Anxiety

DATE: Mar 15 2008, 8:17 am / MOOD: Other

I've had 2 phone interviews with a school. The first went well enough--particularly since I had a second with them. The second did not go as well I think. I hate phone interviews... I am so awkward over the phone. It is so difficult to gauge people over the phone, so it makes me extremely nervous ans I feel like all I say are stupid and trite things.

I really want a campus interview because I'd love to work for this school and it is so close to home. Maybe it is not in the cards though. If not I guess I'll just go to a placement conference next year. Le sigh.

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DATE: Mar 11 2008, 8:53 pm / MOOD: Sad

I've been chatting with my best friend from high school and college on facebook. We grew apart when she started dating a guy and didn't really have time anymore.  It is kind of awkward small talk, and it is bittersweet because I know we'll never be friends like we once were.

4 years ago I wrote something about her engagement on a livejournal entry. Nothing mean, really more sad about a lost friendship and wishing her happiness. She messaged me about how she did not understand what happened. I sent her a long e-mail pouring my heart out and apologizing for being so passive-aggressive. I told her how hurt I was when she always chose her boyfriend over her friends and just stopped talking to her.

Her response was basically "I'm sorry you felt that way. But I could only see Ryan at those times, etc..."  I never replied back because I felt the person who was my friend was long gone.

So now we are making awkward small talk via facebook and I want to ask "don't you feel bad for ditching all your friends? wasn't it sad not to have any of us at your wedding?"  Instead we talk about our jobs and what has been up in life.

If you had asked me years ago if I thought this is how our friendship would have ended up I would have told you were clearly crazy. Afterall we had a pact to not ditch either other for boyfriends... friends forever. 

The thing that really kills me is I am bitter over the situation still... and it is  silly. I should let it go... forgive and forget. But it still hurts because I lost my best friend over the whole thing. I guess I thought I knew her but when it came to it I didn't and she wasn't there when I needed her most. So, yeah.

 

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DATE: Jan 31 2008, 5:44 am / MOOD: Other

I told my boss yesterday I was applying for some other jobs at other schools but was not officially resigning my position. Those conversations really suck, particularly because I like my boss a lot. Unfortunately I dislike the majority of my co-workers and when you work in housing I feel like I should at least think more than 50% of my colleagues are COMPETENT at their jobs. 

So now I am jumping head in to a job search. Which means interviews. Since I am not going to a placement it also means preliminary interviews over the phone. I hate talking on the phone. But I am hoping I can find a job closer to my family. There are a few schools with positions which would allow me to go home way more often.

So that is life. 

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DATE: Jan 19 2008, 9:00 pm / MOOD: Lonely

I was reading through my old livejournal entries for some reason today. I'm not sure why anyone ever read it as it had a tendency to either be very mundane or completely self-centered emo crap. There are a few entries that tie into very dark times in my life and it made me think about anxiety, life experiences, and where I am today.

Moving away has been helpful and a hindrance to me. Back home I had a support system and did not really need to make friends because my family was always there. Moving to KY I went through a bad depressive and anxious period. There were 4 times my first year there I had a distinct plan to end my life. Each for some reason someone reached out and made me think I mattered. or they cared. 

Since then I haven't really planned on offing myself, but I go back and forth between being super depressed and often find myself being rather anxious. I can work through the anxiety but the depression really gets me down.  I think since I've moved to MO I've suppressed a lot of who I really am. Any depth I had is gone and I'm superficial towards most people I know. Closeness now has a new meaning to me. At work I have a friend who I share a lot with but it tends to end before it hits anything that would make me discuss what I feel in my core.

So, I work in a profession that requires me to test my anxiety multiple times a day. That is a good stride. But each day as I go through I life I let people see less and less of who I am. Maybe I have ruined enough friendships in my life and instead of letting people in I hold them at arms length. Losing people who are not so close won't hurt as much. Thus... good strides towards working through anxiety in a work setting. Bad strides away from friendships and letting people in. Maybe if I didn't dwell on the past I wouldn't be afraid to let people in.

If I were one of my students I'd suggest I go to counseling... but I find more and more I am not sure I believe talking about things to a stranger would help. This is sad... since I have about 18 credits in counseling theory and techniques from graduate school.

Days like today I find a optimize my screen name... much to my chagrin. 

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DATE: Dec 03 2007, 6:10 am / MOOD: Don't know

I wonder if I am in a minority of anxious people when it comes to holidays? I really enjoy them in certain conditions. Spending time with my family makes me happy and calm, so going home for Christmas is something I always look forward to. Getting to the airport and flying is a little harrowing... but worth the hassle and anxiety. So I am looking forward to Christmas. Of course I could do without the crowds and other madness but I think I can avoid them for the most part. 

I'm done with christmas shopping. Hooray!  I think I bought most everything online minus a trip to Barnes and Nobles friday afternoon... which was great because there was NO ONE out!  Whoever had the idea for online shopping has saved my anxious soul. Now the goal is to see if I can avoid grocery shopping before I go back to Delaware for the holidays. I normally hate shopping anyways, I get cranky and aggravated with people. So add crowds and craziness over saving $1.23 on something that costs over a hundred bucks anyways baffles me. 

