#Need to get this adulting admin appointment going shit done

[sweetdreamspootypie]

First world problems etc

[the-numbers-game]

life update - long ramble

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in less than three weeks, i will have finished my postgrad. it’s been a hecking fast course, and very intense at times. like most things im a bit gutted at myself for not trying as hard as i can. but i’ve done mostly okay considering my efforts. a range of grades. i was gutted last term that i got a c in my criminal litigation class just due to my nerves. all my content was perfect, i was just shit scared of public speaking. i bombed conveyancing cos that class was shit. but i did good in my other two and i’ve got good grades this semester so far. but i’ve also missed more classes, and i think i bombed my oral last week, and i’m bound to bomb my oral this week too.

idk how i will adjust to being not-in-education for the first time since i was 5 (3, if you include preschool). tbh, if i dont get a traineeship i may go back in 2021 or 2022 and do a masters. something on the constitution and human rights. maybe i’ll write about labour again.

 i’m gonna chill for a month or so, working my 2.5 days at work whilst i still have my student loan rolling in (LOL, i get hardly anything cos i’m a pg and most of it is gone in the repayment of the personal loan i took out to do this course). then, i’ll increase my days to 4. i can live off 4 days, and it means i can still count this job as not being my life whilst i hunt for a traineeship, and failing one that starts pretty soon, another job. i’m fixed term, and i was lucky in i got a promotion, but the promotion was also for a fixed term position. 

i hope my contract is extended, i put my face out there a lot at work primarily for that reason. i go on training courses and sit on committees, partly because i get away from my desk but also because it makes me look like i care about my job. i’ll mainly look at the public sector, as i feel like i belong there, i like flexible working and having an interesting caseload. and then law firms, as maybe if i get an admin job at a firm they will take pity on me and recruit me. failing those two, i will look charities/trade unions/politics before resulting to texting someone at my old work and begging for a job back. or maybe i’ll do agency work. fuck idk. i shouldn’t worry about it. i’ll get a job, right? 

i do hear back this week regarding a traineeship. i’m not hopeful. i never am. but the interview did go really well. i didn’t stammer, i spoke freely, we spoke a lot about unions and the labour party and i felt like they liked me. they only interviewed 6% of applicants, so i’m lucky to get through and even if i don’t get it i know i’ll be less anxious about interviewing for traineeships again because i know it can go well(ish). if i do get it i’ll be over the moon, it’s not human rights and it’s not public law but they do a lot of union work and pro bono, and that’s good enough for me. 

over the years, the way i experience anxiety has changed, dramatically.  for a while, i had quite a good support network of ‘safe adults’. like my friends, past and present, and callum, have all been remarkable, but i think being able to relate to adults/people in authority when you’re not quite an adult yourself is good for validation. it didn’t last long and friendships and ‘drama’ started to consume my life. when i finally moved out of retail into an office environment, a lot of my anxiety, especially the physical stuff, shifted. i shit you not, i would physically throw up before many of my shifts in retail. so again, i thought i was coping as things weren’t as bad as they were back then. especially when it came to depression, as i actively removed myself from the main environmental factor causing me to have low moods. 

i was dumb, cos of course i still had sadness and anxiety. it was just different, and because i channeled a lot of stress into uni, being new at my job, and being skint, it felt like there was always an excuse it wasnt anything about me,it was xyz and hey fuck look at least im not barthing and crying every morning yeah?

but 2019, whilst being a year of several incredible highs and generally being a good year was full of anxiety and due to me doing such an intense course with lots of orals, i realised, yes, i may not be taking as many panic attacks as i took when i was 18 but i felt as bad, fuck, even worse socially and internally, than i did back then. so i went to the doctors just before the new year, and got put on drugs. 

that was a big step, as i always have a fear about the doctors but i have a really good gp surgery, my main doctor is a bit odd but really helpful. one of the other doctors did a whole law degree and the diploma before deciding it wasnt for her and she wanted to go to med school, so shes a really good person to turn to. the reception staff are kind (and you can book appointments online too, which i find really helpful). i think as well, i always viewed my anxiety as mild, and in a way, it is, but in a lot of ways, it is not. medication has certainly helped. i take antidepressants and beta blockers and whilst im not a super happy confident girl, i can cope a lot better. i’m no longer physically anxious (if you know me irl you know i am a shaky bastard) and my brain doesn’t run through the same STRESS as it did. so im grateful. i know meds dont work for everyone and that it takes people years to find something good for them, esp for people with a lot more complex mental health issues than me and my anxiety but i found ones that seem to be working, at least for now.

