Late-night musings
Monday night, as I relaxed the night before returning to work, I allowed my mind to wander as I was chatting with friends. Here are some things that I sorted out in my head during those conversations.
On being nervous about my first day back:
I was nervous about going back to work. I don't trust myself to do what I need to do consistently and predictably... getting there on time, keeping up the energy, staying off chat and email, etc.
On the subject of feeling safe:
There really isn't any time that I feel totally safe. Ever. Thinking that made me sad, but I don't really know how to feel safe. I've never had that feeling as far as I can remember, but it seems like I'm always looking for that safety and never able to find it or ultimately can never trust it. I simply don't believe in it. I suppose part of the problem is that I look externally for safety but I can't really count on it. I have to be able to get it without going to external sources. I didn't get it growing up. Continuing to look to someone else to give me that safety is maladaptive. I have to let go of my anger about that and find safety inside myself.
On what self-parenting is:
I never really learned what parenting is because I had no model to go from, so I have to figure out how to usefully parent myself. I have to feed myself, get myself to bed at a decent hour, get myself to work on time, eat healthy, but I have to teach myself to do that in a self-care, nurturing way. That's part of how I'll start feeling safe. Teaching myself healthy, predictable behaviours that provide a safe foundation for daily life.
I expect that children have a parent to help them with issues of judgement. "Have I eaten healthy enough?" But I'm adult with my own judgement. I'll do my best. I need to use models of parents I thought were good for their children. I don't believe that a perfect parent exists and I won't be perfect, but I have to stop holding myself to such an unreachable standard.
On self-parenting basics:
When parenting is going well the child is mostly happy and growing well. Parenting groups are about having someone to bounce things off of. I need checks and balances to ensure that I'm doing the right thing with myself. I need to find specific things to focus on with regard to taking care of myself. Those are the things I've been most historically bad at. There's nobody externally to keep me honet with myself, which is what I find most difficult. A good friend offered me support for being accountable to myself. I think that will help. My friend won't just say, "Just do it already and stop talking about it" because she gets that I feel a lot of shame about not doing things to take care of myself.
On self-sabotage:
I self-sabotage. I know that I do it. I just haven't known how to stop. I have to stop being so hard on myself. That's really all it would take to move forward - to stop being so hard on myself and just do my best. I've been dissatisfied with my best not being what *I* want it to be? My standard of good enough is too high. It's too hard to reach and I can never succeed when it's not achievable.
On being a Recruitment Contractor or Recruiter:
I think I've been resisting being a contractor. I kept hanging on to the dream of having a full-time job with benefits and pension and shite like that, but really I don't fit that model of an employee. I need more independence. I need to set my own hours and choose my own wardrobe and just be hired by companies to do their work not be part of that work in the long term. That way I can call my own shots on the things that I resisted in the full-time workplace, like being on time and conforming to the wardrobe constraints, which are things I've actively resisted .... could not stop resisting. For whatever reason those things feel like conformity that goes too far. Dictating style and making an arbitrary work-day that does not conform to the needs of my body.
But if I can do this for CNC Global I can do it for other recruitment companies all over the place. If not them, there are at least 50 other recruitment companies and at least 20 of them can afford me because I've got skills that a recruitment company many not always need but when they need them, they need them fast to meet client requirements. If not that, then I can be a recruiter myself, building my own candidate base over time by knowing all the people I do who are always looking for work in different fields and they always know people who work in their fields who are looking for work, etc. Since I know there's always going to be people looking, I can do my best to help them where I can but I can't expect to find all of them jobs. That's their job and I can help them when it works out that way but I can't force myself to find them a job just because they're my clients. So it's okay for me to choose the best candidate not the person who needs the most help because if they're going to get the job they have to do it on their own. That solves the dilemma of doing what the client needs over helping the people I know. Ethical problem for lucrative sales work resolved!
The other ethical dilemma I had was that I was spending taxpayers' money on my own salary doing something I believed was a complete waste of time and money to satisfy the politics of the union.... and I think that's what kept me from doing my best work instead of resenting the work. I need to let go of the resentment and just accept that taxpayers are paying my salary so I'd better do a good job since I wouldn't want anybody wasting my taxes.
On creating forward momentum:
I can tell that I'm working my way out of my recent funk. There's forward momentum building in a few places. I did something I've never, ever done before. And it somehow helped. I actually explained in detail my own understanding of how I got where I was and what I felt were the appropriate diagnoses that I knew I was up against given my history and had it fleetingly corroborated by the psychiatrist enough so that I knew that I was on the right track and knew what the best courses were to take, and now I'm doing that. A psychiatrist told me, "You're right. That's what you're dealing with. You need help with those things. Do your best for now until you get that help." So the ultimate answer is "Yes, you're crazy. But all the craziness you have is treatable, so don't worry. You're not so crazy it's hopeless."
On addiction to escape:
I'm going to stop buying/selling pot. I always have it or am always getting it and because I'm in a vulnerable place in my ability to use my judgement, I'm smoking too much and I know it. I didn't used to smoke up anywhere near this much. I've been using it for coping too often. Once this supply runs out, I'm taking a break from it.
