Work update

It’s been over a week now at the new employer. I’m glad I have made the change; I think I will grow to enjoy the new people and surroundings, and I think it was a good move for me professionally. I won’t say I will be “happy”, because I have no idea if that is possible for me … but I’m not ready to run away.

I think the biggest bummer is that I did not get a break between jobs. I worked until 3:30 on a Friday, had a normal weekend, and went to work at the new place Monday at 8:30. I was set upon a task I know how to do, so the “orientation period” was about 2 hours long. By 10am, it was just more engineering work. I guess I’m pretty well stuck with doing engineering, because it is the only high-paying job I know how to do. I’ve given up on the computer career for now, since the field is much too competitive and I’ve forgotten most of what I knew anyway.

Another negative is the fact that everyone is too nice to me. They care about how my day is going, they want to include me in lunch and foosball games, and they are trying to be helpful in learning how things operate here. Obviously they have not figured out that I am usually much more of a jerk. It’s a little nerve-racking for me, someone who is normally very stand-offish and anxious when dealing with others. I could easily be a misanthropic, anti-social hermit, just like the Unabomber but with less facial hair.

Whatever … I will try to not fuck up this good situation I’ve discovered.

--

In other news, a general bad mood has set in, and I’m feeling especially useless and downtrodden the past two weeks. It might be a let-down from the high of switching jobs, or just a product of the persistent, leaden sadness that never goes completely away. Thanks to the medicine, I can deal much better with this feeling without having the spirals to which I was so prone. Oh well – I will survive, I will resist.

The last Stalin Post

Separated at birth??





Alec Baldwin <=> Joseph Stalin ??

It's 3:15 on the last day of the last week of my employ at Stalin Engineering. I am planning on leaving at 3:30 when Stalin comes into the south wing, giving me stuff to do. I am royally pissed, so I pass off the work to a co-worker. As soon as Stalin returns to his corner office Kremlin, I walk out. What is he gonna do, send a death squad after me??

<\Stalin>

Anticipation

One week down, one week to go at Joseph Stalin Engineering. I can't wait to leave and start at the new place. Early in the week, Stalin was being Mr. Nice Guy, sorry that I was leaving, wished me well, etc. I don't believe he cares any more than it affects the business.



Although no one is really interested, here is the story of the job hunt:

3/17: I find an ad in the Craigslist jobs section. The ad said "no phone calls", so I send a resume to the anonymous mailbox listed.

3/26: after a week waiting and waiting for a response, I get a feeling that I need to call and talk to someone despite the "no calls" warning. The person I talked to gives me a specific person at ABCD Engineering to send my resume. I sent an e-mail to him that evening.

3/27: I get a message in response - "can you come in for an interview this week?" I call, but due to schedule conflicts the interview is set for the following Friday. The waiting is intolerable......

3/31: There is one other survey drafter; "Jean" has been at her desk for 11 years. While I am waiting to see if I get the new job, Jean drops a bomshell: she gives her two weeks notice! In my mind, I'm thinking NO NO NO NO NO!! I WAS LEAVING FIRST!!, because now I will be the only survey drafter. The timing stinks.

4/4: read this post

4/5 through 4/9: try to keep my mind from being too hopeful, even though I think I might be hired.

4/9: I get a phone call from ABCDE asking if I can come back in on Friday? I gladly agree; now the waiting is worse than ever.

4/10: Stalin calls a meeting; he and Jean have worked out a deal where she will work from home, maybe come in two days a week, and do some marketing in her small town. I am surprised; she is not a marketing genius by any measure. Anyway, Stalin has it neatly planned out where I will be "promoted" to take over Jean's position in the office. I tell him I want to be doing less drafting and more engineering, and that it sounds like the opportunity will never be there; he says that right now there is no engineering job, but it might change later, meaning sometime between now and never. Oh well, I let him know what I wanted, knowing he would not give it to me; I think I have a new job, and I wait impatiently for tomorrow.

