Keeping My Cool

I am proud to tell you that my roommate is still not speaking me and I am NOT experiencing significant anxiety. That is not to say that I'm not sad. I am. She seems to have decided to avoid me for an extended period of time. I'm not sure how long she thinks she can do it, but so far it's been almost a week. My schedule is consistent enough now she can do it for a very long time if she's really determined. I have decided that I can't feed into her issues with codependency by staking her out. She knows where I am. She knows my door is (literally) open. She knows that I always want to talk things out. I apologized (via text, since I knew she was avoiding me) and she didn't answer. I can't let myself get stressed over her passive aggressive behavior. On the one hand I am quite proud of myself. I feel healthy and right about the efforts I have made and the boundaries I have drawn. But on the other hand, I'm sad. She is so mired in her own personal issues that she is willing to sacrifice our friendship. I almost think it is imperative for her to do so at this point in order to "prove" some things to herself and protect herself from... life? I'm not really sure that she knows exactly what she is so afraid of. It breaks my heart that I can't help her. Because, as CoolGirl pointed out to me the other day, I'm a caretaker and a fixer. But I can't fix her. And I'm finally at a place where, at least with a few of my friends who are really having a hard time, but who have not begun to advocate for themselves, I've accepted that I need to not try to own their problems or the responsibilities for the solutions. And let me tell you, what a relief.

Unhealthy People Causing Undue Stress

My roommate is mad at me. Yes, I had a thoughtless moment. But it was fairly minor in the scheme of things, and she chose to essentially cuss me out via text because I hurt her feelings. I apologized, via text, and now she is ignoring me. She doesn't know how to express her feelings in a healthy way, and I am generally the target since she has no other close friends. I am thinking that this lease term will be our last lease term. I'm not doing her any favors by allowing her to have this hold over me, and I feel very much like I'm in an unhealthy place today, since her silent treatment means I can't find peace in my own apartment. Her disproportionate anger over any perceived injustice is exhausting. She needs to get counseling, and I've told her this over and over. She is too busy hiding from reality to get it set up. I'm frustrated and stressed, and frustrated that I am stressed.

Control Issues

So I finally started seeing a counselor. I think I might have mentioned that before. I can't remember. It would probably help if I posted more than once a month. But one of the things she pointed out to me is that I feel secure when I have control over my environment.

Today was an insecure day. I did not have control. There was criticism of the way I do my job at work, and a meeting that did not go as expected. Fortunately my boss is supportive of how I do my job. So that's a plus. But I was feeling that same stupid feeling that I will never succeed in my new responsibilities at work. This was the irrational part of my brain. The negative sounding side of my brain. The other side of my brain assured me I will rock this job so hard they will make me the queen of the universe. Or, you know, whatever is just above my current position. But, in order to gain what control I might over my environment, I cleaned. First, I cleaned out my email inbox. Then, when that failed to bring satisfaction, I cleaned my office. There were stacks of files and piles of stuff in my office that have been begging to be dealt with all week. That at least helped me feel a semblance of control over my job by the time I went home. Hopefully as a result tomorrow I will be able to focus to get some real work done.

The Rollercoaster that is My Mind

Life is pretty good right now. That said, I've experienced a bit of rage and the urge to throw myself down and have a tantrum at work this week. This is because of several different parts of my life.

There's the part where I've been experiencing change at work, including transitioning from an old boss to a new one. I think I will be much happier with my new boss. My old boss, who technically has no authority over me, but is still around, is doing her best to drive me completely insane before she can bring herself to let go. I like to give her the benefit of the doubt and assure myself that she is generally not ACTUALLY trying to make me feel small and unskilled and slightly numb-skulled. Coolgirl takes a less charitable view of her and instead sees her as conniving and possibly the spawn of Satan. I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But there are days I think Coolgirl's view of things is more accurate. Today is one of those days. After all, Coolgirl is a pretty good judge of character. Old bosslady has succeeded in not only making me feel slightly inadequate, it appears she has little minions among those I work with who are reporting back to her. I am forgiving of many things in life. Two-facedness is a challenging one for me. It's too much like a lie. Really, it is deceit, which is a form of lying. I've gone through several really good moods, and then moments of wanting to seek old bosslady out and bludgeon her with something sharp and painful. To the pain, not the death, mind you. I assure you that I had valid reasons for these moods, and am quite proud of myself for having a fairly good day despite the moments old bosslady managed to orchestrate.

