A Long, Negative One
I could clog your friends page with a bunch of short, whiny posts, but instead I'm just going to do a list of stuff that's on my mind. I'll put it behind the cut to spare those of you who don't care to read about my misery.
First, complaints, fondly known in my early adult years as "Oh My God, You'll Never Believe What Just Happened To Me":
1) Google has this new layout where, instead of tabs at the top, they're on the side, and when you click on Gmail, it doesn't open the full app, but some sort of lite version which neither recognizes links, nor - more importantly - saves drafts. And for some unknown reason it will suddenly and randomly kick you out of your draft and back into your inbox, thus vanishing the long and heart-rending draft you just spent the past 20 minutes crafting. It's emotionally draining enough that it becomes NOT worth it to write another one. If it had only happened to me once, I wouldn't be complaining here. Oddly, complaining to Google left me feeling not much better. I suppose it's that sense of shouting down a well that one gets from dealing with them.
2) Camden County College's "web advisor" app doesn't work with firefox. When I went to open IE to print out my transcript & program audit, it totally froze my system 3 times, and in the process wiped the entire cache of firefox, which means that I'm now missing a bunch of links which I had been lazily relying on autocomplete for, and a bunch of login info that I had lazily been using "remember me" for instead of actually knowing my login. In the end I wound up hobbling through the system using firefox anyway, though it was totally text based and missing a goodly portion of the links. Fortunately I'm smart enough to wade through it anyway. Fucking IE. Fucking lazy-ass CCCC web programmers who make an IE-specific portal.
3) speaking of Camden County College, I was printing my transcript and audit because I was preparing to go to a transfer event for Education majors looking to transfer to Rutgers. When I went to the room where it was supposed to be, I found that it couldn't possibly be the right place because it was the director of the IT school's office. Went to my car and called the advisor's office to ask where to go. They had no idea what I was talking about, so they transfered me to security who evidently keeps track of all the events on campus. They had no idea what I was talking about, so they transferred me to Rutgers - only they didn't: they transferred me to Rowan University. At this point, my head exploded all over the inside of my car. I took a paper towel and wiped up the worst of the mess and went inside to the advisor's office to see for myself what was going on. I went to the web page where I found the events. I found the event immediately on the calendar page that defaults to what I finally realized was September/October 2007. Because evidently I should not rely on Camden County College to direct me to events in the CURRENT YEAR when I go to their transfer events page for information. I went to transfer services to give them a piece of my mind, and found that no one was there. I left my information in order to make an appointment both for transfer info and to give them a piece of my mind. I went home angry and daunted, but not before stopping for some high-calorie high-fat comfort food.
Now, on to angst:
I had this realization the other morning that just about all of my friends call me to talk about themselves, and that I can barely get into anything going on with me before they've used it as a springboard to launch into something else about themselves. Considering the emotional turmoil of late, both from the internal events of good therapy and the external events of a good long streak of the worst luck in the world, I've been feeling pretty unsupported and sad. So I took it to therapy on Tuesday. While I made more progress in one hour than I have in the last month, what ultimately came from it is the realization that I've either surrounded myself with people who will make sure that I never have to talk about myself (because really, I hate admitting when I'm feeling bad, and I hate bragging about feeling good), or I've projected all of my own hidden narcissism (background: Steve says everyone's a narcissist about something) onto them and surrounded myself with people who are able to do something that I've exiled from myself. Understanding that, and that I carry around a lot of hidden pain, led to days and days of being ready to cry on a dime (still waiting for that to pass).
I asked my friend Susie last night, because though she can be one of the worst offenders, she's also someone I know I can say anything to and she won't take it personally. She told me that she found that I deflect when the subject comes to me. And also that when people talk about themselves in response to you talking about yourself, they're just trying to relate, and that it's supposed to be a back and forth, not a cue for me to shut up and attend to them. Which I definitely do, because I am a great big codependent caretaker. And because when I DO want to talk, I want to be heard and mirrored and validated and offered some insight, so it's what I do for others when they talk. So that of course leaves no room for me in the conversation.
So now I'm in the process of figuring out how to be comfortable being seen (or rather, heard - read on). Now mind you, I have few of these problems in person. But I have almost NO friends who are close enough to hang out with in person, so all of my friendships are conducted online and on the phone. Online is also no problem, because it is by nature a back and forth venue. Basically, I suck at phone conversations, which are, not unironically, my lifeline for friendship and support. And it's really frustrating to find out that, once again, I'm in my own way.
I'm glad I'm getting through this stuff, because healing is good, but I would REALLY like to find some friends in my immediate area. I'm really lonely.
