Be honest with myself

Being honest with myself also means that I am honest about my feelings to others. This is the hard part, where I have to step out and fae disapproval and disagreement.

I wither when faced with opposition. This has always been my way. Changing this requires gumption and assertiveness and maturity. Do I have enough of these qualities to face the world? I’ve been practising on my husband, who is as contrary and argumentative as I could want, and it is getting easier to deal with the fact of opposing viewpoints, but there are some significant issues.

1. I hate being wrong.
2. I feel humiliated when I lose an argumment.
3. I haven’t figured out how to deal with people whose minds can’t be changed, even though they are wrong.
4. I sort of think that many people I disagree with are a little bit stupid. Big problem, because I need to be able to respect people to have a decent disagreement with them.
5. I get sidetracked and make things personal. In other words, I fight like a girl.

I want things to change, and I am aware on an intellectual level that I have a part to play in making the world a better place. I know that making my opinion part of the ongoing debate about issues will have an impact, and I am intelligent and lucid enough to really make my presence felt. The question is how to make the leap from intellectual awareness to participation. Fear is a mile-high wall before me right now, and my automatic reaction is to back away, hands up in the ‘I’m-not-a-threat’ position.

I am afraid to participate in life. Am I really living?

This has been a journey, one that I never expected. I will be posting much more about this, but the most important thing is that I have been avoiding 43T because I wasn’t fully ready to be honest. That was a surprise, and every time I turned on the laptop, I would sort of take my own emotional temperature – how did I feel about going to 43T and facing myself? This is the first time in months that I have been able to look myself in the eye.

At first I thought my avoidance was about feelings of failure, but I had already worked through that and retooled my list so that it no longer reflects the things I feel I SHOULD do, only the things that would give me some much needed peace and maybe some joy. And still I avoided. Now I know that redoing my list was only the first step, I had to actually accept the new list as the truth, as reflecting the things that in my heart of hearts, I want in my life and am willing to work to have.

I feel new.

It is self-hate. I really really loathe myself because I have an almost unlimited ability to fck up a good thing. Because, this job I have? Best. Job. Ever. And I am this close to being sent home.

And I get no comfort from the knowledge that I am labouring with a very real disability. Yes I am depressed – but I am not PERFORMING, the voice in my head screams, sounding like a maniacal combination of all the bosses I have ever had.

How depressing is that? My internal voice sounds like my boss. All day and all night long. Hell. I don’t want to be the lazy, non-performing person, who gets the bad looks, the sarcastic remarks and the threats to put it on my file. I’m not that person. I’m the good girl, the one who gets all A’s, who gets her work done first, who teaches the class when they don’t understand. I am the one that was supposed to fly to the top, the summit of achievement.

I think I am a loser. I am convinced that I can do it if I just try hard enough. I feel that I must be lazy, or I would get off my ass and achieve. So what if the books and my counsellor say that I have to be kind to myself and give myself space – the world does not give space. The world needs a lean, mean fighting machine ready to go to war, and I think I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THAT PERSON. The reality of who I am is foreign to me. This halting, failing, non-performing, lazy, fat is a stranger to me.

I am angry with myself, because I have noone else to blame for my failure. If not me, then who?

I am angry with God, because he sees all and knows all, and he didn’t FIX MY LIFE before everything went spiraling out of control.

I now have 4 1/2 days to sort myself out, or else I have no hope. I will be done in this organization. And I can’t seem to pull myself together. I hate myself. I hate myself. I really hate myself.

This is true for the office and at home. All the undone chores and tasks have really piled up, and I am not happy living like this. In fact, the things undone are the main source of my anxiety right now.

I did some work this weekend. I get tired quickly, but when I’m done, I’m anxiety-free for a while. So, Work is the cure for what ails me.

It’s true. I am always late. I have improved, but I have been patting myself on the back for being ‘only’ 15 minutes late. That is still late. I have not solved this problem.

I’m being honest – I’m not going to do it.

And I refuse to call myself names because I am admitting this. I have a job. I have a 7 year old. I live in a suburb, so we spend hours commuting. Pressuring myself to do this because I think I SHOULD (Bad Word) is only adding to the stress I already feel. So I’m not saying I don’t value a clean kitchen, because I do – but if I don’t do it, so be it. I always have a choice, and ‘because I should’ isn’t a good enough reason to do ANYTHING!

I am depressed. I feel like staying in bed and sleeping for a week. I don’t want to work, or be determined or be a good parent or be a wife. Right now I just want to be left alone.

That is all.