Burning Out – A Rant

I may get fired today. All I want to do is walk out of my office and yell at the top of my lungs: “You’re all a bunch of freaking morons! I give you all permission to go FUCK yourselves!” I’m pretty sure that means I’m on the verge of burn out, if I’m not already there.

Aside from the above overwhelming feeling of anger, my Facebook statuses today have been:

 If you can’t be bothered to save IMPORTANT email addresses in Outlook to your Contacts, and then something goes wrong and the magic, temporary “quick list” doesn’t work when you start to type a name in the “To:” field.. Don’t whine to me, because, honestly, I give absolutely no fucks. It’s your own freaking fault for not saving them if they were that damn important! Lazy freaking idiots..

And..

Also, we have a TICKET SYSTEM for you to submit your issues to. USE IT if you expect me to help you. If you can’t be bothered to submit the issue correctly so I can track the damn thing, screw off, I’ve got more important things to do then bend over backwards for you when you can’t even be bothered to take 5 extra minutes to SUBMIT IT CORRECTLY. #@%$ >_<

Ya, I am not a happy person today. I almost called in and took a mental health day. I thought about it for probably 30 minutes this morning before coming in, and decided I wouldn’t. But, the longer I’m here, and the more emails I get about stupid problems sent in by ungrateful people, the more I realize I should have.

Since I started on anti-depressants and my mood has come up from the depths, I’ve really began to understand how much I really, really don’t like my job. I’d like to note that this is not because it’s a terrible, god-awful job that no one could be extremely happy in, I’m just saying I’m not that specific person. Also, due to the political nature of how I even got this job, I’m pretty sure I’m not the best person for it to begin with. Maybe I was the first year or two, but now it needs someone else. Someone who can shake things up and make some much needed changes. I can’t be that person, for a variety of reasons.

For the last year or so I thought my dislike of my job was simply due to my own depression and anxiety. I thought “Well, maybe, just maybe, if I get to feeling better I will enjoy it more!”.

That was a fun lie while it lasted.

Once the anti-depressants started kicking in I started to understand how truly bored and frustrated I am with my job. I had a very long talk with a coworker friend the other night over ice cream about my job and the stuff I’ve had to deal with, and she agreed it sounds like complete rubbish and she doesn’t blame me for wanting out of it.

The thing that has a really torqued me off is not necessarily my end users and their inability to grasp the simplest instructions or even the fact that sometimes I get reported for “not doing my job” even though I DID do my job and the idiot reporting otherwise is just doing something on their end WRONG or they just want me to do more than my fair share.

No, what really bothers me is that my boss tells me I need to be more of a “manager” (though, he’s quick to follow that up with the fact that I am NOT management) and take more responsibility for our tech vendors and their shit. OK, fine, whatever. The problem with this is that one of our vendors has been doing IT for our company since the company started up, and I, in fact, used to work for this other IT company and that’s how I landed this job. The unfortunate fact of the matter is my boss believes this company can do not wrong and goes to them all the time for things.. things he should NOT go to them for.

Basically, this last year I got my shit together and asked for a raise. I gave him a range of pay I thought would be fair for me to be making. What did my boss do with my request? He went to this IT vendor and asked THEM if it made sense for me to make that much! I have never felt so stepped on in my life. I went through hours and hours of work, putting together a massive amount of information on how AWESOME of a job I do and how my workload has increased over 500% since I started working, and he praised me about what a wonderful job I did putting the info together and how it was obvious I was an amazing employee.. and then he goes and asks an OUTSIDE VENDOR who I am supposed to MANAGE on a daily basis what the fuck I should be making.

-_-;

Ya, needless to say I’m not happy, and my latest want is to get out of this job. And, I apologize for this random rant, but I had to get it out somewhere, otherwise I’d end up packing my things up in a box this afternoon and going home.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that yet, as I need the health insurance to continue my therapy. And I need to get well before I can venture out into the big ‘ole world again. The more I am in therapy, the more I feel justified in feeling that I’m to bright and to creative to be wasting away at this job.

If you made it all the way through that I appreciate you taking the time to read it. I’ll try to make my next entry a little happier!

 

Love, My Inner Child, and I

A bag to remind me to love myself and one to remind me to love my inner child.

I bought two bags Saturday. One represents my 27 year old mind that needs reminded that it is OK to love myself and to do what’s right for me. The other is a gift to my inner child who has been struggling to hold on for dear life the past few years.

