not even sure why I’m doing it.  It’s like a compulsion.  Most of the time it’s “you fucking piece of shit”, “fucking whore/slut”, “Bitch” and “You deserve to die”.  I’m not sure where the whore/slut ones come from.  I guess I’m just looking for the most degrading insults I can find.  Normally, these are just running in the back of my head, and I think of them when I make a mistake (like say the wrong word or not knowing what to do or say) or miss an opportunity.  Now I’ve been flat out screaming them at myself.  I think I’ve failed in some way, but logically, I haven’t.  A situation didn’t turn out how I would have liked, but it was beyond my control.  I did almost everything I could to make it right, but something just don’t work out.  I’m sure if I compromised on what I wanted, or overpromised it would have been better, but then I would be in a worse situation later.

Oh, a new one while I was thinking about the situation: “Shitty fucking shit”.

My throat is sore from the yelling.

So the story is I’ve been trying to talk to professors about research, to see if what they’re working on would be something my work would pay for me to go to school for.  I had my first meeting with someone I thought would be who I would be working with, but turns out he doesn’t work in the areas I would have liked to work in anymore.  And I can’t figure out how to phrase what he’s doing into something my work would be willing to pay for.  I kinda knew this going in.  It was a stretch to begin with, but I feel like an arrogant prick when I’m essentially asking “will you take me as a student!”  I have no right to it, and there are plenty of other people better suited than me.  It just feels so presumptuous since none of these people know me, and I have no idea how to ask this in a politically correct way.  It makes me feel like shit wanting something, and asking for it.

I feel like giving up.

Missed Opportunities

I now have tangible evidence that my anxiety/personality/fear of other people’s opinions has stopped me from enjoying life as much as I can.

I went to a fan convention this weekend, dressed as my favorite video game character.  Turns out the company is making a new game and had a huge demo booth there.  So I was pretty popular.  I was totally fine with the crowds and people asking for pictures, because I wasn’t me.  I was the character.  It felt AMAZING to be publicly adored and not ridiculed or mocked, like I think everyone does to the real me.

Now, because of the popularity of the game this year, I’m getting special treatment at vendors.  Being able to cut lines, given free stuff, VIP access.  Even the DEO of the company who makes the game complimented me on it (although I didn’t realize it was him until he next day).

However, I was super uncomfortable  cutting in front of people who had been waiting.  This was my first time with this level of attention and I clearly didn’t know how to react.  The real thing I’m kicking myself over is that I could have been able to bypass a 4 hour line, but I was too afraid of the looks/reactions of those waiting in line.

Stupid, I know.  The CEO made a big deal about cosplayers and how much the company respects them, and that I shouldn’t have felt guilty about get special treatment.

So now I’ve been obsessing over every detail.  How good it felt to have people appreciate your work so much.  How awful I felt for not just asking if I could get what I apparently deserved.  Regret over knowing that it will never be this good again (there’s no way they’ll release another game any time soon).I regret not going back the next day for the VIP access.  Not that I was planning to, but it would have been so awesome.  If I had tried, I could have done it.  But I was afraid of my mother’s reaction.  I didn’t want to deal with her criticism.  Stupid fear of other people’s disapproval.  The extreme highs and lows have done a number on my physically.  I shook for two days (and still do when I start to obsess again).  I haven’t been hungry either.  Which is kinda of good since I’ve been overeating, but a clear sign of my anxiety getting worse.The one lesson I am taking away from this is that I have to just ACT.  Do something.  Ask for what I want.  I’ll regret it to a point of sickness if I don’t.  As much as it sucked to miss out this year, It came at the right time for me to learn this lesson.  I need it to talk to grad school people,w hich I’ve been dreading.  I didn’t want to come off as an annoying person, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter so much, as they’ll either forget you or help you.  I have to remember the reward outweighs the risk. And it will never be perfect.  I will never say the exact right things or at the right time, but I can only try.  I know I’ll suck, but the safety I feel when I hide is just an excuse.I need to take more chances.  Hell, I just need to DO something.  I over analyze to the point of deciding doing nothing is the best option.Life is for living.  Hopefully I can remember that.  At least for a while.

Walking the Tightrope

I can’t believe it’s been two months since my last post.  February just disappeared on me.  I guess that’s a good thing.  I’ve been busy.  My initial plans to start taking night courses at the local college fell through due to gross incompetence.  On the plus side, I applied to and was accepted to take one class at a very prestigious university.  It’s incredibly time consuming and starting to affect my job.  Mostly because the class is int he middle of the day and I have to leave work before lunch, drive to the school and then drive home to work for the rest of the night.  I really don’t get much work done as I am just exhausted from all the people interactions and context switching. I’m living in 3 different worlds now (home, work, school), and the stress is finally getting to me.  The first week of this schedule was horrible, and I nearly quit, but thinking about all the people who helped me get in was enough to shame myself into continuing, even if I flunked.  After a while, I got used to it, and was excited by it.  But now I’m just constantly exhausted, and my grades are suffering, which is sending down the spiral of self hate.  I’m hanging on for now, but the tightrope is getting thinner and thinner and any light breeze (read: failure), will send me tumbling town.

