having CRAZY preggo dreams

the night before last:
– a zombie threw up on me
– my house was infested with ants
– someone chopped up a HUGE snake in front of me
– my mother’s best friend stole from my grandmother
– ND and I broke up because he cheated on me
– and I spent the whole dream trying to grapple with having this baby alone

My Mother. Myself. Bipolar? Maybe.

Sometimes I wonder if I am becoming what I’ve always hated most about my mother.

Lately I don’t feel strong, I feel weak and helpless, and needy. Sometimes I feel so needy and insecure and obsessive about whatever it is that I’m focused on that I can’t stop running the problems over and over in my head. It’s a churn. Process. Process. Process. Endless circles of trying to solve the unsolvable problem. He said this. I should have done that. What if I had done something else? How could this be happening to me? Should I do X? What if I don’t do anything? Will I be ok? What should I do?!?!?!?!? And these thoughts consume me, and I talk to ND, and to my father, and to my mother, and to my friends. The same conversations, over and over. Never solved. Don’t know what to do. And sometimes I think that this desperate NEED is what my mother must have felt. When she called me 10 times a day. When she insisted that I help her with the comptuer. When she insisted that I go with her on a trip because she was afraid of having an anxiety attack. And I looked down on her for being so weak. I didn’t know. I’m glad for me that I didn’t know, but I feel sad for her.

I don’t really feel “ok” anymore. I don’t think I’m functioning well. I’m taking a cocktail of medications, and each feels lifesaving, and yet, I still don’t feel like myself. Where am I in there? I’m on Zoloft for depression – it has really helped me. Daytrana and Ritilin for ADD – it has REALLY helped me. Xanax for anxiety occasionally – it has helped me sleep sometimes, and to stop the churn other times, and every once and a while it will put the breaks on a full blown anxiety attack.

I always thought of myself as chilled out, but I think I’m a worrier now. When did that happen? When did I start worrying that every action I took could be a huge mistake that could alter the course of my life? When did I start thinking about my own death? When did I lose trust in my own abilities to handle my own life? When did I start to feel so helplessly out of control?

Victim is not a word I ever used to associate with myself, yet I feel like things happen to me in a way I never used to feel… I got laid off from one job, only to find another one that I liked but was miserable in the whole time. Why didn’t I see that I was happy there? Why was I so miserable, why did I think the company was so fucked up?? It really wasn’t. It really was a great company. And then the next job I think I didn’t know how to handle it. I was overwhelmed and didn’t see what I couldn’t do. And people didn’t like working with me, because I was miserable. And now I’m in a job where they think I’m on a power trip. And I’m misunderstood. Yet at the same time, I don’t think I really know how to collaborate. I know how to dictate, and I realize that I am difficult to work with. I feel so awkward sometimes. Like I don’t know how to work with my team. And I feel lonely.

I used to think my mother was weak and incompetant. I used to think she was so smart, yet wasted her life not taking care of herself. And I used to pride myself on my success. But I don’t feel very successful. And I worry that I’m becoming just like her. And that maybe, I am already just like her. And I am doomed to her faults because I can’t get control over myself. I know I need to let go, and that clamping down is making it worse, but if I let go, will I just drift away?

Top dog. Under dog.

I feel very lonely tonight. Now. It’s 1:30am, and another night that I can’t sleep.

Today I met with 5 people for my third round of interviews at a company I was really excited about joining. Earlier today, I felt powerful, and appreciated, and excited. They were fantastic. My people. Lovely, nice, warm people who all like each other and all took a genuine interest in wanting to work with me. They’re doing interesting work with the potential to be great. Currently the design sucks, but I can influence that.

By the time I got home though, the doubts set in.

The job wasn’t exactly what I expected. VP Director should include a few things which, in this company, it doesn’t include. So that means that I wouldn’t be running the whole show, rather, I’d be a discipline lead. Which means the job is more about gaining consensus than about directing. If I don’t have control, can I effect change? If I have to gain consensus, can I do the job? Do I want the job? Can I negotiate for more? Is this company really good enough? Is this my ego problem, or is there a structural problem with the company. Am I taking a step down? From what? I don’t have a job. I’m the loser who quit her job because she was afraid she was going to get fired. So who am I to say I’m taking a step down from anything. Or that I’m better than anyone.