In my therapy session Saturday morning we talked about my inner child. I told Amy about my feelings  of being to young to look at properties to rehab, and how I felt that others would perceive me as a kid and not take me seriously (irrational). I told her about how I used to write so often and create when I was younger, and that about the time I hit college and had to start taking life more seriously I had stopped doing those creative things I loved as a kid. The problem is now my inner child comes out at impractical times and is scared to death of a lot of things. Like buying huge old buildings to fix up and taking  other “adult” steps. This leads me to feeling inadequate and “to young” when I have no reason to feel that way. So the goal is to combine my inner child with my 27 year old self to become a happier person and be truer to the real me.

I felt like walking after my signification other had left for work so I started down the street with a goal to look at the Owl purse. I have looked at this purse a couple of times now. There is a wonderful shop that opened up recently downtown that has some of the cutest bags and the neatest jewelry and I really like visiting it. I have never went shopping downtown by myself before despite having lived here for almost 2 years now. Sad, isn’t it? I’ve only in the last few weeks managed to get to where I can walk down the street in the mornings by myself (SA still flares when someone else is walking towards me on the sidewalk >_<), add to that  small stores are hard for me to be comfortable in so I always take my sister or a friend.  Saturday, though,  I resolved to go, because I wanted to. I ended up staying in the store for 45 minutes or so looking at things, and buying the Owl bag and a peace sign bracelet. The bracelet is to remind me to breathe and to be at peace with myself.

The Owl purse is significant to me, not just because it’s a bit whimsical, but because it is an item I loved from the first moment I saw it but felt silly purchasing it. It’s one of those items that while I would love it on someone else, I end up feeling like I would look completely ridiculous with it and that it would draw attention to me.  This is absurd, as it will look just as cool on me as it will on the next woman!  Not to mention, owls are my sister’s thing and she has been my biggest supporter through my life dealing with SA, so the owl reminds me of all the hard work she’s done to help me and that it is now my turn to help myself.

Then, as I wandered back to my appartment, I stopped into another store that I go to much less frequently. Inside I found this wonderful drawstring backpack with a heart that says “i am love”. Not only do I really enjoy this style of backpack for a lot of things (namely running around conventions and theme parks), but the message spoke so loud and clear to me I couldn’t pass on it. It was like the universe was telling me I really needed to think more about love and how it effects my true self. I love and take care of so many other people and then neglect myself, and that needs to change. So I bought it as well, which is super unusual.. I dislike spending money on things like purses and bags. How many does one person need, after all?

So, not only did I do something I wanted to do by myself, I bought items that made me feel like I was really committing to this whole process. Over all I felt drained, but happy about the day. It definitely feels good to do the things you want to do.

Looking for inner peace. Anyone know which way it went?

 

Oh, the Highs and Lows!

There is a previous post related to this one! Social Anxiety, Phone Calls, and Real Estate Investing

I did manage to go through with looking at the building! However, the night before I felt very depressed and defeated. My brain told me I was silly for calling about it, that I didn’t have the money, that there was no way they’d take a kid like me seriously (I’m 27, and in situations like these I feel like I’m 14!),  they’d judge me for bringing my parents, and that somehow they’d be condescending and just know that I was never going to buy it. My attitude made me want to call the real estate agent back and call the whole thing off! Needless to say, it was a rough 24 hours before I even got to the showing!

Thankfully, the real estate agent was wonderful and very helpful, and the owner was a 60+ year old, skinny biker who just oozed the hippy vibe. Loved them both! To be honest, my first impression of someone in a trade will often effect my anxiety later down the line, so had I gotten a very pushy and unpleasant real estate agent this time, my anxiety would have been 10x as bad the next time I tried to contact one. So my good experience is definitely helpful to future me!

The building itself was overwhelming! The size of it, folks! It was three levels, plus a basement, and I believe the real estate agent said a little over 30,000 square feet! The things I could do with it! I’ve actually began working on floor plans and ideas, and will share those once I have them where I want them (perfectionism).  My significant other does have a friend who has done a lot of contracting in his life, and he’s agreed to walk through it with us sometime next week to see if he can give a ballpark figure of how much money you’d have to have to fix the place up. There is a lot of water damage in one part of the building, the roof at one time collapsed in and fell through the 3rd floor, onto the second, and then proceeded to leak water to the first. There was a new roof put on it around 12 years ago, so that stopped the decay, but there’s already a lot of damage done in that section!

Now, why am I continuing along with this anxiety inducing lunacy if I have no intention of actually buying the place? It’s a learning experience! I have been given the numbers for different places in town that help with grants and such for historic old buildings, and I need to call city counsel with what I’d plan to do with the building to see if they’d approve it. If I go through this process now then when I do it seriously it will be less stressful. Right now I have the knowledge that I can back out at any time it gets to stressful, and know that it’s not likely the building is going to sell tomorrow.

