The Sea Jar

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:34:47 -0700

Grind

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:01:46 -0700

I’m on the bus for week 2. I feel like I haven’t had a break. Working 6 days a week is going to be hard. I had to bring assignments home with me and I worked both days of my weekend.

It’s my first one so I’m worried that it will be under par. I just need to get through today. My manager is on vacation this week and my mentor hasn’t finished my schedule. I know my standing meetings but I think she wants me to do specific things that I don’t know about.

We have an intern lunch with the CEO today and I pray that gets out early because I don’t want to have to excuse myself to go to my meeting. I also don’t want to be late.

They say the CEO is very nice but I am fearful of authority figures. It’s stupid and irrational but I would rather keep my head down than have a 2 hour lunch with the boss.

My stomach hurts from all of this. I really just want to take a nap.

speed bump

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:46:00 -0700

Alright so it’s day three and I had my first bad experience at the internship.

Bear with me guys, in flying solo here. No therapist anymore because my new job makes it impossible.

I have two stations. One in the intern room and another in the art department. I didn’t have admin permissions on either computer and the one in the art department really needed to be fixed because that’s where I was doing most of my work.

So after two days of not being able to work I emailed IT very nicely and asked if they could install the drivers and software I needed. About 30 minutes later an IT comes down and chews out my mentor for setting me up in the art department.

Apparently, I’m not supposed to be there. He basically gave her a hard time and said he was angry that I was there and was annoyed that he now had more work to do.

I had no idea about any of this. My mentor gave me a gift on the first day and put up a banner for me and told me to decorate my cube.

And then I find out that the space there is for someone else too. She’s on vacation.

Now I feel like I don’t belong in the art department. I feel like I’m intruding on someone’s space. I would never have emailed IT about it if I had known I wasn’t supposed to be there. And I would not have brought things in to decorate if I knew I was sitting in someone’s spot. It was completely empty and my mentor said she left it blank on purpose for me.

I felt like it was also bad form on IT’s part to make a scene in front of me. My first impression of this guy and the IT department is not good. He made a huge fuss about coming down to install a tablet driver and fix Firefox and my adobe plug in. If he hadn’t stayed to argue and make everyone feel bad it would have taken five minutes. I’d even downloaded the driver already. He just had to enter the admin username and password. I guess IT should not be called the help desk because they don’t want to help you at all.

I felt bad that I’d gotten my mentor in trouble. It’s not like I asked for a brand new computer in the art department. The only thing I asked for was a tablet. Because how am I supposed to draw with a mouse?

Ugh. I have bad feelings about this day and I am not looking forward to tomorrow. :/

Internship: Day One

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:44:12 -0700

I got through my first day! It was orientation day so I didn’t have to do any actual work.

That starts tomorrow. Which is what I’m now worried about.

Everyone was really nice and friendly. I couldn’t have asked for a better first day.

I am exhausted though. I got a skull splitting headache around 3pm and it still isn’t quite gone.

Wish me luck for day 2 where the actual work begins.

Stress

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:47:35 -0700

I’m very stressed out. The car ride here was two hours of slow traffic. I’m sitting at the gate with ten minutes to spare and my heart rate skyrocketing.

Seriously my heart was pounding and my hands shook as I tried to get my clothes and shoes and lap top together after security.

I feel carsick and shaky but I am trying to be calm for my flight back.

I hate having anxiety.

Everything is hard

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:24:11 -0700

I’m having a lot of feelings.

Right now I’m tired, a tad stressed and upset.

I’m upset because my sister hijacked the time I had set aside to be with my best friend and the two of them had a conversation about their mutual line of work while I kind of watched like I was at some tennis match, looking back and forth between the two.

I’m not upset that they talked to each other, I’m upset that this is the most my sister has talked or shared with me since Christmas and she wasn’t even talking to me, she was talking to my best friend.

My sister hurts me so much because she doesn’t want to share any aspect of her life with me. She looks at me like she can’t wait for me to stop talking so that she can get away from me.

