I'm not very good at writing in this thing.
I'm not good at keeping ANY kind of journal. I've tried, over the years. It's just something you're supposed to do, I guess, when you're depressed. Get it out on the page so it's not in your head, or something. People say it helps. Sometimes I think it might help. But I can never quite bring myself to keep it up. It just never feels like I really have all that much I have to say. Well. Not say out loud, anyway. Or, "out loud", since it's just on paper. Or the computer.
It feels dangerous, I guess, to write it down somewhere. I hate reading what I've written. It's like seeing a time capsule of time I wish I could forget. I wish I could forget a lot of my past. It just won't do to have it all preserved in writing. And yet, I'm a horrible packrat, and I have an exceptional memory for anything I ever did or was done to me that was hurtful, embarassing or something I really, really want to forget. Anything that makes my stomach flipflop. I remember.
So why should it make a difference if I write it down? I'm going to remember anyway. Still. I hate reading what I've written. Doesn't matter what it is.
Despite all that, though, I keep feeling like I ought to put something here. Write something. Try to... I don't know, bleed out some of the pain that I feel.
Work is hell. We have no staff, we have crappy managers, we have loads of customers. I've been given way more tasks than I can reasonably handle, but to them, it seems perfectly reasonable. I worry constantly that my emotional threshold for work is just way lower than normal people's, because I get way more burned out than anyone else. I cut corners, I don't bother being as nice anymore, because I simply don't have the energy to deal with anyone, or anything. I start out my day with an empty tank, and it only gets worse as the day goes on. I'm driven nearly, or even actually, to tears almost every day because I just can't take it anymore. And when I'm not crying-upset, I'm just filled with a blank despair or a horrible, burning rage. It doesn't even take anything much to set me off anymore. All a customer has to do to piss me off so badly I can't see straight is be just dumb enough to not spit out what they want from me right from the get go. From where I'm sitting, when I answer the phone, they ask "Can you tell me if you have a book?" and I say "Sure", that should be enough of a prompt for them to tell me what book they're looking for. But more often than I care to think about, there's just this blank, idiotic silence on the other end, until I finally prompt them to tell me the title. Do they really think I have ESP? How am I supposed to know what they want if they won't TELL me? That's all it takes anymore, because I'm already carrying so much anger around with me that all it takes is a flash of irritation to set it off into fury.
I'm angry a lot. I'm scared a lot. I'm confused a lot.
I want a house and a car very badly. I have a car, right now, but it probably won't last me through the winter. The transmission is dead, it barely shifts out of first anymore (though it shifts fine in the higher gears), and I was told it has a host of other, more minor problems, and to fix even just the transmission, which would need to be totally replaced, would cost more than the car was worth.
So I need a new car.
But it's either going to be the car or the house. I really don't think I can afford both. I can't even afford an apartment around here.
Problem is, no car, no job, no job, no money, no money, no house. So it's pretty clear what has to come first.
I just don't know if I can stand living at home anymore. I have a lot of hate and anger for my parents and a fair amount of loathing for my brother. Sure, my lifestyle here is better than I could afford. Cable internet. Good computer. No rent. Heat. Sort of. It's always freezing. Etc. But I don't know if I can stand living here anymore, when I know that every day when I come home, I'm not coming home to someplace safe. I still have to pretend to be someone else here. I can NEVER let down my guard, not anywhere I go. That's horribly draining. I have to play dutiful cheerful employee at work. I have to listen to many well meaning people say "miss", "ma'am", "good girl", "good woman", all day long and not correct them. I have to play at being cheerful when I'm having urges to either kill a customer, my bosses, or my coworkers, or run out and outright quit. Then when I come home - HOME, where I should be safe - I just have to slip into another ill fitting role, and be the loving daughter. I just try to stay away from everyone at home, because I can't do it anymore. Whenever I say anything bitter or cynical about work or life or anything anymore, mom just rolls her eyes and dad tries to tell me I'm wrong. Well, I'd LOVE to see either of them walk a week in my shoes. Just try it. Try waking up every day wishing you didn't exist, wishing you didn't have to wake up. But you get up anyway, because you know you have to, even though it seems totally, totally pointless. Going to work, a place you loathe, having people dump on you all day long in a way that only retail grunts could possibly appreciate. Try getting through a day in a public place when you are totally paranoid about using the bathrooms there because you KNOW that no matter HOW many times you are "miss"ed or "ma'am"ed all day long, that the INSTANT you are seen walking into the womens restroom, SOMEONE will think you are going into the wrong bathroom. Then come home, to parents who are totally alienated from you now, and a brother who gets all the love and devotion and support because HE didn't totally screw up their plans for his life - not YET, anyway. Fail to relax for a few hours, then go to bed drained, exhausted, yet unable to fall asleep because your mind is racing with worry about how you're going to get through tomorrow, how you're going to afford all these major expenses, how you're going to manage to just live for one more day. Repeat as necessary.
