gement | "I don't feel like I deserve to feel very overwhelmed"

"I don't feel like I deserve to feel very overwhelmed," quoth

caladri in a recent post. This is about that.

I had a long vague spell, starting maybe at the turn of the year? Right, I should sort this out with my job contracts.

- Six week contract from the day after Christmas through a bit of February. (I cut work early the first day and went to Les Mis in the theater with most of my immediate kin. That was a nice day.)
- Week of travel for Gallifrey One in February. (Train! Train train train train!)
- New contract started second week of March. (One month tomorrow.)

When I'm using my entire brain to do brilliant things at work, I come home drifty and vague, and have trouble shifting gears to read my personal email or do things like taxes.

When I'm not working, I get drifty and vague, and have anxiety about doing useful things like personal email and taxes.

In any case, I spent weeks resolving to clean up the house to show to new renters, and to take a number of very important actions toward my Norwescon costumes. First I was working and distracted, and then I was... not working, and then I was working and distracted again.

It was long and vague and miserable, and I wanted to post and talk about it, but you know my posting record. It's strange to try to describe, from my current hyped up post-Con, post-fantastic-date, employed-but-well-rested state, what it was like two weeks ago Saturday morning.

I no idea how I was going to get my costume done (one week away).

I had put out a craigslist ad for the house the night before and couldn't brave looking at my email or text messages to field inquiries.

I had not done any cleaning until the evening before when a kind and supportive friend brought a pet Roomba and encouragement, and that had bought me a vacuumed floor and an hour of picking up.

It was Saturday morning, and I was feeling drifty about basically all of this, because I didn't know how to touch any of it anymore. No sense of engagement, past a vague sense of worry.

I have shrink appointments with PoetDoc down the street from my house every Saturday morning. When I realized I had to leave the house, I felt sad and horrible and afraid. This is not uncommon. Nor is it uncommon for me to cry a bit as J walks me out.

The uncommon part was when I sobbed my guts out at PoetDoc for the entire appointment. Nothing constructive or insightful. Just felt relentlessly awful. He said that I suffer with my particular affliction more than most people he's worked with.

I assume he's flattering me when he says that, because seriously, there are people out there with bad bad stuff going on, but I said so and he said he means it. I don't know what to make of that. I feel vindicated, like this is worth taking seriously, I'm not just faking it, hooray? I'll go back to questioning it as soon as I'm vague instead of sobbing. And then what?

I don't feel like I deserve to feel very overwhelmed. I don't see what's holding me back, and most of the time I don't feel it directly either. I spend a lot of time just vaguely tired and avoidant. It's only when I buck against my constraints that I realize how heavy they are, and the spikes dig in and everything's awful until I hold still again. I'm tired of living in stasis.

And then the sun comes out for a little while, like it did this last week, and I don't know why, and then it goes away again, and I don't know why, and Type II Bipolar with a side of anxiety sucks rocks.

Learned Helplessness is a thing, and it's demonstrably bad for morale and getting stuff done. But this thing is pretty damn difficult to feel like I'm controlling, because as far as I can tell I'm not. Except whine on LJ every couple years as a note to myself that this is a real experience that I have experienced, yes, for months at a time, and when I'm wondering where that six months went, this is usually the answer.