I’ll knock on her door and she says “what?” with a pained look on her face when I try to talk with her.

I’m only here for one more day.

I found out that my mother and sister are going on vacation together and I wasn’t invited because I can’t go due to the internship. But she’s bringing a friend with her instead of me and I can’t help but feel replaced.

My heart hurts right now as I think about this. There’s nothing I can do. I’ve been trying for years to bond with my sister and she just does not want to. She does not like me. I used to think she was just young and going through a thing and once she got older she’d like me and we could be friends, but I see now that i’ll never have a sister.

I’m going to be all alone when my mom dies. No one will love me then and that’s just so difficult for me to cope with.

Being unloved is very hard.

Sitting on this fence in my mother’s yard. Built after my...

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 14:51:04 -0700

Sitting on this fence in my mother’s yard. Built after my dad died. It’s new to me.

It is so beautiful here. I don’t think my mom and sister realize how gorgeous this place is.

So glad I came.

Up

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 22:34:33 -0700

I’m on the plane. It’s too late on the east coast to call or text anyone so I’m posting here.

Catch you on the flip side tumblr!

familiar feelings

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:01:49 -0700

Having TONS of anxiety about my flight. I hate flying. But I want to see my mom. So I have to fly.

I’m also having anxiety about my impending internship aka the HUGE CHANGE that’s happening in my life.

It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be good for me. It’s going to be great. *deep breath*

At the best, most peaceful place in the world.

Fri, 31 May 2013 16:01:58 -0700

At the best, most peaceful place in the world.

1:31 am

Wed, 29 May 2013 01:37:10 -0700

Fucking anxiety. Sudden irrational surge of anxiety is making me feel upset and in need of a cry.

I have to be up early. I don’t have time for this. :/

I hate my goddamned stupid brain so much.

Letting Go

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:29:01 -0700

Well. My boss hired my replacement. It’s difficult not to feel a tad upset. Obviously he had to so that I can do the internship, but it’s still hard to be replaced.

Will they like her better? Will she do a better job than me? Does this mean I can never come back?

Letting go of my part time job is necessary. I can’t move forward if I keep holding on.

But I am afraid. What will happen in 10 weeks when it’s all over? What if I’m terrible at it? What if I can’t do it?

What will I do to survive? My roommate Kay STILL cannot get hired. She’s temping and on unemployment.

I’m just so worried. I want someone to peek into my future and tell me everything is going to be okay.

I know from my past experiences that things do not always go as we need them to.

Calm

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:18:00 -0700

Been roller coasting again. My birthday was good this year. I’m old enough now that nobody asked me how old I am, so that was a relief. I can pretend I’m still young.

I worked all day, but after I had a small gathering of my five favorite people and we had Tapas at this wonderful place in the mission. It was perfect, no spectacle.

I’ve spent so much money lately— new shoes for the new job, new printer, bills, gifts, my annual perfume purchase.

I have fear. I’m afraid that something is going to happen to mess up the internship. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to cut it. I’m just anxious about the change this is going to bring to my life.

Right now I work between 21 and 28 hours a week and when I start in June it’ll be 45 hours, six days a week. I’ve been thinking that this will be my first full time gig since 2006. And I have guilt. I don’t know why.

Things are not terrible right now. It’s like whenever I realize I’m feeling good, I then feel guilty for feeling good. Why? Why can’t I have good feelings without feeling guilty for it too?

It all goes back the ever-present feeling that I am undeserving. I don’t deserve to have anything. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to get “found out”, that I’m a fraud and a hack.

I don’t think I’m ever not going to feel like less than a deserving person.

Another year

Mon, 13 May 2013 01:03:56 -0700

My birthday is Tuesday. I’m laying here in bed on the last night of this year and I’m not really sure how I feel.

The year has flown by.

Not much has changed, though soon I can mark a +1 in the career column. I just want the internship to start already.