I’m glad I went, but it’s definitely caused me a lot of anxiety this week, and made me moody and I’ve hit at least one rather extreme depressed spell. I almost went home from work sick yesterday because I could barely function. Thankfully, work picked up in a way that had me running all over the office, and the physical movement helped tremendously!

I have a lot of things I want to write about, so I may have to break my Mon, Wed, Fri rule and put up a post or two over the weekend. We’ll see! Hope you all have an amazing Friday!

 

Social Anxiety, Phone Calls, and Real Estate Investing

Tuesday was a good day. I made a phone call asking about a property on the street I live on that is for sale. The property is an old building, originally housing our cities first JCPenney. It’s basically been vacant since 1977. They want $19,900 for it.

Let me start out with the fact that I absolutely hate phone calls. I would rather go directly to a person and talk to them then call them. I text my friends, only my immediate family gets the pleasure of talking to me on the phone. If it wasn’t because my job required me to support users over the phone, I wouldn’t do it. You can imagine it was a special kind of hell the first year at this job, dealing with phone calls trying to answer peoples questions about issues on the spot. I’m not sure how I survived without getting terrible stomach ulcers from stress.

Anyway, I called the real estate agent the first time and got her voicemail, which was a little bit of a relief. I like hearing people’s voices before I talk to them directly over the phone. My brain tells me I can tell by the sound of their voice how friendly they are and how mean or condescending they will  be to me when I actually do talk to them. I left a voicemail about the property and waited, with an upset stomach, for a call back.

Now let me tell you about the abusive relationship that my stomach is stuck in with my SA. Whenever I deal with social anxiety, I end up feeling very queasy. Sometimes, this keeps me from going anywhere or doing anything until the anxiety inducing event has either passed me by or I suck it up and do whatever it is. I swear, I don’t need any fiber in my diet, social anxiety is enough! So, after my first phone call, I had to hit the toilet. Then I managed to miss the call back, so I then had to use the bathroom a second time before calling her back again. Needless to say, my stomach was in bad shape the rest of the evening.

Now, to be honest, I didn’t have to make this phone call. I made myself make it. Why? Because I wanted to and knew I would regret not doing it. You see, I’ve been really interested in investing money in real estate for a while now as well as starting a business. I have no desire to buy myself a house yet, I’m very happy renting, so why not put that money to good use? While I don’t actually intend on buying this specific property (it’s quite a mess from what I can tell peeping through the windows into it), I need to start somewhere in getting comfortable with doing these sorts of crazy things that I want to do. So, this afternoon I have an appointment to view the property with the real estate agent and the owner.

My parents will also be going with me.

Baby steps.

*stomach gurgle*

 

I Should vs I Want

This last session was particularly rough. I left feeling very emotional with my stomach in knots. The changes that Amy had presented that I needed to make were the ones I had feared. I had now been told, by someone who had years of education and was certified on the matter, that I needed to start thinking more about myself than others.

I told Amy about the time I went to Canada to meet an online friend for the first time. I told her how before we had left for the airport on my final day there that he had asked me to stay, and I had said no, because of the job I was supposed to starting the following week. The one that everyone was so proud I had gotten. The one that everyone said was an amazing opportunity for someone just out of community college. The one that my previous employer had helped me get. So, I went home and started that job. Three years later I still regret not staying in Canada and wonder what would have happened if I had. I comfort myself by saying it would have probably been disastrous. I probably wouldn’t have found a job or been able to get a work visa, and thus would have had to come back to the states with nothing to show for it. It might have spelled the end to my long time friendship, the stress of the situation eventually making us hate each other. It could have ended horribly.

But would it have been better to take the chance then to wonder? Would I have always been sad I didn’t take this “amazing opportunity” to work at this job in an industry I didn’t even want to continue on in?

Who knows, really.

This is one of just many things I haven’t done due to my desire to please everyone around me. I can’t stand the thought of letting others down, and I knew if I didn’t come home to start that job a lot of people would have been very unhappy and disappointed in me.  I am quickly approaching 30, and it seems like every day I think of one or two things that I wish I had the courage to do. Those one or two things are always quickly strangled by the thoughts of taking care of other people that I love, how my choices would effect them and their lives, and how selfish a person I must be for even thinking about doing the things I want to do.