Nothing seems to have a remedy. I know a patch for it might be going back into therapy, getting back on anti depressants. But that costs money, and involves dealing with the insurance company, which is so confusing and awful I can never work up the energy to actually try to arrange something for myself. I can't move out because I can't afford it. I can't move in with my mate because he doesn't live alone OR even with his parents, but with his friend's parents, who are way way way too nice as it is to let me stay there one or two nights a week to see him. But I don't like them either even though I am painfully indebted to them (which, I suppose, is one reason to hate them. I don't like being in debt to anyone). So I can't fix my home troubles, OR, by extension, my gender troubles, because it simply isn't practical to try to start to transition while I'm living here with people who really don't WANT me to. I can't fix work, because I am powerless to change anything that happens there, and unless I knew where I wanted to be, and had it lined up already, I cannot afford to quit. And I don't know what I want to do. I have no training. I dont' want to be in retail anymore, but anything else generally requires schooling of some sort. Without actually KNOWING what I wanted to get into, it would be pointless to go to school for anything. Therefore, a new job is not currently possible. I can't fix anything with my mate because I can't see him because of my job, my car, and his/my homes. I feel like we're too distant, and at the same time too close, and I'm always afraid I'm pushing him away because I'm so angry all the time, and yet I want to push him away because I AM angry, and he never understands. There's too many issues there to even touch upon.
So every day I'm miserable. I'm cold, lonely and miserable. I walk around work just wishing I was dead. I sit at home planning around sleep. I can hardly function at all anymore, and I know it, and I STILL can't seem to make myself go out and get help. There's something seriously wrong with me.
It feels dangerous, I guess, to write it down somewhere. I hate reading what I've written. It's like seeing a time capsule of time I wish I could forget. I wish I could forget a lot of my past. It just won't do to have it all preserved in writing. And yet, I'm a horrible packrat, and I have an exceptional memory for anything I ever did or was done to me that was hurtful, embarassing or something I really, really want to forget. Anything that makes my stomach flipflop. I remember.
So why should it make a difference if I write it down? I'm going to remember anyway. Still. I hate reading what I've written. Doesn't matter what it is.
Despite all that, though, I keep feeling like I ought to put something here. Write something. Try to... I don't know, bleed out some of the pain that I feel.
Work is hell. We have no staff, we have crappy managers, we have loads of customers. I've been given way more tasks than I can reasonably handle, but to them, it seems perfectly reasonable. I worry constantly that my emotional threshold for work is just way lower than normal people's, because I get way more burned out than anyone else. I cut corners, I don't bother being as nice anymore, because I simply don't have the energy to deal with anyone, or anything. I start out my day with an empty tank, and it only gets worse as the day goes on. I'm driven nearly, or even actually, to tears almost every day because I just can't take it anymore. And when I'm not crying-upset, I'm just filled with a blank despair or a horrible, burning rage. It doesn't even take anything much to set me off anymore. All a customer has to do to piss me off so badly I can't see straight is be just dumb enough to not spit out what they want from me right from the get go. From where I'm sitting, when I answer the phone, they ask "Can you tell me if you have a book?" and I say "Sure", that should be enough of a prompt for them to tell me what book they're looking for. But more often than I care to think about, there's just this blank, idiotic silence on the other end, until I finally prompt them to tell me the title. Do they really think I have ESP? How am I supposed to know what they want if they won't TELL me? That's all it takes anymore, because I'm already carrying so much anger around with me that all it takes is a flash of irritation to set it off into fury.
