I'll Just Keep Dancing

Let's blame it on me drinking coffee today for the first time since Finals or the gorgeous day outside, but I'm in a positively glowing mood. When I wake up in one of these moods it's hard for me to imagine life being anything other than perfect. 

Carl stayed out all night with friends, I didn't care! I woke up when my alarm went off, still tired, but I didn't care! My planned outfit is a bit too warm for such a nice day and I have a stain on the sleeve, I didn't care! In a couple hours I have a three hour class and then a staff meeting, I don't care! 

Cares are a funny thing. Some days I am overrun by them. They are all I can notice, the dishes not done, the carpet not vacuumed. The insane amount of reading I have assigned, the ridiculous debt I have accumulated.  

And then some days like today I just don't notice anything. It is a day when I am so overwhelmingly happy to be alive that I jam to Airborne in my office, dancing for all my residents to see. I'd love to know the secret of them so that I can make these days happen more often, but until then I'll just keep dancing. 

Do I really have any other option? If Shopenhauer heard me saying this he would smite me for my poor style and even worse philosophy but today I just don't care.

The Truth Will Set You Free

I may be a writer but the hardest thing for me has always been starting out. I firmly believe that the first few lines set the tone for an entire work, be it a short story, novel or scholarly paper. That said, I procrastinate writing a lot, even when it is something I want to write about. Like this blog post. You see I went to my first counseling session the other day since I was in forced therapy as a kid. 

Yep, you got me, forced. To this day I'm not really sure why it was so important that I went as often as I had to. It may have been because of my B.D., or for my ADHD and Anxiety, I'm not sure. I just remember dreading those visits when I had to go into that cold office with the fat Navy Shrink who always called me a Peach and sitting on his fake leather couch. I was always asked how I felt and I never knew what to say. I was a five year old who wished there was more sunlight in the day so I didn't have to come in when the streetlight came on. 

Anyways, I was in weekly therapy until I was ten years old and I hated every minute of it. I've known for awhile I should attend therapy of some sort if not just to hear someone with an education tell me to relax. I plan most of my encounters with people ahead of time. Yes, I lay in bed at night and think of conversation topics and how to answer questions. I can't help it, I've done it since I was a kid. If truth were to be told, I honestly think I am partly OCD. So in preparation for my counseling session I laid awake most of the night trying to decide where it all started. When my alcoholism got worse? When Jeremy died? When my best friend lashed out at me? When my mom got remarried? When my parents divorced? When B.D. was abusive? I honestly couldn't decide where to start. But this session was very important to me and I wanted to make the most of it. 

You see, I finally got Fella to agree to come with me, not just for my sake, or our relationships sake but his as well. I just had to make sure we got as much out of this session as we could. I won't delve into details, but we both come from similar pasts, similar struggles and similar presents.

We started out the session with prayer and I was glad for it. This immedietely showed me how much I have grown and healed over the past year. I used to be so adverse to prayer in instances like this. After being bullied into prayer all my life I wanted it to be private and unfortunately sporadic at best.

Our wonderful counselor Cyndi asked me right off the bat what keeps me up at night. I guess she knew that I'm an insomnia who has anxiety attacks at night. Or maybe it was a lucky guess. I began slowly devolving how I struggle to feel like I do enough every day or ever. I was admittedly a little annoyed when she related this back to God with the question of "How do you think God feels about this?" But, when she prodded a little bit more about my answer and I honestly said "I feel like He is disappointed because he has a plan for my life and I'm not getting there soon enough", I realized it is truly how I feel.

And let me tell you dear readers, the truth will set you free.

From there we chatted a little more and it was truly enlightening. I may not have been completely honest, only because I didn't know the truth myself, but as the session went on the truth was revealed to me. We finished by her asking me for three words that describe my childhood. The words I used were rough, forgotten and abusive. They were hard to admit, even though I freely talk about my childhood. I suppose when it is described with one word versus a lofty paragraph or two that ends with me where I am now it is much more apparent.

The session ended with Carl talking with her as well as a great devotional exercise I will share later this week. She referred me to a Christian Counselor outside of the church. Even better the church pays for the first six sessions. I honestly feel like I will need more than six, but hopefully by then I'll be in a good financial state and able to pay for more.

All in all it was such a better experience. No fat Navy doctors, no cold offices, no fake leather couches. Just a smiling (and at times crying) woman, a warm room that was brightly lit and a super comfy love seat.

O and of course Fella's and my feels all over the place as Cyndi
described things. But that is for another post as well :)

A Boulder and a Diamond.

I'm having a bit of a down day. I got some news about my Biological Dad (called B.D. from now on) that just stressed me out to the max. It bled into today pretty well. Combine that with my money stress and I just kinda want to crawl into a hole. At the same time I've had a really relaxing winter break thus far (thus no posting) so I'm also in a good mood. I have a lot I want to accomplish in the coming months, but with no way to go about it, I'm left between a Boulder and Diamond. (rock and a hard place. Get it?) 

Dealing with my depression in the past year has been a really good thing, obviously. But it has also opened my eyes to a lot of poor decisions I made in the past few years. I'm now forced to deal with the consequences of those actions, while also trying to improve myself. 