this year, i’ve tried to look after myself more. i’m saving for a house after opening a help to buy isa last year. i noticed my vision was being a bit blurry from time to time and that my eyes felt really strained when looking at the computer. so i booked an eye appointment and it turns out im short sighted. wearing glasses, as well as fulfilling 12 year old me’s fantasy, has massively helped my general fatigue. i’m gonna book in for physio at my gp, cos i have a dodgy shoulder, and due to general stress, both the dodgy one and the other are in a lot of pain constantly. i try and do a proper skincare routine in the mornings and at night. i’ve always loved skincare but usually just take what i’ve been gifted but i’ve had fun exploring brands and building a collection. i’ve asked for extensions at uni when i’ve needed them, and took time off when appropriate. i’ve been meeting friends more, and not patching messages. 

right okay- i’m falling asleep now but this has been a ramble which probably makes no sense but if we are mutuals or whatever i appreciate you and thanks for dealing with my bs.

tldr - finishing uni soon, probs gonna be looking for a job, doing better in life and with my mh. 

[bomberqueen17]

sugarspiceandcursewords replied to your post “I’m so tired, for no good reason. I need to go grocery shopping and...”

I hate it when good people do not have good options. You deserve better than to divide yourself between your dude and the half of your life that makes you happier. And I wish I could just, I dunno, be your admin assistant and organize appointments and shit for you, because organizing shit is my jam and even though I dislike cold-calling people it's totally within my ability. <hugs>

<hugs you back>

I tried to get my dude to relocate, back when that was easy, but now his remote-work company is setting up here, and I just-- I don’t really want to leave here either, but. Oh well. 

That’s the nature of physical existence, I think. At least my exile is shortish-distance; a 5-hour drive is doable twice a month if I must. 

You’re very sweet and it’s bitter to me that these things are So Difficult for me to do for myself. How hard is it really to make a dang phone call?? I don’t know but every time I do it I dread it, and I do it and it’s terrible, and I replay it for literally years afterwards so I can cringe on repeat about how Terrible it was, so, clearly, it’s a Thing, and I’m done letting people tell me it’s not a Thing. It’s a Thing! Listen friends if you could just Denial your way out of Things i would have done it by now, it would have worked by now, believe me I would have made it work, I am a person capable of many things. If the power of Denial were real I would probably be able to fly.

Another thing that gives me trouble is that my dude claims to be perfectly neurotypical except for being bad at remembering things, but he can’t make a phone call either, can’t put objects away or find them if they’ve been put away, can’t set a grocery-shopping routine or whatever either, can’t make his own appointments, etcetera-- and like, okay, I’m doing all this work and figuring out I have some kind of condition, and he’s just-- he’s just bad at things and it’s both not his fault and not something he needs to compensate for or work on, or-- and it’s just. Sigh. I mean, is it that he’s a dude and thus unaccustomed to doing his own logistics and emotional labor? or? I don’t know?

(Fortunately I can make a phone call for him, it turns out, so I can use that to end-run some of my own issues, but it doesn’t help that he then uses that to doubt whether I really truly have problems with phone calls, if I can make them on other people’s accounts but not my own. Alas, the end-run doesn’t work for him, he can’t make my phone calls. His phone anxiety stems from an apparent different source than mine, or isn’t alleviated by protectiveness of others the way mine seems to be.)

And it’s kind of-- it’s not worse, exactly, I can’t find it in myself to regret any of this, but it’s compounded by the fact that we’ve been together so long. I moved in with him when he was 22 and owned no furniture and had just gotten his driver’s license. It was his first apartment on his own. I’d lived on my own-ish for a while because I’d moved off-campus in undergrad, and had shared a house with other students and no adults. But I’ve literally never lived alone in my life, not even for a week. And I think I’d fare awfully at it-- but I’d also have only my own shit to worry about, for once, you know?

(I don’t count the yurt as “my own place”, because it’s literally just a bedroom. There’s an outhouse near it, and a bed in it, and that’s it, I just sleep there. I don’t eat there, I don’t live there, I just sleep there. People are like “wow tiny house living!” and I’m like no, tiny outdoor bedroom. I shower indoors. I have a barn full of chest freezers and a house with an enormous kitchen and a big TV. I just sleep here. Me and the wolf spiders. And the fox or chupacabras or whatever the fuck that thing was. Fuck, I should get a game camera this year, find out what all the beasties are that go bump (or growl, or crash, or bark) in the night.)