Not only am I stressed about just one class, but I feel as though I’m wasting an opportunity.  People would kill to be in a class taught by these professors, and I have no idea how to interact with them.  I would love to someday be one of their grad students, and this would be the perfect forum to introduce myself.  I just can’t find a reason to do it.  I feel like I’d be wasting their time, or I would just show them how stupid I am, and thus ruining my chances of working with them.

Plus I still need someone to write a recommendation for me for grad school next year.  The plan was spend a year with the same professor at the local college, and get a semi-decent recommendation.  Now I’m in a class of 250 overly ambitious people and I don’t know how to stand out.

So far, all I’ve learned this semester is ambition = stress.

I waver between giving everything I have or just saying “fuck it” and go hide in a hole.  I hate screwing up.

The really sad thing is I like it at this fancy school, so I’m going to be even more heartbroken when I don’t get in for full time.

I’m not even sure if I have what it takes to survive there.  A year ago, I would have said no, but after being here, I feel like I belong.  I may just be overestimating my abilities.

I’m failing at work, as I don’t understand the assignments anymore.  It’s just stuff I don’t want to do.  I’m a code monkey for a lower ranked co worker and it makes me feel like shit.  I’m hanging on for grad school, but if that falls apart, I’m going elsewhere.  8 years in the same (and only) place, is just too long.

And the tightrope gets thinner…

Procrastination!

Turns out I’m really good at it, as is evidence of this post.  For the past week I’ve been avoiding working on something I just hate to do.  Thursday I’m giving a talk to 20-100 people at work, and every time I think about it, I get nauseous.  The last talk I gave was 4 years ago, and thankfully I feel better about giving a talk now, than last time.  I lost 4 pounds from the stress last time.

This time, I absolutely know my subject, since I’ve been working on it for 2 years, but the thought of standing in front of everyone and trying to tell a coherent story for 25 minutes is terrifying.  It’s one of those talks that you do for visibility, and if I want to strengthen my career, I need to give them more regularly than every 4 years.  Most of the people there will daze off and not pay attention, as long as I’m consistent.  If I pause or draw attention to myself instead of the content, then I’m in trouble.  That’s when my anxiety kicks in and it’s a downward spiral.  I remember that kicking in last time on the last 4 slides, and I rushed through them.  I’m really good at talking fast, so much so that I can be done in 10 minutes (that’s even worse than going on for too long!).  Plus my graphics are boring and pointless.  This audience is used to graphs and charts and detailed analysis.  I have none of that.  It feels so fluffy compared to everyone else’s.

The plan for tonight is to get dressed, find some white noise/classical music and look at my slides.  I started putting this together a year ago, but I never have any idea what to actually say during the presentation.  I wish I could just distribute a paper on it.  I’m fine with people scrutinizing my work, but not in person.  I need time to think to respond.

I know practice will help, but I still know it won’t help enough.  No one has asked me to give a talk since the one 4 years ago.  I semi volunteered for this because I need the exposure to get what I want.

This is something I should be competent at.  Enough to be forgotten when it’s over.  Not bad enough people will remember how much I suck and awfulness of my voice and delivery.

I’m just fighting myself at this point and it’s obnoxious.  I always get in my own way.

I can’t stand anyone right now

People have gotten to me.  Everyone.  I can’t stand strangers, my friends, my friends of friends, and my family.  Everyone acts in their own self interest, which I get. That’s needed for survival.  But in society, we can step beyond that.

I was worn down a week ago.  I spend the day with J, who I’m only realizing now can be high drama and selfish.  She’ll attach herself to the strongest personality in the room.  I think that’s why I like her one on one.  She can be focused, but when we reach her other friends, I’m dropped fairly quickly.  She’ll come back to talk to me when they drop her.  That day was exhausting.  We ended the night at a party for a scifi convention and I thought that would be a good time to meet new people (for some reason I was up for that).  No, her friends met with other friends and we were stuck in various edges of groups.  I don’t understand the point of parties.  Everyone there was just talking to their own people.

Next was my family.  Thanksgiving, which means stress.  I can’t tolerate holidays anymore.  The catering to other people, the expectations, the forced socialization.  It was just my grandparents, but my grandmother can be a handful.  She’ll hide things and watch us spend 20 minutes looking for it.  My grandfather is good, but we only talk about real estate.  I don’t have anything in common with my family.