A friend and I have tickets to see the Nutcracker. The Moscow ballet is coming to the arts center and I am VERY excited. I love the ballet and the Nutcracker is one of my favorites. I am interested to see this one since it uses a different choreography than I have seen before-- hopefully there is no foolishness with the mice on rollerskates or the mouse king getting CPR.

Lately I have been having trouble being motivated to leave my apartment and go to my office. I know a lot of people struggle with this, but my office is literally about 15 feet across from my apartment. I just want to curl up on my couch and read or watch CNN. I have not really accomplished a lot in the past couple of weeks.

Which finally leads me to--I am still thinking about job searching. However the main drawback is the job search. My field has the advantage of having numerous placement interview sites. This however is one of the most stressful experiences I have ever been through. Last time I did 12 interviews in 2 days and was so anxious I vomited a few times. So, I can stay where I am and be slightly frustrated or search and be very anxious. Then there is always the possibility of just finding any old job back in Delaware  and leaving higher ed altogether. Hmmm... decisions.  

 

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DATE: Nov 23 2007, 10:46 pm / MOOD: Other

Why is it that you can be so tired and half asleep until you climb into bed?  Then the next thing you know you are staring at the ceiling for an hour. It is like a sick joke. I want to sleep very much. My body says yes but my brain says "too bad sucka!" Maybe this is a new torture treatment. Like when Prometheus' liver was eaten by an eagle everyday and then regrown. 

It is one of those unanswerable questions... along the lines with why do I wear perfume if no one is ever going to be close enough to smell it? Or... if I died in my apartment tonight how long would it take for someone to notice? 

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DATE: Nov 23 2007, 8:35 am / MOOD: Don't know

Well to begin with I broke one of my own longstanding rules regarding Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. I usually refuse to put up decorations until after Thanksgiving (the US one). Last Sunday though I was a bit homesick. Actually I was so homesick my heart ached. So I put up my Christmas tree and some other decorations. Next thing I knew Christmas had blown up in my living room. But it made me feel a little better.

I get rather clingy to certain people in my life and create a comfort zone... a very small comfort zone. In Delaware my comfort zone mainly consists of my family and a couple of friends from college. I moved to Kentucky for graduate school to broaden my horizons and try to branch out. Instead I built another small comfort zone including my roommate and a couple of classmates. So I took a job in Missouri thinking this will force me to meet people and really get outside of my comfort zone. Instead I have one co-worker and a supervisor I've gotten close to. I don't really talk with anyone past the superficial otherwise and any social type activities are very awkward unless my friend is there.

So really every time I move I seem to get a smaller and smaller circle.  This seems to be leading to a slow path of complete isolation. I keep myself holed up a lot anyways and need to be drawn out by people. Otherwise I am content to sit around and read or watch Law and Order re-runs. 

But lately I've been thinking. If you have a small circle of friends people seem to criticize you for being anti-social and stunted socially. But I find I prefer to have a couple of people I know well and trust (mostly) rather than a large group of people who know little about me and vice versa. No one criticizes the social butterflies who flit around and have such a large circle of friends they don't really know. Isn't this more socially stunted? Very few people can truly know that many people so well I think. I don't see why a false pretense of friendship is considered socially normal. Let's call a spade a spade, lots of people have many acquaintances they can make small talk with but this does not make them super socialites. 

I don't know where this is going... I just suppose I am tired of being compared to people. Isn't it good to have a diversity of personalities? How can we tell who is really genuine if we are supposed to pretend to be everyone's friend?   

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DATE: Nov 20 2007, 6:44 am / MOOD: Don't know

I've been coming to the conclusion lately that I am invisible. Last week I flew to MN for a conference. A flight attendant bent in front of my face so many times I felt I should probably introduce myself to her behind if we were going to be so intimate. I also was skipped over when she was offering drinks, I guess I didn't look thirsty.

At the conference I had quite a few people almost bowl me over but that didn't really lead me to believe I was invisible to people. That is until someone sat on me. I was sitting at a table with a colleague and this girl was talking to someone else and just sort of sat down where I was sitting half landing in my lap.

So I wonder if years and years of trying not to be noticed has finally worked out. Maybe people don't notice me anymore and I've finally accomplished the ability to blend into the woodwork. Somehow that doesn't make me feel better about life. I guess you can never win. 

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DATE: Aug 21 2007, 6:16 am / MOOD: Don't know

Lately I've been thinking my career is not where I want to be anymore. There are times when I really like my job, but lately I've been struggling with certain aspects and found myself frustrated with administration and my department. I've been contemplating leaving higher education and just getting a regular 8-5 job.  I'd really like to be closer to my family... being so far away makes me feel really alone. 

So, maybe I am just frustrated and anxiety is getting to me. Whatever it is, I am having a hard time finding motivation to do things I need to do. It would be a shame to have finally completed my masters only to not use it practically. Maybe a similar job closer to home would make me feel better. I don't know anymore. I hate feeling confused like this though. 

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