Enough about me, let's talk about me

Where to begin? The last while has been hard. My on-the-job depression has been swinging wildly to and fro. Some days I come home and don't even think about my work and then other days, days like today, the whole ugly obsession seeps into my real life and I waste the day feeling sorry for myself. On the plus side I did apply for 2 new jobs which hopefully will result in an escape from the hillside hell-hole.

I had planned to go for a bike ride in the morning, taking care to walk up hills and inclines as per my new edict (will get to that) and then return home refreshed and ready to get shit done. Instead I have lolled around in my pjs all day, refusing to feed myself properly so I went from starvation to an intense stomach cramps because I downed two cups of yogurt despite a known dairy intolerance.

But I just had a revelation that may make it all worth while....

You see, one of the jobs I was supposed to apply for is at the company I currently work for. It's the next step up with the requisite $15,000 (potentially) bump up in pay. Which would be ideal, right, if I actually liked where I work.

On the plus side, this new job has more responsibility, different work, more strategic, more "authority/importance" (because the truth is I am horribly insecure at times and like to feel that my job confers some sort of authority or credibility on me when it really doesn't). In fact, in every way this job is more. More exposure to asshole managers and executive and board. More fun with Ministry staff. More fun with legal! More office politics and back stabbing and more more more of the hillside hellhole. So no wonder I spent the whole day dragging my feet, avoiding actually pulling together a resume and cover letter. Why would I want more of all that?

Well, because I'm a masochist, really. I have low self-esteem and I never know when to walk away. I don't like confrontation and have a mixed history of standing up for myself (I've done it but unlike all of the self-help books that promise once you do it regularly you'll have a better life my experience has been that all I ever do is stand up for myself and suffer various forms of passive aggressive revenge anyway). Most of all, I have an incredibly long history of being in unbearable situations for years on end so the hillside hellhole, while anxiety producing, does have a faintly cozy feel to it. And I get to feel like a victim/martyr: "Christ am I the only person around here with some goddamn integrity!" Which is great, cuz if I'm gonna get treated like shit the least that could happen is that I get to feel morally superior to the asshole- while being an asshole myself. (I complain about gossip and back stabbing- ha! I've made more than a few bitchy comments myself, lemme tell ya). Staying there lets me continue to play to all my worst attributes. My need for acceptance and approval (bigger paycheck, more fancy title, respect from staff under me {bah, I'm so pathetic}, shitty corporate culture, other people who are insecure and passive aggressive) and it's just a big stew of all my fucked up parts, mixing with other people's fucked up parts and it's getting worse. But it has the potential to be better.

But I'm starting to think the problem is all me. (Though taking all the blame is a classic tactic of my low self-esteem mindset, I appear to be extremely forthcoming about my faults, to a fault, and then admit the cliched sentiment that I'm my own worst enemy, [Which is true} and then present the tidy assumption that perhaps I am creating all of it). But it's not all me. The Hillside Hellhole employs other emotionally damaged people like me and the problem is how I react to stress, how I was programmed and continue to program myself around confrontation. How I can be justifiably spitting fucking mad and then get on the phone and sweetly handle the situation and even take the blame from the other person for their fuck-up that has majorly inconvenienced me. Even though I am really spitting mad! I will literally talk to them on the phone in a way that is as if I am apologizing to them for what they did to me!!!!!!

Why do I do that? Why do I suck up other people's shame, other people's mistakes so they don't have to feel the burden of being ashamed, which is what I assume, they would feel, if I blasted them for pissing me off in the first place. It's like I perform an act of penance for the thought of being upfront with them. And the scary thing is, I almost wrote "being mean to them" as if being up front and being mean were one in the same. They're not. Telling a co-worker they have screwed up, royally, and inconvenienced me in a respectful way isn't being mean. Or is it. Is it my job to even tell them they fucked up? I don't think it is, actually. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it. But the me who's been bullied, who's had salt rubbed in the wound thought for a moment that I did have the right. But if not that, then what? Because they did screw up and they did cost me four hours of work. Do I get on the phone and sound tense and angry? Do I say, nicely, I spent hours trying to track this down and the least you could have done was returned my phone calls (my assumption was that they didn't call because they were purposefully avoiding me, but, more upsetting was the thought that they didn't call because I was below notice, as in, who cares if we screwed up and pissed her off, she'll mop it up, she's a nobody anyway. In reality they may not have called because they were scrambling amongst themselves that would fix this situation and were worried I would blow up at them?). What I did do was send a polite but brief e-mail, "the link is now up. In future you need to give me a months notice at minimum before you proceed with any projects related to web development." But that e-mail was so limp wristed it made me sick. Some part of me really wanted to say "ML made me feel like shit for something I didn't even do wrong and cced in 8 other people and humiliated me-- WHILE I WAS ON VACATION AND THUS DEFENSELESS!!! So now I'm going to take your legitimate and actual big screw up and rub it in and make you look like SHIT in front of the entire company. How do you like that mother fuckers, feel my fucking pain!!!!!!" But while I've probably given the impression that I'm incredibly self-centred and utterly lacking in integrity, I did clue in really fast and realized that was my shit and it was only a secret, guilty indulgence that lasted for .3 seconds before I felt vaguely uncomfortable with how sleazy it was. My point though is that my e-mail seemed a little too blase, my imaginary e-mail a little too crazy, so what would the happy medium have been, I wonder? (Though my manger gave me kudos for handling it professionally and respectfully, then again he is frequently attacked for not having balls...)