There's the part of my life where my best friend, or one of my best friends, seems to be irritated wiht me. I might be totally jumping to conclusions here, considering I am inferring tone from texts. It could be all in my head. But I swear she is deliberately shutting down my venting. Which would mean it irritates her. But I don't vent that much to her. I swear. Just the normal I hate my boss today stuff. Just when I was thinking I need to spend more time with her. Maybe I don't? Or maybe I'm just crazy and there's nothing going on there and she would love to spend more time with me. I think my counselor would say to wait until this confusedness clears up and THEN make a decision. Wouldn't she? I don't know.

Fortunately there's also the part of my life where Coolgirl tells me that old bosslady is crazy. Because an amazing friendship has blossomed between Coolgirl and I. So at least I know that amidst the crankiness, there is someone excited to see me every day.

Replacing Poor Support for Great Support

I have been MIA for a while, although I've posted many posts in my mind. While I find blogging here therapeutic, I also experience immense apathy when contemplating posting. Because it's out there on the Internet, people I don't even know can judge me. How tiring. But also, how liberating, because I don't know you, one reader.

I just want to clarify. I have had long conversations with my roommate about my issues, my need for support, my feeling that there is a lack of listening and empathy, and what I would like for her to do. It doesn't help. Everything is still all about her drama. The good news is that she is finally at least making a phone call to get counseling. Whether that actually leads to an appointment is another question. But the other good news is, for the most part, I am consciously making an effort to look for support elsewhere, and recognize that she is incapable of giving me the support I need. Because she has some serious issues. And while I love her, she can be very self-centered. But she probably says the same thing about me.

I've gone through some serious lows in the last month. Anxiety is my sworn enemy. I have a job right now that I, for the most part, adore. It's satisfying emotionally, and I have made some good friends there. I work with some amazing people, and have learned so much from them. One day a few weeks ago, for no reason I could pinpoint, I had one of my worst anxiety attack. Compared to what others go through, my attacks are generally pretty low scale. This one really sucked. Usually it starts with a specific thing that my brain can just not let go of. This time not so much. It was everything and nothing. I hated everything about myself, felt incapable, and yet could not pinpoint a way I was incapable. I felt like my office was closing in around me. Panic, panic, panic. I felt icky. Usually I can talk myself down and tell myself to get a grip, but my heart just beat faster, and I could feel the irrational panic mounting. Fortunately I was able to identify a safe place. I got myself up out of my chair and marched myself down the hall to my friend's office. We'll call her CoolGirl, because something about her personality soothes me.

Anyways, CoolGirl welcomed me into her office and knew right away that something was up. The thing I love about her is that while she picks up on my signals (and let's face it, I wear my heart on my sleeve), and makes it clear she sees, she lets things be without dismissing them. What I mean to say is, I didn't feel like she was dismissing my feelings because I didn't voice them right away. She just let things lie and waited for me to tell her. Meanwhile she soothed me with her chitchat and made me feel safe. She's only a few years older than me, but I want to be like her when I grow up.

We now have an understanding. It doesn't have to be an emergency. In fact, it doesn't have to be anything. We are friends, and I am welcome to come sit in her office whenever I need to be there, whether she is there or not. She gets me in a way that hardly anyone ever has. She reads me well, and I think I read her fairly well. She doesn't try to fix anything for me, although she would help if I needed something and asked her to. She doesn't make me feel like a freak. In fact, she sees tons of positive attributes in me.