For example, I spent A LOT of money when I was in my downward spiral. I maxed out three credit cards while not working. I really didn't care at the time. I figured I would find a way out, like I always do (sometimes I have far too much faith in myself) so I might as well have a good time while I could. Well, all the booze, video games, clothes, etc didn't make me happy. Not even a little bit. Now, when I need to pay for things like food, gas and rent between paychecks (which are extremely meager. Think less than $150 meager) I have no way to do that. 

Combine that with the fact that I would love to really make my house a home, dress in a way that makes me feel confident and professional (opposed to my normal grunge style of ripped jeans and band shirts), and be able to make food that is healthy; I have no method of doing so. I'm surviving on one meal a day, normally a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I only drive when I have to go to the barn to ride the colts I have in training (just so I can keep Percy here with me). 

I'm making my life work, and I'm grateful for it, but I find myself ridden by guilt for the actions that put me in the very difficult position I am in now.

I know that Christmas is about Christ, and I am so thankful for how he has helped me improve my life, but I would really love to have a traditional Christmas with lots of good food, family and small heartfelt gifts. That isn't happening this year and I can't help but blame myself. 

Tenacious E

I am sincerely considering quitting my job.

This isn't a habit and is in fact quite new. I have never quit a job before. Being raised on a farm I was taught from a young age to take responsibility and work through any situation, no matter how hard. Tenacity is what you call it I suppose. Well, looking back while it has served me well, giving me opportunities I never could have had without it (serving in the state legislature as a secretary at 18, managing hotels at 19, being a marketing manager for a non profit at 20 and 21 etc) it also dealt me a fair bit of heartache. 

I could probably blame parts of the downward spiral  I am just now beginning to climb my way out of on that little force of habit we call tenacity. In the last year I have really had to teach myself that being the best, the brightest and the most successful isn't necessary in every aspect of my life. I'm a perfectionist, but that perfection was really starting to just bring me down

                                                                                    down

                                                                                                   down.

So I have been learning to let the B+'s slide (yes, I do indeed have hysterical panic attacks about B+'s.), to leave my house in a general state of disarray if it means spending a little more time cuddling my dog and my Fella, to work a little less at work and concentrate a lot more on what really makes me happy. 

And you know what I found out? Spending a night out with my friends drinking a cold beer and singing bad karaoke instead of burning the midnight oil studying really makes that B+ okay. 

I look back on the days I've spent playing with Roz and watching old science fiction movies with my Fella and seem to have forgotten the days the dishes weren't done.

And while, I may not make the best bulletin boards in the history of being an RA or be the peppiest at staff meetings about opening BBQ's and Family and Friends weekend, I have found myself happier than ever doing the things I truly love.

Thereby, I'm considering quitting my job. It was never the job I wanted, but one I simply needed. It gave me free housing and a free meal plan; things I couldn't have afforded without it. It also enabled me to work just down the hall from where I live (i.e. no gas used in my Environmentally Violent Truck!). And I thought for a brief time, I might get accepted into that inner UNC sanctum of HRE staff.

Well, I was wrong. During training I saw all the holes in their theories of their "Culture of Care". I found myself wondering how in the world they got any students to live on campus at all. And most of all, I realized my campus really didn't care about me as a person as much as HRE tried to propose it, it was untrue and unrealistic. They merely cared that every student kept in line and didn't give the school a bad name. 

I told myself to power through, I would thank myself later surely. Well, it's later, and I'm not.

It began in training with my boss calling me in on days she promised I would have off. Not a huge deal except I was managing the barn my horse is at and I had barn work I had to do those days. Then during the semester when she would spring tasks on us without any warning. 

The kicker came when I was just starting to trick myself to believe that I was actually becoming friends with my coworkers and they did care for my well being, I was reported to Health and Safety for being Suicidal, Severely depressed and a Self Harmer. While there are some truth to the accusations, I immediately knew who it was that had outed me (a staff member whose information was based on hearsay). And I felt betrayed. 

I understand her reasoning for doing so, but it threatened my job in a pretty serious way, and truly damaged my reputation. Furthermore, I don't know if you know this, but the worst way to get a depressed, suicidal, self harmer, help is to report them. For those of us whose brains work just a bit differently our gut reaction is to dive as deep into those habits of depression as we possibly can.

So, I had a bit of a regression in my recovery. This I will not deny. 

Yet, I was finding myself back on the right path when I found out that my boss had been talking about this extremely personal information in front of the desk staff to another member of the HRE department. I really think I had it there. Not only had they shown absolutely no interest in my actual well being, but they didn't think it personal enough to keep to themselves. 

Today I received a scathing email from my boss about how disappointed she is in me as a staff member. Why? Because I reported something she had seriously screwed up on, and had in turn, seriously screwed me over. Due to her screw up, I am now $1000 in debt to the university and until I pay them back I cannot register for classes. As a Junior. And a double major. In impacted majors.

So, for this, I want to quit my job. There are of course other reasons, from the irrationality of my boss to constantly being yelled at and threatened, etc, etc, etc. And it has me seriously doubting myself and my desires. Do I feel this way merely because I am victimizing myself? Is it true? Am I blowing it out of proportion? Will I be able to survive without a housing stipend? 

But the worst question, that I can't seem to avoid is "Is this adding to your depression and reducing your success at finding your way back to happiness?"

For this question I know the answer is yes. How I wish I had just an ounce more of tenacity and maybe I could be better than this. Better than the depression, the work failures and the fear of man.