4/11: I was hired (read this post), and I am very happy about it. Stalin leaves early this afternoon before I could tell him, so I left a little note under his locked door. In the meantime, it is Jean's last day in the office, and she leaves at lunchtime just as I am returning from ABCDE. She says "good luck if I never see you again", and leaves without a trace. Literally - she has cleaned every bit of her personal effects from the desk, and it looks as if she will never come back. I notice two sealed envelopes in her outbox, one for our supervisor and one for Stalin. It turns out she was lying to Stalin all along, she never intended to work part-time at home, and she has another job in her small town. Needless to say, we were all blown away, and it makes me the only drafter in the office - for the next two weeks.

4/14: Stalin reads my note and Jean's poison-pen letter on Monday morning. I had thought about maybe telling Stalin the real reason why I was leaving - I hate him and cannot help him make money any longer - but thanks to Jean, I look like a saint, totally professional, simply looking out for the best interest of career and family. Of course they have too scramble to find someone new, but they will be fine. (Too bad - I hope they crash and burn.)

4/14 through right now: the waiting is KILLING me.

An AFV Moment

Let me start by saying I did not maim or injure my son. The same cannot be said for my riding mower.

I wanted to get the transmission repaired on my riding mower, and I intended to take it to the repair shop yesterday afternoon after work. I put two strong 2x8 boards onto my pickup to act as ramps while I drove the mower into the truck. Then I thought, "hey, why don't I get Dan to drive it in there? Sure there is a minimal amount of danger involved, but I'm sure it will be fine."

In my defense, I earn money at work and he doesn't. Injuries to myself would cause a financial burden, while the same injuries would be only an inconvenience for him.

Everything went according to plan until the mower became hi-centered at the top of the ramp. As he looked at me nervously, I said "no problem", lifted the lower end of the ramps, and said "GO". He went, but the left wheel spun, kicking the board off the truck and onto the ground. There was a moment, maybe three tenths of a second, where Dan looked at me, I looked at the mower hovering in the air, and Roxanne looked up from her daycare kids in the yard. In the next half-second, the mower fell to the left and back; Dan jumped and did a tuck-and-roll on the ground, facing the mower; I stood there, frozen with fascination and concern; the mower continued its backwards-twisting somersault, advancing on Dan as he hit the ground; he scooted backwards, apparently using his butt cheeks for reverse locomotion, as the mower crashed into the spot where his legs were an instant before; the mower continued through the roll and flopped ungracefully on its side; I continued to stand there, unable to move; and finally the engine died as the damaged mower came to rest.

What was a nice looking mower two seconds before had turned into a helpless, pathetic heap of metal and plastic. The front was bashed in on one side and the air vents were smashed; the outer body was twisted like a contortionist with a death wish. One corner of the metal seat back was folded over at an angle, and broken parts littered the ground.

When the moment had passed, Nikki runs up to me and yells "DUDE! Have you learned NOTHING from watching AFV????" True, I have laughed at countless people challenging gravity and common sense on America's Funniest Home Videos, but I know I'm smarter than that.

Fortunately the engine and the frame were spared significant damage, and the mower is still useable. However, it now looks like a piece of shit. And I still need to get the transmission looked at.

Greener Pasture

Finally, I will be able to escape a job that has caused me so much stress in the past 2+ years. Today I was hired by a very small engineering and surveying firm. I only need to survive up to two weeks at Joseph Stalin Engineering. There is a big dramatic story, but I will write about it later.

I think this is the most positive thing to happen for me since we moved to Ohio. I really hope this works out well, and I'm looking forward to a new chapter.

Cafe Solas

10 - minutes of web browsing
6 - freeways doodled in my notebook
4 - loud middle-aged women dishing a few tables away
3 - cups of decaf Columbian
1 - cup of water
1 - blueberry muffin
0 - meetup attendees

72 - dollars wasted on meetup.com

Coffee, no talk

If you remember I had volunteered to lead a meetup.com group for depression/bp people. The first meetup had 5 people. The next 3 meetings had 2, 2, and 1 people (the 1 being me).

I am currently sitting in a coffee shop at the April meetup, and I'm drinking alone.

How sad.

If you don't beat yourself up, then dammit, who will?