I see two issues:
1. Can I relax enough to just be a nice person and do the best I can, which will be a lot?
2. Is this actually a good career move? Or am I just idealizing them because I’ve had such a bad last experience and I think they’re nice? Is it bad to take the first job that has been offered?

I don’t know. And I don’t know how to evaluate. And talking to ND made things MUCH worse, rather than better. He has a way of challenging my “defeatist attitude” at exactly the wrong moment for me. It serves to reinforce “I suck” rather than help support my with “no, you can do this” and now I just feel drained.

I’m too good.
I’m not good enough.
I’m alone.
I’m depressed.

I should be so excited right now. Here’s a good solid company that loves my work, and is excited about me. They’ve pretty much said I have the job. But I’m afraid of blowing it by not being satisfied with what I have before me. Why do I want more? Why am I tempted by the big sexy powerful job if it’s going to make me MISERABLE??? And why do I reject the good solid wants-to-benefit-from-my-knowledge job if it’s going to make me happy and let me have room in my life to be balanced and have other things – like a kid?

How can I get out of my own way??????

Quit My Job / Having Major Anxiety

I’m having a really hard time lately. I’d forgotten about this blog for a while, but I’m happy to remember that it’s here for me to go back and write in.

I’ve been having anxiety attacks over the last couple of months, it’s the first time I’ve had one since 9/11. And soon after the first one about my job, another came a few days later, and then more and more. They stopped for a while when I gave notice to quit my job, a week and a half ago. But over the last 2 days they’ve somewhat started up again.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be upset by being at a job where I’m not wanted, where I’m irrelevant. I’d pretty much checked out of my job a few months ago after I got a warning after escalating what I thought was a terrible business problem. That felt unjust. And I it was very hard for me to connect with my team. And while it was the most blissful, powerful relief ever to finally say “I’ve had enough torture!” hanging around for 3 weeks to get my paycheck while I look for a new job is its own form of torture.

First of all I feel guilty. Guilty for having not worked out. Guilt for not doing any work, not caring, and just taking the paycheck. I feel like I’m stealing. And I’m lonely, and scared.

D.’s out of town this weekend – for 5 days actually, till Tuesday night. That seems like the LONGEST period of time I could ever imagine. I’ve been lying here actually feeling an anxiety attack slowly wash over me, trying to calm it away, for the last hour and a half, maybe two hours. I found a cut on the cat’s back, and I don’t know what it’s from or how bad it is. Should I take him to the vet? I feel like I should, but he doesn’t look like he’s in pain and it isn’t bleeding and I’m not sure what the vet would do for him other than maybe put a cream on it or something to help it heal faster. But it’s not worth taking him tonight to an emergency vet. And if it’s not an emergency now, is it going to be one tomorrow to miss work for? Work that I’m not doing? Guilt. Eyeroll. God, I’m just pathetic. And I sit here tonight and think “if I can’t get through a night by myself, what am I going to do when my job ends?? I’m going to go crazy!”

I could visit my father. But that would mean spending money I don’t have.
I could ask him for money, but that wasn’t what I meant by quitting.
I don’t deserve to punish myself, I’m a good person in a bad situation, and quitting was a choice, not another form of punishment, so WTF?
I could go to Kripalu and do some yoga for a week, get away, find myself. Meditate. Sounds like a guilty pleasure. And like I would miss D. too much.

Who am I if I’m not working?

What is my purpose here? In this world?

I think it would be dangerous to let myself get pregnant in this mindset. Because it could turn everything around for me, make me feel better, give me a purpose. And that would be delaying these feelings. And what, I then become my mother? The terrified lonely woman who tried everything like guilt and demanding to force me to take care of her? And if I only knew what this felt like then, I might not have minded so much. My fucking god this feels bad.

I feel bad. And I’m trying to tell myself “Let go, there is a purpose.” “Let go, you will get something from this darkness, and emerge stronger and more centered.” And then I wonder if I’m just going to go crazy and do something to hurt myself. Out of blind panic.

I don’t feel the heat in my body anymore right now. The pill I took just before I got my computer must have started to kick in a little, and I’m feeling a little less anxious. But I’m frustrated. And depressed that I feel so off balance. Untrustworthy, like I don’t know I’m really going to be ok, even though I’m just sitting in my house with the ability to do whatever it is in the world that I want to do.

But I’m tired enough to stop writing for now. I’m going to watch Oprah interview people about the supernatural.

Oh, I’ve been thinking about my grandmother a lot. I want to volunteer and keep old people company.