All of this to say that I always feel as if I am being dis-respected and I don't know how not to be. Maybe I'm not being dis-respected and it's all in my head. Maybe I'm blowing this one situation out of proportion because of the whole ML ccing in 8 people to diss me when I was completely innocent and I know that I will never have the opportunity to deal with that directly- office politics being what they are.

Plus I was taught to catastrophize. So it's my natural mode.

Health and Wellness Update

I did get Runkles the basket. It is super-fab and a picture is forthcoming. He fucking loves it.

I haven't been working out much-- see above. Plus, bike riding brought with it a number of new physical problems I was not ready for, including new and different forms of pain in new locations. My arm and shoulder hurt on my right side- bearable, but puzzling. After a couple of 14-15 K rides my knees literally felt like they were about to blow out. My feet started having extreme pain again, which affected my walking ability and oh, did I mention the scary, intense pain in my knees?

The knee pain began after I did a really hilly section of the goose headed towards thetis lake. I had been increasing the length and intensity of my rides and boom! It just happened. I'm used to some pain with working out and frankly I am quite good now at knowing how to distinguish pain. There's the oh-my-god-it-hurts-so-badly-it's-actually-going-to-turn-into-pleasure-any-second-kind-of-pain. There's the if-I-keep-doing-this-I'll-reactivate-an old-injury pain. The -I'll-be-sorry-tomorrow-but-look-at-me-go-right-now pain. And the no-pain-no-gain-take-an advil-baby pain. I know my limits. I know I can push until my shoulders are burning but the next day they'll actually feel better because all that lactic acid is unkinking my shoulder muscles. This knee pain was the pre-cursor to temporary disability/knee surgery pain. It just didn't feel right.

Hence my new hill and inclide edict. I am not allowed under any circumstances, no mater how ashamed I may feel, to ride up a hill or incline. I have to get off and walk. No excuses.

But I also stopped going to pilates. My excuse was that I had to travel a lot for work and I wanted more time to be outside. The reality was two-fold. I wasn't feeding myself during the day so I'd come home famished and EAT and then be full and physically uncomfortable, plus I would still have the lingering hunger headache with the attendant neck/shoulder pain. Trying to do pilates like that sucks. My body just doesn't cooperate. I know because I've done it plenty of times. So that's a legitimate reason not to go. Right. Yes. But, why exactly was I letting myself get so hungry that I arrived home with the beginnings of a migraine, low blood sugar and secretly knowing I would almost have to binge because my body was so out of whack every Tuesday night, over and over and over? One crazy day where I barely get a chance to feed myself I can see, but every Tuesday? What was I avoiding?

I was avoiding Fiona and her sizest commentary (they're piffling remarks but they get under my skin because there's a part of me that agrees). Mix that in with the upsetting sensation that occurs when I'm that connected to my body and viola, that class becomes an emotional watershed.

For example, the first couple of classes I came home and cried, for no reason at all. It was like my body had taken over and was crying for me. That's how intense it can be. So I was playing games with myself to avoid looking at ----- oh my god, here it comes again------ how it is I can stay in an uncomfortable situation for so long and keep coming back for seconds. Though in the case of pilates I think it's essential that I keep going and tune out Fiona's nonsense commentary.

And in the case of pilates I think I just need to feel all those feelings in my body and stop stuffing them down with food beforehand. I wasn't able/willing to do that with working being what it was for the last couple of months, my knees hurt, so I just stopped. No gym, hardly any bike. No pilates.

Fuck me, I hate how it's all so related.

An ironic aside, I put on a little bit of weight with the time off from the gym and the vacation but this week everyone in my office started noticing that I'd lost weight and people started to comment (well, 3 people). But the thing is, I lost weight months ago and have been 35-45 pounds lighter for over six months and haven't lost anything since then. Totally weird. At first I denied it but then I just didn't care either way. Let them think what they want.