Greetings, all 2.2 of you ...

I had my job interview yesterday. Part of me thinks it went pretty well, they were suitably impressed, and I did not have a talking stain on my shirt. The other part of me, the sunny me, thinks they saw right through my load of crap, they will reject me quickly and painfully, and I will be stuck working for Mr Stalin indefinitely. I responded by driving around the city for a couple of hours, then going to bed and crying myself to sleep at 5pm. Hire me, I'm more stable then the Unabomber.

Aside #1: I now call my current boss Joseph Stalin. He seems normal at first glance, but if you piss him off someone is headed for Siberia (if they're lucky). He holds the office prisoner to his emotional state, and his whimsical decision-making is usually in response to a perceived threat that may not exist. People may be killed, er, fired, with no warning at all, serving as a reminder to the remaining workers who is in charge.

I am one of two drafters in the office, and ironically enough, the other one put in a two-week notice on Monday. Stalin called me in to discuss a "promotion", which is still a demotion from my previous job description. I said nothing about my job-hunting, because I would likely have been let go at that moment. I did warn him we should hire an additional drafter in the office, but of course he did not listen to me. So if I get this new job, Stalin will be quite shocked when I leave and there are no drafters in the office.

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay

Saturday I cut down a 75-foot tree that was rotting from the inside. I was trying to be manly about it, but I about shit myself in the strangely long moment before it fell. Things went fine until I accidentally put the bar of the (rented) chain saw into the dirt, rendering the tiny cutting blades uselessly dull (no permanent damage, just a sharpening required). I was more careful with my own smaller saw.

And at no time did I wear high heels, suspenders, or a bra.

I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.

I go to the lavatory.

On Wednesdays I go shoppin'

And have buttered scones for tea.

I cut down trees. I skip and jump.

I like to press wild flowers.

I put on women's clothing

And hang around in bars.

I was going to post a video, but something went wrong with the camera. New video was recorded over old, and the playback shows me on the left, cutting the legs off of a horse ridden by Nikki 2 years ago on the right.

Uncharacteristically hopeful

I've come to a few important realizations in the past few days. One of these is that I have really stabilized my mood swings with my current pharmacocktail. I have much more interest in living right now than in the past few years. In addition, I have regained a little confidence and pride in my professional life; said confidence has been very rare in the past two years.

The intersection of these two thoughts is the place where I need to be for moving forward with life, say for example, looking for a new job. I don't want to jinx anything, but I'll say more when it happens. I know that it an interview is much more successful when you give a fuck about yourself and the job - lack of caring sabotaged my last interview a year ago - and right now, I do care.

After a long dry spell, I think I have things to say once again. I like this outlet for feeling funny or clever or just to practice being creative. I will attempt to prevent this space from becoming the angst-ridden wallowing pit it once was. The ghosts that chase me have receded a little, somehow less menacing than before; apparently writing did help me deal with those issues to some extent.

Having said that, I'm certainly not declaring myself all better. I still find it difficult to identify and appreciate anything positive in my life; other people can see love and light where I only see failure and unfairness and poor luck. I wish I was able to give back a fraction of the love that my family has given me - they deserve more than I can give. The fear and anger and self-loathing that dominated me in the past is slowly being replaced by sadness for losses from which I will never recover. I suppose the sadness is okay for now, since I seem to have a deep capacity for sadness. It fits me, like rain and melancholy and losing hope. I guess I don't leave myself much hope of emptying the baggage in this life. Maybe there is a little self-martyrdom in the feeling that fate dealt the cards and I can do no more than play out the hand and count my losses.

Things are not a complete disaster. My medication seems to be working pretty well for about 4 months now. Wellbutrin and Effexor for depression, anti-psychotics Invega and Lamictal for bipolar, an occasional Ativan to control anxiety and hypomania, and Provigil to keep from falling asleep whenever I sit down. I have cut way back on the Ativan after reading about the potential for physical and psychological addiction, and this helps me stay awake much easier. I have not had any uncontrollable spirals lately - I feel like I can have those thoughts for a little while, then get past them and move on, something I could not do that before. I still am depressed all the time, to varying degrees, and I now know that this is the best I can hope for with the medicine. If I get any better, it will need to be from within my head, and I don't see that happening right away.

