The MOST Trying Week

i am exhausted just thinking about this week.  I took two live calls in training today.  Tomorrow and going forward I will be taking calls all day.  My new job is at a credit union.  I swore when I left my job if 11 years I would never go back to a call center.  The pay was too good to turn down. Every indication thus far, is that a credit union is vastly different than a bank.  Thursday after work, I must drive across town during traffic hour to a dinner for my niece.  She is getting her B.A. Degree.  I will be walking in alone.  At a place I have never been.  At a dinner/dance which will be full of people I don’t know.  I want to cry just thinking about it.  Maybe I can just walk in, find her and her mom, give them a kiss and leave.  They know I don’t do people.  So if I can’t stay, they will understand.

God blessed me today because the two calls I took were easy.  I was so nervous during my last break (prior to taking my turn), that I almost slid into a panic attack. My mask remained intact.  I also had to participate in an icebreaker, standing in a group of four in front of a room of about 20 people. 

I survived because I wasn’t me.  I did the task. I looked out (or appeared to look out) and did what I had to do.  My group of four won  the competition.  I spoke, I made a joke, I smiled……but I don’t remember seeing any faces….because I WAS NOT THERE.  

I am now waiting to fall asleep.  I just reopened the wound on my stomach.  One might think today was a triumph, but it does not feel like it.  It was not me who triumphed. It was the mask.

Help!

Physically ill, Yet Armoured with Tools

You are not your illness. I am reading this DBT skills workbook my psychologist recommended. I have read that sentence and paragraph
several times and will probably read it many more. Those are pretty profound words! I am not just a chronically depressed person who thinks about death far too much. I am not just a person with panic disorder who gets sick whenever she has to go outside, I am not just a self injurer. It’s just words now, but it strikes me as important. So I am going to read and think them over and over.
Tuesday I return to work on a part time schedule for two weeks. Needless to say I am terrified. I made a new and visible wound on my left leg and I tore most of the nail off on my baby toe.
Oh yeah and I have been drinking. I think i mentioned that in a prior post.
Am I getting better? On the surface
it would seem not, but I think I am. I am more in tune with my triggers. I have occasional success with my coping tools….
I just need to survive long enough to get better at using those tools before fear, predictions of doom, anger, thoughts of death because there is no way to fix me, and scarring up my entire body takes place.
I would Never Ever create wounds in places impossible to hide previously. Now I have two very visible wounds on my legs. That must mean something. I must remember to ask the psych on Wed.
I don’t feel as bad as this post may sound. It is actually a positive post about my growth.
I feel physically sicker as tomorrow approaches, but I know that I will do it. I must do it!!
My father wants me to try to get on disability. Although it would be heaven not to work, wouldn’t that be giving up? Wouldn’t that make me more if a shut in just making my agoraphobic tendencies become actual full blown agoraphobia?
32 hours until my return to work….