I feel absolutely and totally selfish just attempting to figure out what it is I actually want out of life. What I want to do.  The words I and want just seem like such a horrid combination. I feel sick uttering them in my head. They are quickly replaced by I should and I ought and I must, the three phrases that Amy has told me I need to keep out of my thought processes and replace with I want or I will if I feel like it. I must say, this was much easier for the little every day things. But replacing my shoulds with wants for the big, life changing stuff is quite the emotional ordeal. My stomach is in knots and I don’t  even want to try to  think about it. I am terrified of doing what I want to, lest I fail and know that I should have just listened to everyone else.

With the fear, I am also a little excited. How amazing would it be to just make a decision based on what I want and how I feel and not have to take everyone I’ve ever met and what they would think about it into consideration? How freeing would that be? How amazing would that feel? How much happier would I be? Would I be happy with the failure if it was my failure for once and no one else’s? Looking back on life, have I ever really failed so disastrously that it is anything really to be afraid of to begin with?

There are so many questions in my head. So many doubts. My mind doesn’t even know where to start in processing this concept. This blog entry has helped sort out the chaos slightly, but it’s still a muddled pool of confusion in my brain.  This is going to be the hardest part of my therapy, but it might be the key to getting past the other problems of anxiety, depression, and perfectionism in the end.

Time to practice my deep breathing again.

 

Everyone Has “Social Anxiety”

Sometimes you can’t win. It might be a board game, an argument, or that proposal for new PCs that you’re trying to get approved for your favorite remote location. My favorite example of this is the debates I have had with some people on whether or not my social anxiety is really a problem that warrants therapy and medication.

To be fair, most of those in my inner circle have at least some grasp on what I’m going through. I have friends who suffer from it to lesser or greater extents then I do, as well as family members. Then there are others who just don’t get it.

“You have what? I would never have guessed it, you seem to talk so well with people!”

“Everyone gets social anxiety. I don’t like speaking in front of a bunch of people either!”

“I’m sure you’re fine, you’ve never acted like you had anxiety.”

Are some of my favorite responses so far as I’ve went through the motions of telling those who weren’t aware about my current situation.  One person in particular seems to just refuse to understand that it is a viable issue that has a drastic effect on my day to day life.

To be fair, I do seem to talk to people very well. However, a lot of people assume this because I’m good at listening. Let’s face it, in our day to day lives we generally run into more talkers then listeners, so when people do run into one they think they are just amazing conversationalists. Listening has never been my problem. Expressing my opinion and being assertive in an argument is what gets me.

The vast majority of people do deal with some form of mild social anxiety in their life time. This is usually in relation to giving a speech in front of a group of strangers. If this was the only thing that made my stomach tighten up in knots and force me to run to the bathroom 10 minutes before the anxiety inducing event, I’d give that one to you. Alas, going to my own birthday party makes me nearly hyperventilate. I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.

Apparently, I don’t give off a “I’m completely socially awkward and scared to death to talk to you or anyone else.” vibe. This has been a comfort to me to find out, but has made convincing certain people that I really, honestly have a real problem I’m trying to work through really, really hard. It’s like the person who says they are depressed when they walk around with a big smile on their face giving chipper hellos to everyone. People don’t see it outwardly so they don’t believe that there could possibly be a problem internally.

All of these things are not only a bit frustrating, but if you are depressed about your situation with social anxiety can make you actually doubt you do have a real problem that you do need help with. Over the years I have told myself I was silly, stupid, idiotic, irrational, and a sissy to feel the way I did and that everyone went through it and I needed to suck it up. The thing is, not everyone goes through what I experience everyday. Those of you that do may go through it to lesser or more extreme extents then me as well. You may have different things that trigger it, different patterns you have to avoid it, and you may tell yourself different lies to justify it. That does not mean it’s not a real problem that you may need help to overcome.

If you aren’t sure if you have social anxiety, check out WebMD’s article on it. Also this is a good page to visit for some examples of situations that cause people social anxiety. You may relate to some of them, or you may relate to all of them. I personally relate to all of them and it was finding websites like this one that gave examples of how people felt in certain situations that really helped me see that this was a legitimate problem I had.

If you are looking for support for your social anxiety, check out the Social Anxiety Support forum. I just recently signed up there myself and they are very welcoming group who can relate to what you are going through. This is a great place to start if you need guidance and support!

 

Being Medicated

“5mg once a day for the first 6 days, and then 10mg a day until gone.”

I stared at the 10mg tablets sitting in the bottom of the orange medicine bottle.  They sat on my desk a midst various odds and ends, leaking an aura of temptation around the idea of feeling normal and level headed. However, the possibility of feeling better didn’t quite overcome the fork of doom tipped with thoughts of negative side effects that kept jabbing my brain.