OK, enough whining for now.

The thrill is gone

I will be taking a break from the blog world effective immediately. I don't know how long this hiatus will last, but I just can't write about anything personal right now. I think it will be a long while before I feel like inviting people past my porous defenses and into my head again. This is probably not healthy, but I feel like I need to make repairs to the walls and get new monsters for the moats.

The exceptions to this self-isolation are my online friends, who have meant a lot to me. Thank you so much for caring and helping me survive - you are wonderful people, those of you who know who you are. If you want to write me directly, I will appreciate it. I may not reply quickly, but I still care. I will still read about your lives, and wish the best for you.

If anyone new finds this blog, please let my life serve as a warning to you. Visit my previous blog, Fern Canyon Transplanted, for more misery.

Vain Curiosity

I am debating the future of this site, since I've really lost interest right now.

I never have anything nice or funny or witty to say; all that's left is anger and sadness and bitterness ... and I'm sure no one really wants to read that.

So at the risk of being pitifully needy, I would like to know who is still reading this crap. There are maybe 5 of my friends that I know still visit; the rest of you are a mystery. De-lurk if you please, let me know if you visit all the time or just once in a while, and let me know if you think I should disappear.

Not that your sucking up will make any decisions for me; consider this an advisory referendum. If I really want to go, I'll go. If people get anything positive out of my rantings ... well, you should be seen by a doctor right away.

Stable for now

I am a little better, not great but nowhere near the despair of last week. That episode was a little disturbing. I stayed home 'sick' Friday, then saw the P-doc (Dr. Apu). He must have guessed wrong when he wanted to reduce the total rx intake. The whooshing eyeball effects were relieved by going back on Effexor, just a small dose or now.

At work on thursday, I came disturbingly close to smashing someone in the face with a shovel. Can you say prison mental ward? I'm always afraid of the anger getting away from me, and it almost has a few times recently.

I'm not optimistic at all for my future. I really need to make some changes, and I really need some time away from the world. Neither of these needs are being met right now

I am not doing well today. If not for Roxanne and the kids, today would have been the end of this chapter. I don’t know if that means running away somewhere temporarily, or permanently, or simply checking out completely; right now any of those seem like a real option. I cannot handle life right now. My medication is fucking with my brain in new ways, but I think I need it. No one has confidence in me, least of all myself. I mess up everything I try, so why bother? I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know if I care.

What the hell was I thinking??

Since I have had extremely bad social anxiety problems lately, I dislike people in general, and I have abso-smurfly no ambition to add any new tasks or demands to a life that already overwhelms me, I would seem to be an unlikely candidate for organizing a Meetup group for nut jobs like me.

Click here to check out
The Akron Depression/Bipolar Group!

Please hold your abuse until this grand experiment has completely failed. In the meantime, feel free to mock me quietly.

And now, more strange things that only I can hear

• spinal fluid moving wherever it chooses
• radio stations, without a radio
...and now...
• my eyeball muscles, but only with sideways movement
(and accompanied by dizziness and nausea)

WTF is wrong with me now?

I'll take "Father Time" for $1000, Alex

This unexpected place is where you will find the following: apple, kiwi, lime, strawberry, sea algae, strawberry.

a) What is the produce department at the health food store?
b) What is a botany textbook?
c) What are the ingredients in my daughter's shampoo collection?

* * *

Sometime in the past year or two, I blinked. During that time, my little girl became a young lady who often acts twice her age, who has bras, and who has pretty smells all over the house. She seems so old sometimes, the way she understands things that other kids her age seem to overlook. I cannot hide from her when I am struggling to hide a depressive spiral at home - she sees right through the mask, and I can see her trying to understand.

Then she rips a tremendous fart and giggles for 10 minutes, or makes her animal noises and imitations, and I discover my little girl again.

