Dear Internet,
I scored an in person (second) interview with the Connecticut institution and it’s happening this upcoming week. The length of the scheduled time turns out to be shorter than I was told/planning on, which is leaving me some hours to hang out in and see what’s what in the area. One thing I am not looking forward to is Connecticut drivers as they drive like assholes. Turn signals are not accessories, fuck twats!
The Louisville institution second job interview went well and you can find my presentation here (which seemed to get a lot of positive commentary from the internet). The job is really quite spectacular as it’s a new position in which the person who gets the job can write their own job description and responsibilities, much like the Connecticut position. Both of the positions are super flexible and if there is one thing pulling Connecticut ahead of the job game is the ability to wear jeans to work. As we all know, I’m not a business casual kind of person and oh I can DO business casual but if I don’t HAVE to, awesome. Thanks!
I’m now two for two vis-à-vis second person interviews thus making my chances of a job offer higher than previously thought possible (at least in my mind). I’ve been going over and over mentally how to figure out what to do here if by some miracle both institutions extend offers. If only one extends the offer then it’s a easy choice – I go where the money is but if two? I keep meaning to write down the pros and cons for both so I’m better prepared to make this (if needed) choice.
The backup plan if there are no job offers is to start looking for academic librarian positions, nationally, in January and junior developer courses here in Louisville. I’ve been working with Code Louisville by fast tracking coding courses via Treehouse. This week I’ve spent nearly forty hours spread out over three days on said fast tracking. Code Louisville’s goal is to put people into the work force by giving them marketable skills and if there is ever an up and coming tech sector, it’s Louisville.
Overall, I am excited to be in this position. It’s a long time coming but if there is a chance I can make the choice, that would be wonderful.
I have been evading FEELINGS on a manner of all things these last few weeks. Feeling are vulnerabilities and trying to get some semblance of a life together when having FEELINGS is fucking terrible. FEELINGS trigger anxiety, I take the anti-anxiety drugs to quell the panic, feelings are suppressed. Take anti-anxiety drugs to prevent the attacks, suppress the FEELINGS.
It’s a no fucking win situation over here. (And why I sleep 10+ hours a night on all of the anti-anxiety drugs I’m on.)
I could blame it on a number of things such as not addressing them properly this year, new med adjustments, the weather, time of year — a whole host of things normally attributed to this place I seriously don’t want to be. My paper journal is filled with page after page of how much I hate feeling like this, how I am so desperate to change this emotional space, how I just want to stop treading water and learn how to swim again.
I can’t remember a time when I was feeling this emotionally bare. (I lied. Spring of 2013.) Even with not renewing the contract on my last position, the law suit, the divorce, the constant moving, breaking up with TheBassist — all within the last 18 months — somehow I’ve handled those more or less with aplomb (I thought) and was better managing emotional hiccups. But it’s pretty clear every goddamned thing that has happened in the last 18 months has, finally, taken its emotional toll and it takes every ounce of my being to wake up, work out, plan a day of doing stuff, go to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m trying so hard to put one foot in front of the other, to just keep moving forward.
I’ve got shit to do! People to see! Places to go!
The hardest part is knowing this is all a temporary glitch. There have been worse emotional spaces and I can dig myself back out again just as I had before. I’ve done this dance and I can take it to end coming out smelling like roses. I akin it to growing pains: You know it happens and you have to remind yourself that at some point this too will pass. (Or you get better drugs.)
As I wrote this, I mentally went back through the last five or so years and realized I HAVE been here before and it had everything to do with change in medication (primarily). Circumstances, sure I’ll buy it. Swallowing 18 months worth of feelings and having it resurrect its ugly head? Absolutely. Scrapping down the emotional bone into the marrow?
Drugs. 95% of the time it is always the goddamned drugs having gone awry.
Fuck it all to hell.
Even though I am bipolar-1 (manic), I get bouts of depression here and there, most of the time ranging for a few days and passing just as quickly. In the early spring of 2013 when I went through a med change with my then medicating doctor, I felt a whole lot worse than this. How I was able to function in the capacity that I did is amazing. What we had to do was get me off the drugs by slowly weaning me off the anti-depressants / bipolar as well as the ADHD drugs and get me acclimated to just using Lithium, which then stopped working.
My brain chemistry metabolizes medicating drugs too quickly. What should happen to most people in weeks, happens to me in days. Ritalin last a few days before I had to go off of it. Same with Lithium. SSRIs made me suicidal. Bedrock between desperately wanting some normalcy and a brain that won’t let you have it.
Since that last bought in 2013, I’ve been ever so careful with how I take and manage my drugs. Now I’m furious with myself for not having recognize these signs sooner.
I saw my medicating therapist last week and per his edict, if I wasn’t feeling some relief by the weekend (which is now), I’m to double up on my anti-depressants, which I’ve done. I’m to call tomorrow and leave a message to have him call in more of the anti-depressant. I need to be razor sharp and on point this week and for a long time coming. Fucking around with my brain chemistry is a delicate balance.
TheExHusband agreed this is slightly reminiscent of that time in 2013 but then I wouldn’t leave the house for days on end, I curled up in a ball and cried. A lot. I barely showered or took care of myself compared to this morning where I walked nearly three miles with him and the pug, did six loads of laundry, gave the pug a bath, about to put the laundry away, and chill for the evening. My brain may be fuzzled but goddamned wasn’t I productive.
He also remarked in comparison to this time last year, hell even six months ago, how I handle things, coping with things, just doing LIFE is a 180 degree turn around. And I reject the idea of stabilization — who is ever perfectly stabilized? Life is a hot mess — but being able to handle life with grace and dignity, which despite my whinging on and off here, is what I aim for and what I’m doing.
And I take pride in that.
I stumbled across a post this morning on rejection, the psychological break-down of why it hurts so much (it’s wired to the same place in the brain as physical pain), why it’s prolonged (we take too critical look at ourselves. Rejection is not personal – it’s about “fit” and circumstance), and how to fix it (re-affirming our self-worth by the good things we have to offer in whatever circumstance the rejection comes from). It makes for an interesting read.
This time of year it’s especially poignant to remember not everyone is in a safe space, mentally, emotionally, or physically. I’m lucky, and if you want to call it blessed then so be it, despite all my faults, I’m physically in a safe space, I have mental and emotional support. Not many can say that, especially now.
xoxo,
Lisa