On being nervous about my first day back:
I was nervous about going back to work. I don't trust myself to do what I need to do consistently and predictably... getting there on time, keeping up the energy, staying off chat and email, etc.
On the subject of feeling safe:
There really isn't any time that I feel totally safe. Ever. Thinking that made me sad, but I don't really know how to feel safe. I've never had that feeling as far as I can remember, but it seems like I'm always looking for that safety and never able to find it or ultimately can never trust it. I simply don't believe in it. I suppose part of the problem is that I look externally for safety but I can't really count on it. I have to be able to get it without going to external sources. I didn't get it growing up. Continuing to look to someone else to give me that safety is maladaptive. I have to let go of my anger about that and find safety inside myself.
On what self-parenting is:
I never really learned what parenting is because I had no model to go from, so I have to figure out how to usefully parent myself. I have to feed myself, get myself to bed at a decent hour, get myself to work on time, eat healthy, but I have to teach myself to do that in a self-care, nurturing way. That's part of how I'll start feeling safe. Teaching myself healthy, predictable behaviours that provide a safe foundation for daily life.
I expect that children have a parent to help them with issues of judgement. "Have I eaten healthy enough?" But I'm adult with my own judgement. I'll do my best. I need to use models of parents I thought were good for their children. I don't believe that a perfect parent exists and I won't be perfect, but I have to stop holding myself to such an unreachable standard.
On self-parenting basics:
When parenting is going well the child is mostly happy and growing well. Parenting groups are about having someone to bounce things off of. I need checks and balances to ensure that I'm doing the right thing with myself. I need to find specific things to focus on with regard to taking care of myself. Those are the things I've been most historically bad at. There's nobody externally to keep me honet with myself, which is what I find most difficult. A good friend offered me support for being accountable to myself. I think that will help. My friend won't just say, "Just do it already and stop talking about it" because she gets that I feel a lot of shame about not doing things to take care of myself.
On self-sabotage:
I self-sabotage. I know that I do it. I just haven't known how to stop. I have to stop being so hard on myself. That's really all it would take to move forward - to stop being so hard on myself and just do my best. I've been dissatisfied with my best not being what *I* want it to be? My standard of good enough is too high. It's too hard to reach and I can never succeed when it's not achievable.
On being a Recruitment Contractor or Recruiter:
I think I've been resisting being a contractor. I kept hanging on to the dream of having a full-time job with benefits and pension and shite like that, but really I don't fit that model of an employee. I need more independence. I need to set my own hours and choose my own wardrobe and just be hired by companies to do their work not be part of that work in the long term. That way I can call my own shots on the things that I resisted in the full-time workplace, like being on time and conforming to the wardrobe constraints, which are things I've actively resisted .... could not stop resisting. For whatever reason those things feel like conformity that goes too far. Dictating style and making an arbitrary work-day that does not conform to the needs of my body.
But if I can do this for CNC Global I can do it for other recruitment companies all over the place. If not them, there are at least 50 other recruitment companies and at least 20 of them can afford me because I've got skills that a recruitment company many not always need but when they need them, they need them fast to meet client requirements. If not that, then I can be a recruiter myself, building my own candidate base over time by knowing all the people I do who are always looking for work in different fields and they always know people who work in their fields who are looking for work, etc. Since I know there's always going to be people looking, I can do my best to help them where I can but I can't expect to find all of them jobs. That's their job and I can help them when it works out that way but I can't force myself to find them a job just because they're my clients. So it's okay for me to choose the best candidate not the person who needs the most help because if they're going to get the job they have to do it on their own. That solves the dilemma of doing what the client needs over helping the people I know. Ethical problem for lucrative sales work resolved!
The other ethical dilemma I had was that I was spending taxpayers' money on my own salary doing something I believed was a complete waste of time and money to satisfy the politics of the union.... and I think that's what kept me from doing my best work instead of resenting the work. I need to let go of the resentment and just accept that taxpayers are paying my salary so I'd better do a good job since I wouldn't want anybody wasting my taxes.
On creating forward momentum:
I can tell that I'm working my way out of my recent funk. There's forward momentum building in a few places. I did something I've never, ever done before. And it somehow helped. I actually explained in detail my own understanding of how I got where I was and what I felt were the appropriate diagnoses that I knew I was up against given my history and had it fleetingly corroborated by the psychiatrist enough so that I knew that I was on the right track and knew what the best courses were to take, and now I'm doing that. A psychiatrist told me, "You're right. That's what you're dealing with. You need help with those things. Do your best for now until you get that help." So the ultimate answer is "Yes, you're crazy. But all the craziness you have is treatable, so don't worry. You're not so crazy it's hopeless."
On addiction to escape:
I'm going to stop buying/selling pot. I always have it or am always getting it and because I'm in a vulnerable place in my ability to use my judgement, I'm smoking too much and I know it. I didn't used to smoke up anywhere near this much. I've been using it for coping too often. Once this supply runs out, I'm taking a break from it.