I'm angry a lot. I'm scared a lot. I'm confused a lot.
I want a house and a car very badly. I have a car, right now, but it probably won't last me through the winter. The transmission is dead, it barely shifts out of first anymore (though it shifts fine in the higher gears), and I was told it has a host of other, more minor problems, and to fix even just the transmission, which would need to be totally replaced, would cost more than the car was worth.
So I need a new car.
But it's either going to be the car or the house. I really don't think I can afford both. I can't even afford an apartment around here.
Problem is, no car, no job, no job, no money, no money, no house. So it's pretty clear what has to come first.
I just don't know if I can stand living at home anymore. I have a lot of hate and anger for my parents and a fair amount of loathing for my brother. Sure, my lifestyle here is better than I could afford. Cable internet. Good computer. No rent. Heat. Sort of. It's always freezing. Etc. But I don't know if I can stand living here anymore, when I know that every day when I come home, I'm not coming home to someplace safe. I still have to pretend to be someone else here. I can NEVER let down my guard, not anywhere I go. That's horribly draining. I have to play dutiful cheerful employee at work. I have to listen to many well meaning people say "miss", "ma'am", "good girl", "good woman", all day long and not correct them. I have to play at being cheerful when I'm having urges to either kill a customer, my bosses, or my coworkers, or run out and outright quit. Then when I come home - HOME, where I should be safe - I just have to slip into another ill fitting role, and be the loving daughter. I just try to stay away from everyone at home, because I can't do it anymore. Whenever I say anything bitter or cynical about work or life or anything anymore, mom just rolls her eyes and dad tries to tell me I'm wrong. Well, I'd LOVE to see either of them walk a week in my shoes. Just try it. Try waking up every day wishing you didn't exist, wishing you didn't have to wake up. But you get up anyway, because you know you have to, even though it seems totally, totally pointless. Going to work, a place you loathe, having people dump on you all day long in a way that only retail grunts could possibly appreciate. Try getting through a day in a public place when you are totally paranoid about using the bathrooms there because you KNOW that no matter HOW many times you are "miss"ed or "ma'am"ed all day long, that the INSTANT you are seen walking into the womens restroom, SOMEONE will think you are going into the wrong bathroom. Then come home, to parents who are totally alienated from you now, and a brother who gets all the love and devotion and support because HE didn't totally screw up their plans for his life - not YET, anyway. Fail to relax for a few hours, then go to bed drained, exhausted, yet unable to fall asleep because your mind is racing with worry about how you're going to get through tomorrow, how you're going to afford all these major expenses, how you're going to manage to just live for one more day. Repeat as necessary.
Nothing seems to have a remedy. I know a patch for it might be going back into therapy, getting back on anti depressants. But that costs money, and involves dealing with the insurance company, which is so confusing and awful I can never work up the energy to actually try to arrange something for myself. I can't move out because I can't afford it. I can't move in with my mate because he doesn't live alone OR even with his parents, but with his friend's parents, who are way way way too nice as it is to let me stay there one or two nights a week to see him. But I don't like them either even though I am painfully indebted to them (which, I suppose, is one reason to hate them. I don't like being in debt to anyone). So I can't fix my home troubles, OR, by extension, my gender troubles, because it simply isn't practical to try to start to transition while I'm living here with people who really don't WANT me to. I can't fix work, because I am powerless to change anything that happens there, and unless I knew where I wanted to be, and had it lined up already, I cannot afford to quit. And I don't know what I want to do. I have no training. I dont' want to be in retail anymore, but anything else generally requires schooling of some sort. Without actually KNOWING what I wanted to get into, it would be pointless to go to school for anything. Therefore, a new job is not currently possible. I can't fix anything with my mate because I can't see him because of my job, my car, and his/my homes. I feel like we're too distant, and at the same time too close, and I'm always afraid I'm pushing him away because I'm so angry all the time, and yet I want to push him away because I AM angry, and he never understands. There's too many issues there to even touch upon.
So every day I'm miserable. I'm cold, lonely and miserable. I walk around work just wishing I was dead. I sit at home planning around sleep. I can hardly function at all anymore, and I know it, and I STILL can't seem to make myself go out and get help. There's something seriously wrong with me.