And now the mother rant.  The one person who I thought I could trust and count on forever.  As with previous posts, I’ve mentioned her selfishness and neediness is becoming evident.  There are other words for her, but I don’t know what.  She guilts me into all sorts of behavior, and I cave quickly.  Ic an’t stay overnight anywhere without getting my head spun around.  I can’t even go visit a friend without X days notice (and she’ll forget anyway).  God forbid I have someone over the house without her making a huge deal about it.  She’ll complain about dirty rugs or she can’t do laundry while my friend’s here.  So many excuses.   Now she’s accusing me of not “contributing to the household”.  Seriously?  I spend thousands of dollars a month, plus my time.  Don’t accuse me of being a jobless deadbeat child living off you.  I buy everything you could want or need.  It’s not my fault you spend $5000 for a car that sits in the driveway to rot (she has another car).  Now it’s up to me to cover the other expenses?  She doesn’t care about my life at all.  She wants me home, and writing checks to her.  I’ll gladly pay whatever utilities need to be covered, but don’t expect me to just write you a check.

Ugh.  She even successfully bullied me into buying a house.  I should have said no years ago.  My brother will rent it from me, but it won’t cover all the costs, so I have to pay for that as well.

What the fuck is wrong with me?  I am so weak, and I can’t escape.  I just feel trapped.

I suck at my job

Although, it would help to know what my job really is.  I call myself a software engineer, which is sort of vague as it is.  I write code.  Application level code.  At least, that’s what I’m best at (best being a relative term.  Other people are better at me than this, but compared to everything else I’ve tried, this is the one thing I’m competent at).

Today proved my skill set is not meant for the job I do.  Since my boss left, I’m the highest ranked person (of two people) for a system.  The details of the system are technical and not software based.  I can’t explain why things work the way they do.  I can tell you about the software to turn stuff on and off, but that’s it.  People are trying to use this system and integrate it and try to assess tradeoff, but I feel so useless sitting in the meeting.  It “my” project, but I know nothing about it.  A technician knows more about the details than I do.  I feel so useless, and I’m supposed to be in charge.

And that’s just one example.  Everything my group produces is nothing I can take true understanding of.  Software is a support tool.  I was ok with that when I started working (yay job!), but now that I’m being ranked against my peers who can contribute in much more meaningful ways, I’m afraid I don’t have a future. Or if I do truly want a future there, it won’t be in work that I care about or really understand.

Problem is, I’m too afraid to leave.  What if I get a a job at a software centric place and find out I’m just not that good?  Then what?  Am I stuck with no career goals or opportunities?  I’m timid as it is and any serious criticism would probably break me.  At least here, I’m good at what I can do, but what I do isn’t important.

I hate fear.  I wish I didn’t care.

I am not ok

It’s like every part of my body has an electric charge running through it.  All I want to do is cringe.  Sleep has been sporadic.  I can’t filter what I say so everything is coming out bitchy and offensive and I don’t know how to stop it without completely withdrawing. I keep making mistakes and I forget how to act.  Every unresolved issue is just running in a constant loop in my head, preventing me from acting liking a socially capable human being.  I’ve been using TV as an escape, but it’s not helping anymore.  Time will fix a few problems, but I know if I just leave it alone the outcome may not be what I want.  I don’t know what to do. Now I’m having flashbacks to the same stressed out feeling as when I was a kid.  I remember how lonely I was, each school year bringing a new “best friend”.  Most of the time they didn’t even know they were my best friend.  For the most part, I was used to it and didn’t really think about it too much.  Sometimes, when I thought I found someone who actually cared I tried harder.  One summer I wrote and mailed a letter to my “best friend” just asking to hang out.  Just one day, throughout the entire summer.  She gave some excuse and I learned to give up.  I know I can’t make people do what I want, as much easier as it would be, but  I’ve been so conditioned to expected rejection from any plan I initiate that I no longer bother.  The only one I risk it with, is the Boy.  Much of it stems from our well established patterns of interaction.  I’ve learned when the highest chance of him saying yes will be.  Still, I let him initiate most of the time, but I don’t know how that reflects on me.

I want to run away and start over.  I’m good at the introductions, before people get to know me.  Once I get close I start to push them away.  I can’t maintain relationships like a normal person should.

Sorry for the random assortment of topics, my mind won’t shut off and keeps jumping around every negative, self-loathing thought I can have.  I wish someone could spend a day in my head and either tell my I’m normal or how to make it stop.

No Progress

I went to work, but that was about it.  I’m stuck in a total fog, completely cut off from everyone.  Even the Boy could tell, said I looked a little dazed.  I need to escape my own head.  I hate it in here.  The thoughts don’t stop.  I still can’t sleep.Nothing is resolved.  I know if I just wait it out, some things will resolve themselves, but if I don’t intervene, I won’t get the result I want.  I’m so tired…