* * *

In comparison, my son, who used to love trains and trucks and wrestling with Dad, has suddenly entered the teen years after several growth spurts, voice intermittently dropping octaves lower, and dreams of earning income by playing video games in the basement. He has become The Man-child, and I suspect he will be a Man-child until age 25 or later.

* * *

The answer is, of course, C. Where did the last 10 years go?

Depressurization

I have improved a lot in the past day. Negative self-talk and depressive thoughts linger, but they are not flaying the skin from my soul as they were a few days ago. Such is the pattern of my life: ebb and flow, calmly glum or frightening spirals, grey fog to evil darkness. There is only an occasional seventh wave to remind me that there are parts of life to enjoy rather than endure.

Obsessed with my broken life

The past 5 days have been a complete roller-coaster. Up, down, sideways; silly, sad, furious, dangerous, smothered, abandoned, clever, humiliated, drowning, loved, paranoid, worthless, terrified; beautifully and brutally honest, withdrawn, lashing out angrily, holding everything inside near the point of collapse. I am not well, and I am a little frightened for me.

Since Saturday morning, I've slept about 11 hours - apparently this does not help bipolar symptoms. I read the last Harry Potter book over the weekend (Sat. eve to Mon. 3am), and (though it seems silly) at times I found myself actually crying a little bit because of the sadness or happiness at a given moment in the story. I have been hearing things - auditory hallucinations - that I cannot explain: pulses and surges in electrical current, a rattle inside my head, phantom engine noises in my pickup. I had a brutal nightmare last night and woke up actually screaming; Roxanne was there to wake me up and comfort me and hold me in her arms until I could sleep again.

I am so completely overwhelmed. Within the space of an hour, I think I can do something positive for myself, then suddenly not care if I ever do anything again. I am terrified of any contact with any people, afraid they will see right through my paper-thin defenses and attack for being so weak, so vulnerable, so broken and defective. I get panic attacks trying to shop, buy clothes, talking to anyone. I don't suppose this will go well when I try to go to a social-group-friends thing this weekend. I'll either be a boisterous buffoon or a reclusive lump, and I know people will be judging me the entire time.

I need to get out of this situation at work. I think I should be doing more important and more complicated work, and I am no longer willing to work in a drone position ... but then last week I got smacked down by an asshat of a client who tells the boss he no longer wants me to handle his projects. Yesterday my career and effort and college education was reduced to hauling boxes of old invoices and employee records from the office's storage facility. Yeah, I put myself through fucking college for that. I get blindingly furious at this most recent vote of no confidence, believing I am still better than this and I am still capable of producing quality engineering work. Then hours or even minutes later I am telling myself how everyone is right, how I can't cut it, how this insidious life-eating illness is slowly destroying me from the inside and rendering me capable of nothing more than menial tasks.

This makes several times in the past month or so when someone has either hinted or said directly that I am not capable of doing what they need, or that I am no longer smart enough to understand what needs to be done, and I will need to be led around and given simple instructions like an idiot. I will not stand for this much longer before I snap. Everyone better hope they are not the next person to make me feel like an idiot, because there will be consequences. The first casualty will be this job, because I plan on telling the boss I am not willing to work as a low-level technician, that I want to be reinstated with full pay to my previous position, and if that is not acceptable that he will have to fire me. Boss will go apeshit, and I will be out the door within one hour of that request.

I am struggling every minute of the day to maintain control, to keep myself from hitting the really big power poles on Killian Road, to keep from setting fire or breaking or destroying or hurting. I am really feeling violent right now, and I don't want to rein it in. I want to punish someone, anyone, even myself for underestimating me, for putting me down, for pushing me into the corner I have tried my entire miserable life to escape. In the past few days I have visualized myself jamming a survey pole through a yapper dog's head; shoving someone's arm into a gap between the rails of the gate at the mini storage, then activating the gate, first crushing the bones then ripping the arm from someone's shoulder; the feel of "accidentally" falling in the street and having my leg bones pulverized by a car that could not stop.

Well, I feel so much better getting that in writing. Now I can enjoy the rest of the day, and pretend that the piercing pain in my right temple is not an aneurysm waiting to explode, rendering all these rantings mute for good.