Tag Archives: mental-health

I can do this

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12

I have go into the lion’s den tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to make an all day presentation in a job in which I chafe at on a daily basis. It’s possible to chug through most days when I’m behind a desk dutifully plugging away at my work. It’s an altogether different scenario when you have to stand in front of the entire state, and run a video conference in a job in which you fantasize about leaving.

This job has been good to me in a number of ways. It has enabled me to have flexibility with all of my therapy and psychiatry appointments. My boss is very supportive of me. Now I’m drawing a blank at thinking of other positives …

The job can be very adversarial, and because of this, I can get triggered at times. I most fear someone being horrible during the video conference tomorrow. I’ve seen it happen to other colleagues of mine. I just keep telling myself that even if the worst happens I won’t die. I’ll live through it. They can’t imprison me or torture me. I’ll be able to walk away at the end. There will be an end. That’s what I keep telling myself.

I’ve even planned to have dinner and a movie with a friend after work so that I have something to look forward to after this ridiculous ordeal.

Serendipitously, I have a second job interview on Friday for a position in human resources, my previous field. I had a very traumatic experience in my last job in human resources. That’s the main reason I left that job. My previous director assaulted me. The whole thing was a very traumatic ordeal. I stayed at my human resources job for 2 years after the event, but I knew that I needed to move on in order to make progress in getting better.

That’s what brought me to the job I currently hold. Every moment that frustrates me at this job causes me to mourn the loss of a career I loved. I want it back, but for tomorrow I need to be present to get the current job done. Get through tomorrow to get to Friday in order to try to come back home where I belong.

A strange peace

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Ever since I got under the table in Doc’s office things have been strangely more peaceful for me. I’ve no idea if there is any correlation to my last session with Doc, or if it’s just a coincidence. At any rate, I’ll take it.

I’ve been trying to find the gift in awareness of the extent of my dissociative disorder. I don’t see the gift in having it, but I do see the gift in now becoming aware of it. Although I don’t like that there’s another thing to add to my “crazy” bucket, so many things are now starting to make sense for me.

Now that I understand that the rattle of noises in my head is really various “inside voices” I surprisingly feel less crazy. I now feel like I have far less internal secrets. I never told a soul about the inner voices in my head, or the part of me that I knew was little.

I hope the good vibes keep chugging along for me because it is a trying week at work. I have a presentation on Thursday that will be brutal. It’s tough when you have a job you don’t like. I try to be grateful, but it is particularly hard this week. I also try to veer away from the feeling that this job is a punishment for my past sins. That’s the tendency my head tends to land when I’m hating this job, and missing Human Resources.

It’s nice to feel grateful, instead of the usual muck of despair. I’ll take it.

Under the table

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English: Wooden kitchen table and chairs

Today I told Doc what I learned from Cate last week. He listened, and then I just heard the world “trauma” and I started shaking badly. He then asked, “Is someone having a hard time? What can I do to help?” I could feel that “the little one” wanted to get under the table next to me, and I told Doc that I was aware of this. She really wanted to get under that table. But I resisted. It was weird, not normal. Loco. Loca. Loony. No! We will not get under the table.

But she insisted, and the more she insisted, the more I shook. The more I dug my heels in, the harder I shook. Something had to give. Then Doc said, “I invite you to get under the table if that will help.” You get to a point sometimes in life when you run out of the plausible normal-sounding options. When you reach this point you are at the end of your rope, and you start entertaining those options that seemed crazy and insane because you are desperate for some kind of peace. This was that kind of moment for me.

I leapt for that table like a lifeline, so much so that I almost hit my head on the table. I feared getting under the table because I didn’t want to “lose myself.” I was afraid of having a dissociative experience that I would not recall, like I had last week. Surprisingly, what happened is that my body became peaceful the very moment I got under that table. I felt peaceful, and then very sleepy. I could have slept under that table  for hours.

We continued our session with me under the table. It was weird, but it worked, and I shook a whole lot less. If someone told me this morning that I would end my day speaking to my psychiatrist from under a table, I would have laughed at the improbability of that scenario. You just never know what works.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)