I've realized in the past month that I need to stop investing my emotional well-being in friends I badly want to hear my pain who refuse to, and instead seek support to the ones who love me and are there for me without fail. This is one of those things I think most of us get on a certain level. It's talking my sometimes irrational emotional self into remembering this concept. I think I might have succeeded, finally. I am (mostly) done being offended when my few emotionally crippled friends can't or refuse to give me support. I have fabulous friends, who consistently do give me support, and listen to me over and over again if I need to keep talking about the same thing. I have had to back away, in my heart, from a few friends. I still love them, and support them. But I can't spend time obsessing over their crappy friendship skills. I instead accept their limitations. It mostly works. Because really, if I think about it, and obsess about it, and can't stop complaining about it, then really, I'm making my life crappier over friends that aren't that great of friends right now. See, when I say it, it sounds obvious. But my heart is having an epiphany. You know what I mean?

What Does Support Feel Like

So The Roommate has got her own batch of issues, and she projects the issues she has with her family onto me, and I feel like she is always judging me. One of the things she does is to never be the one to initiate contact. She can walk into the apartment and literally ignore me until I initiate a conversation. Take tonight. She walks in, my door is open, I'm laying down walking TV, and she gets home and goes in the kitchen, munches on her stuff, and never comes over to my door to say hi. It is ALWAYS my job to greet her first. I know some people aren't friends with their roommates, but she was my roommate second. She's been my friend since about 15. And I've told her how depressed I am. I think she thinks she's being empathetic, but subconsciously she seems to judge me and avoid me like I have a disease. Where's my nurturing? Why won't she ask how I am?

Sad.

Today I am sad. Usually when I'm sad it's triggered by something, but today, I just wanted to stay in bed all day. I didn't feel well last night. I was nauseous, and I thought I was going to throw up. I've been feeling just a teeny bit gross all week. This morning, because the nausea kept me up last night, I was tired, and ooky feeling, and I didn't want to go to work. So I didn't. I called in sick. And I slept pretty much all the day. And I want to sleep more now. But I"m not tired. I think I could talk myself into thinking I'm tired. But I would wake up at 2am and not be able to sleep and feel more crappy from the excess in sleep.

I'm very rambley today. I don't think my state of sadness is helped by watching Grey's. Poor George.

It's been a while since I've logged into this blog, and I couldn't remember the address. So I did a search, and I ran across a Sad Girl blog, with no entries. And the profile said one word. Dead. Sad. I hope sadgirl is not really dead.

I was thinking just the other day that I was feeling good, and that I should blog. Because even though this blog is kind of about my depression, it should include the good days. Because there are a lot of good days. But the only days I feel like I have anything to say are the crappy days.

I've been a little big sad all week. Today was kind of the culmination of it. I thought it was because I was being all girly and hormoney. Which I was. But that part should be subsiding for the month, if ya know what I mean. Nothing specific has been coming to mind today, or this week, when I try to figure out where the sad is coming from. So I thought it was just hormones. But then, just now, blogging, I was trying to think what in my life was sad right now. My brain was going to that, what do you have to be sad about right now place. That, you ungrateful snot stop wallowing place. And then I realized that my best friend is leaving. Not that I didn't know that. But he's not gone yet, so I've been avoiding it. My best friend, who also happens to be the man I am in love with who broke my freaking heart, is leaving. He knows I don't want him to. He's going because he needs a job, which I have to support. Supposedly he's coming back to go to school in a year. But he's always changing his mind. Also he does idiotic risky things. And I think he's an alcoholic. I'm pretty sure he is. So what if he doesn't come back? One of these days he won't come back. I think between the alcoholism, and the chain smoking, and the stupid risks, he's trying to kill himself. But not in a direct way, because he thinks that is cowardly. But somehow if he goes big, it's manly. And that's stupid. And if I weren't so sad, I would be mad at him. But that's for another day.