wilderbutterflyI was rock climbing the other night, giggling and carrying on between throwing myself at the rock climbing wall, while talking to a friend of mine. She said to me,"You know that you're going to have to post something from a bad day." " I know." I told her. And then I went home and asked my husband, "If I were to describe in gory detail, a borderline episode, which one would you prefer that I write up?" He paused for a moment, and then looked at me pensively. (He does this a lot. One of the things I love about him is that he respects me enough to view my questions as important.) Well, there are a lot, but I don't remember what triggered them. You want to be able to show everyone why it happened.""What about the soccer practice episode?""That was intense. Are you sure that you want to mention something that shows that much intensity?"We continued on that vein for quite some time before resolving that it was inconclusive. I wouldn't be describing any of my past borderline episodes, because, my dirty little secret is that I don't want people to view me as crazy. Here's the thing. I call myself crazy. I use the term "crazy" because I don't like the idea of people being able to stigmatize a word that describes things that I view as beautiful. And it's pretty all inclusive. I can use it about myself without people asking me what I mean. As opposed to calling myself borderline, which opens it up to 50 questions time, where the questions are sometimes enlightened and sensitive, but mostly, people have no clue how to approach you and ask questions. When they do, it's like every question on mental illness they've ever wanted to ask someone. I'm writing a blog on mental illness for goodness sake. And I don't want people to see me and think, "Hey, there's that mentally ill chick with the blog and all that emotional baggage." I want people to see me and think, "Hey, she's got her shit together." It's like that time when you walk out of the bathroom in the super cute mini skirt and you think that people are checking out the shape of your calves in the bodacious boots that you're wearing, only to discover when you sit down, after walking through the entire work hallway, that you had tucked toilet paper into the hem of your skirt and you had been wearing a toilet paper skirt cape festooned over your frock. Pretty embarrassing, right?Now imagine that toilet paper to be constantly tucked just under the waistband of that skirt. Every time you venture out, there's a possibility that people may see it peeking out. If you deal with your emotions, see a counselor, get enough sleep, do DBT treatment and minimize stress in your life, you might never show people the entire length of the toilet paper spool, only glimpses. But what are the odds that you're going to be able to perfectly juggle life so that you don't have any high stress days at work that coincide with high stress things happening on your life. For example: I love my job. I love helping people. The people are all very welcoming. The company understands work-life balance and I get paid a living wage for what I do. I leave at 5 o'clock every day (for the most part) and can schedule vacation at will (for the most part). We are asked to manage a certain amount of data (I'm being very liberal with the term data.)each day to ensure that clients receive the products and services they requested in a timely manner. How we do the job, how we work as a team, and how quickly we do things is largely up to us. As is when we take our lunch break, when we use the restroom and other similar decisions.Occasionally, we make mistakes. My job is also excellent at understanding that we are human beings, and assuming that these are mistakes, and are not deliberately attributed to sloth or general ambivalence. However, in spite of this, on Friday, I was asked to do something I was not fond of. I was asked to continue learning from my mistakes by having a more senior member of the team review my orders. The way I understood this, was that she would be reviewing ALL of my orders of a specific type. I can't say why this offended me, other than thinking that it signified a lack of respect. (It didn't.) Or that it was a sign that I was going to get fired. (It wasn't.) The imaginary issues built up stress in my head, and made me view one of the other workers who started closely to the same time I started as an adversary, instead of an ally, because she wasn't having her orders reviewed nearly as closely. I shouted in a meeting that week ("Don't look at me,") Showed up late to work (I was so anxious I had a melt-down and had to go see my counselor) and then proceeded to text my husband at every conceivable break to reassure me that I wasn't a terrible person and I wasn't going to get fired. After a workday filled with angst, I then went home and proceeded to pick a fight about chores with my husband, storm out of the house, and then calm down enough to realize that I was stressed out. Then I realized that I had misunderstood what my boss had asked of me. What was being asked was reasonable and frankly, a great opportunity. The opportunity to have a co-worker who knows just about every facet of the job and who has trained two team leads to look at complicated orders and make sure you are competent? And yes, I had definitely created a rivalry in my mind. The co-worker in question might have had things going on. Perhaps she was nervous about something that happened in the meeting. Maybe she thought I was crazy pants because of my outburst? But she didn't hate me. You know the phrase, "I couldn't make this shit up if I tried?" Unfortunately, my brain is pretty creative. The number of situations I have amped up in stress just by imagining a rivalry that didn't exist are too many to count. So excuse me while I put my crazy away. I'm just imagining a host of reasons why I should feel insecure and anxious that will subsequently cause me to freak out and run away. No extra charge. Just a free service that I provide.
(Published Nov 23, 2015 on Blogspot: Excuse me While I Put my Crazy Away)