Thanks to those of you who read the whole thing without rolling your eyes.
First, complaints, fondly known in my early adult years as "Oh My God, You'll Never Believe What Just Happened To Me":
1) Google has this new layout where, instead of tabs at the top, they're on the side, and when you click on Gmail, it doesn't open the full app, but some sort of lite version which neither recognizes links, nor - more importantly - saves drafts. And for some unknown reason it will suddenly and randomly kick you out of your draft and back into your inbox, thus vanishing the long and heart-rending draft you just spent the past 20 minutes crafting. It's emotionally draining enough that it becomes NOT worth it to write another one. If it had only happened to me once, I wouldn't be complaining here. Oddly, complaining to Google left me feeling not much better. I suppose it's that sense of shouting down a well that one gets from dealing with them.
2) Camden County College's "web advisor" app doesn't work with firefox. When I went to open IE to print out my transcript & program audit, it totally froze my system 3 times, and in the process wiped the entire cache of firefox, which means that I'm now missing a bunch of links which I had been lazily relying on autocomplete for, and a bunch of login info that I had lazily been using "remember me" for instead of actually knowing my login. In the end I wound up hobbling through the system using firefox anyway, though it was totally text based and missing a goodly portion of the links. Fortunately I'm smart enough to wade through it anyway. Fucking IE. Fucking lazy-ass CCCC web programmers who make an IE-specific portal.
3) speaking of Camden County College, I was printing my transcript and audit because I was preparing to go to a transfer event for Education majors looking to transfer to Rutgers. When I went to the room where it was supposed to be, I found that it couldn't possibly be the right place because it was the director of the IT school's office. Went to my car and called the advisor's office to ask where to go. They had no idea what I was talking about, so they transfered me to security who evidently keeps track of all the events on campus. They had no idea what I was talking about, so they transferred me to Rutgers - only they didn't: they transferred me to Rowan University. At this point, my head exploded all over the inside of my car. I took a paper towel and wiped up the worst of the mess and went inside to the advisor's office to see for myself what was going on. I went to the web page where I found the events. I found the event immediately on the calendar page that defaults to what I finally realized was September/October 2007. Because evidently I should not rely on Camden County College to direct me to events in the CURRENT YEAR when I go to their transfer events page for information. I went to transfer services to give them a piece of my mind, and found that no one was there. I left my information in order to make an appointment both for transfer info and to give them a piece of my mind. I went home angry and daunted, but not before stopping for some high-calorie high-fat comfort food.
Now, on to angst:
I had this realization the other morning that just about all of my friends call me to talk about themselves, and that I can barely get into anything going on with me before they've used it as a springboard to launch into something else about themselves. Considering the emotional turmoil of late, both from the internal events of good therapy and the external events of a good long streak of the worst luck in the world, I've been feeling pretty unsupported and sad. So I took it to therapy on Tuesday. While I made more progress in one hour than I have in the last month, what ultimately came from it is the realization that I've either surrounded myself with people who will make sure that I never have to talk about myself (because really, I hate admitting when I'm feeling bad, and I hate bragging about feeling good), or I've projected all of my own hidden narcissism (background: Steve says everyone's a narcissist about something) onto them and surrounded myself with people who are able to do something that I've exiled from myself. Understanding that, and that I carry around a lot of hidden pain, led to days and days of being ready to cry on a dime (still waiting for that to pass).
I asked my friend Susie last night, because though she can be one of the worst offenders, she's also someone I know I can say anything to and she won't take it personally. She told me that she found that I deflect when the subject comes to me. And also that when people talk about themselves in response to you talking about yourself, they're just trying to relate, and that it's supposed to be a back and forth, not a cue for me to shut up and attend to them. Which I definitely do, because I am a great big codependent caretaker. And because when I DO want to talk, I want to be heard and mirrored and validated and offered some insight, so it's what I do for others when they talk. So that of course leaves no room for me in the conversation.
So now I'm in the process of figuring out how to be comfortable being seen (or rather, heard - read on). Now mind you, I have few of these problems in person. But I have almost NO friends who are close enough to hang out with in person, so all of my friendships are conducted online and on the phone. Online is also no problem, because it is by nature a back and forth venue. Basically, I suck at phone conversations, which are, not unironically, my lifeline for friendship and support. And it's really frustrating to find out that, once again, I'm in my own way.
I'm glad I'm getting through this stuff, because healing is good, but I would REALLY like to find some friends in my immediate area. I'm really lonely.
Thanks to those of you who read the whole thing without rolling your eyes.