I realized that I have not had a full time job since 2006. This is going to be quite a change for me.

I’m also still single. I’ve been alone so long I don’t even know how to start. Lately I’ve felt very lonely. I’m jealous of couples I see. I want someone to hold my hand and hug me and want to talk to me and tell me about his day and want to kiss me and touch me and just someone who wants me. I don’t know how to get that intimacy with someone anymore.

I’m thinking about signing up for an online dating service. I thought of perhaps going to a singles event but I have little interest in mustering the courage and energy to fake it in person. I’d rather read profiles online from the safety of my apartment to see what’s out there. I’m gun-shy. I don’t want to put myself out there just yet.

Off

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:03:05 -0700

I’m all out of sorts.

Crawled into bed because I just want the day to end.

The day got away from me. I feel tired and restless and overwhelmed all at the same time. I did things today that I had no plan for and then was lost for the rest of the day.

Saw my former DH today and he outed me about my internship to a group of people. It wasn’t a big deal but since then I’ve been thrown. He took the control out of my hands and I’ve been looking for comfort in food and sweets and shopping.

I want something. Maybe a good cry. Maybe a hug. Maybe both. I want reassurance.

I’m going to bed in the hopes I wake up in a different mood.

Waffles are happiness.

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:33:01 -0700

Waffles are happiness.

snapdraws: Apologies for the terrible image quality - I’m...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:12:04 -0700

snapdraws:

Apologies for the terrible image quality - I’m lacking scanner access at the minute so I had to take these photos on my phone

I was reading hyperbole and a half’s blog entry explaining their experience of depression and decided to make another sketchy comic based on my experiences with anxiety, which is another mental illness I think people tend to misunderstand quite frequently

Hopefully this will be of use to some people - whether they suffer from anxiety themselves or if they just want to know more about it

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two

Thu, 09 May 2013 16:20:04 -0700

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two:

This is the best explanation of what depression is like that I have ever read.

Seriously. The entire essay I was thinking, Yes. Yes, this. Exactly this.

Especially the part about thinking about how I’m supposed to respond, the faces I’m supposed to be making to match the response I’m supposed to be feeling.

“I had so very few feelings, and everyone else had so many…” Being disconnected, being tired of everything, just carrying on just because…

But— trigger warning for depression/suicide. Proceed as you will.

With friends like these

Wed, 08 May 2013 02:13:02 -0700

Listen to this.

So, I had another crazy awful crit again. This time I didn’t get as upset but I still got really mad. (The Law keeps contradicting herself and then acts surprised when I make the changes she requested.)

I decided to implore my working Facebook friends for advice on how to deal with difficult directors, you know ask the experienced about their methods of coping.

Got two comments and then I get a message in my inbox from someone who was my friend but hasn’t spoken to me in nearly a year:

“Hey, I didn’t know you were working. Congrats. Tell me everything!”

And I’m just like, I fucking /knew/ it. The second someone thinks you have something, they want to see if they can get a piece.

Everyone is a fucking shark. People think I’m weak because I worry and have low self esteem. What they don’t know is that I see through all of their bullshit right to the heart of the matter.

This is the training I received from my father— how to tell what people really mean when they say other things. I know this girl well enough to know that she thinks she’s a better animator than i am (and she’s right) and she wants to know how the hell I got “something” ahead of her.

So I wrote back explaining that it wasn’t a job, it’s not what you think, it’s a free thing because who the hell is going to hire me? And that’s it. No details. Because fuck you— you can’t be bothered to even say hi once in an entire year, but you catch wind that I might have an in somewhere and suddenly you remember how to message me? Yeah, I may not be talented, but I am definitely not stupid.

And I have only told three people about my internship— can you imagine what people would try if they knew? So I guess that means I’m playing it close to the vest this summer.

everything-illusion: I can’t even begin to explain how true...

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:44:33 -0700

everything-illusion:

I can’t even begin to explain how true this is wow..