Over the past few months my ability to focus on tasks had deteriorated quite quickly. My depression was taking a toll on my ability to want to do anything, be it work related or fun. I couldn’t finish a work project in one sitting, I couldn’t bring myself to focus on a craft project I was mid-way through at home, and forget about the laundry it simply wasn’t happening.

Focus. Focus. Focus. FO-cus. FOCUS. Damn it all..

This led to an interesting problem. Not only was I not getting things done, I was getting increasingly stressed out by the fact I didn’t seem to have enough time to do anything at all. Hours rolled quickly by and just as I was mustering up the gumption to start something the work day would be over, or the SO would walk in the door from work, or it would be time for bed. The side effect of not having accomplished anything that I felt I should (evil, evil word) have was a very cranky, depressed,  severely moody and just plain miserable me. Which led to my SO being fairly miserable as well, being the one left alone to deal with the mood swings.

Eventually, I just didn’t care what the negative side effects were anymore.  I took my first 5mg of Escitalopram with reckless abandon, I didn’t care enough about anything anymore to have the right to care so much about what it could do to me. To my relief, over the next few days the rain in my head subsided, became a drizzle, and eventually stopped. Every once in a while it threatens to start again, but so far nothing worse than the drizzle has returned.

As my brain has began to dry out and get rid of the excess water and clouds, my focus has improved. I can sit here and write a blog entry, or I can focus on a project at work and finish it in the same sitting. So far this focus has came and went in spells, take for example the other morning at work where I accomplished quite a bit, but then that afternoon my brain failed to focus on anything at all. I’m hoping these short lived periods of focus quickly turn into something a little more solid.

As for the negative side effects, we’ll just say mine so far have been on the intimacy side of things, but they aren’t bad enough to throw the baby out with the bath water just yet.

Naturally, the end goal of therapy is to prepare me to deal with everything without the use of medication. I look forward to the day when I don’t need it, but, right now, just having the rain clouds gone and being able to sit and write a few words here and there is an amazing feeling.

 

Perfectionism

Wikipedia has this to say about it: Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality disposition characterized by an individual striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.

Perfectionism being my problem was the last thing on my mind when I went to my doctor last month. I had been having a particularly severe bout with depression over the past few months, caused by my social anxiety getting increasingly worse due to the impending loss of the cornerstone of my support network as she prepared to leave for university. Very quickly approaching full blown crisis mode, I decided it was time to take action and went to my family doctor for advice.

I already knew I had social anxiety disorder and suffered from bouts with depression when I scheduled the appointment to get a referral to a mental health specialist. I’d been dealing with depression since I had hit puberty, and it felt like I’d been dealing with social anxiety just as long, if not longer. I mainly wanted help with my social anxiety as I was fairly certain this was the root of my depression and if I could control it I would feel better over all.

My doctor recommended a woman who had just started her practice back up after being retired for a year. She only saw patients part time, and she had treated my doctor’s daughter and she was very happy with her. I left with a promise to be contacted by the recommended therapist, we’ll call her Amy, and a prescription for the generic form of Lexapro, Escitalopram.  I was told that Escitalopram while an anti-depressant, was also an anti-anxiety medication. Since I wasn’t sure what effect it would have on me, I waited to take it until that Saturday, which ended up being the same day that I could get an appointment to see Amy.  We’ll get to the medication in another post.

Upon meeting Amy I could tell we were going to get along. My prior therapist, who had nothing to do with my issues with social anxiety, was a gruff older gentleman who at one point told me I needed to “Drink more”, which I’m pretty sure was an attempt to tell me to chill out about my life. I could easily imagine him pulling out a bottle of scotch in between sessions, wetting his whistle to prepare himself for the next crazy he had an appointment with. My anxiety flared up whenever I had to go visit him. Amy, however, had one of those smiles that made her feel like an old friend. She exuded an energy that made me guess that retirement had been a little to dull for her.

Over the next three weeks, we’d talk about social anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy, reprogramming the brain, and, at our most recent meeting, perfectionism. After our session ended, I walked out in disbelief and went on to ask everyone who knew I was in therapy if they thought I was a perfectionist, and each person answered with a resounding “Yes!”. The more I thought about it, the more my social anxiety and depression made sense. I was a perfectionist and I was never good enough for myself, ripping apart every thing I should feel proud of by picking out every flaw, focusing only on everything I should have done differently.

The word should has quickly become the enemy as I try to program my brain to stop using it so casually. This is one of many things I have to do to fix my malfunctioning mind.  If you feel like it, you can join me on my journey to Getting Away With Life.