There’s a Name for It.

There’s a name for it, for how I feel, for who I am.

I’ve never tried to explain myself, my insides, to anyone. It felt insignificant compared to other peoples problems. I felt insignificant. I didn’t think people would understand and even if I could say the right words, would they even care if I had a problem that wasn’t visible?

But here, in my safe-space, in the place that I hide from the world of people I know and share with complete strangers, here, I can tell the truth. I can express what is happening inside my brain and my body and heart. So here it is:

I am different than everyone else. I don’t see things the way other people do. I don’t see the world that everyone else does and not the fun magical creatures kind of way, but in my own way I have two sets of eyes. One pair of eyes see the world as a child, full of wonder and excitement and appreciation for the smallest and strangest things. I truly love my life in these moments and oddly, these moments usually come when no one is around. The second pair of eyes don’t see the world, they look intimately, to my surroundings. These eyes don’t see the bright, colorful life I have, they see the flaws and scars that life has left on my soul.

It is in these eyes that I see my problem. The first pair of eyes belong to a girl I used to know, that I still try to be. The little girl whose parents hit her and hid her away from the world, trapped in her own thoughts. Those eyes learned how to read in such a way that she could escape the awful feelings of neglect and abandonment from people who were always there. These eyes could see the life that she was supposed to have and project it upon the world much the say way one would project a movie about an architect building a skyscraper on the side of a building that was consumed by the elements long ago. It’s an illusion that even I don’t know how to escape from, not that I would want to if I could. The world is in shambles and everyone is selfish, but not the little girl, the little girls with her sparkling eyes. She knows that there is a better place and why shouldn’t she continue to live there.

Then the little girl stops, and she replaces her glittering eyes with dull, dark, sullen ones. The world she once looked at has changed. It seems smaller, it seems like the world only exists around her, around me. A small space, usually my work space or house or gathering of friends, is all that is visible. The people that are immediately around me and are interacting with me become harsh realizations that I am not telling the truth, that i’m somehow hiding from the life that they are all living, the real world is how they describe it, but what they truly mean is the broken spirit and controlled freedom that accompanies becoming and adult with responsibilities. They don’t see that in me, because I don’t see it in myself. The dullness of the world presses in on me and makes me retract into a shell of self doubt and hatred. The sadness that no one really understands me, could never understand my mind or my heart. That no one really cares how I feel, what’s going on in my life, that no one would really care if I weren’t here to be the butt of all their “harmless” jokes, they would be better off with out the girl that retracts at the first lash and tries to be nice to those that intend to hate her. The darkness that consumes my thoughts and makes me wonder why life has been so cruel to her, to me, when I’ve always tried to do right by everyone.

And suddenly, the little girl with sparkles in her eyes comes back, her life’s not that bad. She has some friends, she has a church family that loves her, even though they don’t actually know her, she has grandparents that would break if she weren’t around to hold them together. She makes her excuses for suppressing the grayness, because life’s not so bad, in fact, it’s full of wonderful things, like reading and other distractions that keep her from falling completely through the black hole.

This cycle of complete and utter oblivion and then depressive brooding happens constantly, sometimes within the same hour. Some people call it mood swings or PMS, but it is so much more than that. Every feeling is multiplied by ten, happiness, sadness, grief, every emotion is intense and life changing. Every cut heals slower and every memory fades faster. There are millions of tiny workers that are keeping that little girl from the “real world” and they are not ready to go into retirement.

But today, they did get a pay cut. Today, I found out i’m not alone, that what I feel is not my burden alone to bear. It has a name.

Dysthymic Disorder is a real thing.

“People with dysthymia generally experience little or no joy in their lives. Instead things are rather gloomy most of the time. If you have dysthymia you may be unable to remember a time when you felt happy, excited, or inspired. It may seem as if you have been depressed all your life. You probably have a hard time enjoying things and having fun. Rather, you might tend to be inactive and withdrawn , you worry frequently, and criticize yourself as being a failure. You may also feel guilty, irritable, sluggish, and have difficulty sleeping regularly.” (http://www.allaboutdepression.com/dia_04.html)

“The symptoms may cause significant problems or distress in social, work, academic, or other major areas of life functioning.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysthymia)

The people around me may not know that I have a problem, they may think that i’m just irritating or naive, but I know the truth. I know what I feel is real. I know i’m not alone in my bruised self-worth. My mental instability has a name.

 

(I would like to note that this is a self-diagnosis. I have not seen a professional. I have, however, read peoples thoughts and symptoms and personal feelings about there own Dysthymia and could have written their synopsis myself. I do plan in the future to seek out professional help.)

 

 

The Boy That Sits Over There….

I just came to a realization, literally, one minute ago, that I am in serious denial.

I’ve spent most of my life expecting romance to come in a movie package deal. But when talking about the latest superhero movie “Dawn of Justice”, I had this to say to a co-worker:

“Critics say that people were building it up in their heads and were disappointed when it didn’t match what they thought it should be, but if you go in with no expectations, the movie was great.”

Why am I capable of going to see a movie with this openness, but I don’t use this same mindset for my life? If I can listen to a song, watch a movie, read a book and have a completely blank expectation for how those things will pan out and I’m always genuinely happy at the ending, why can’t I live my life in that state of wonderment and bliss?

I make up in my head what I think a certain scenario should be. Ex. Boy meets girl, talks about deeply personal stuff via messenger, boy asks girl out, relationship ensues. But instead of that being the case, boy just never does anything, girl has to decide if she even likes him and I wind up completely upset over something that I don’t even know exists. Instead I could just let things happen and be happy that I have made a new friend. But of course, my romantically inclined body wants more from everything and everyone. I want the most intense, most amazing love story, I want friendships that will last for 50 years instead of 50 days. I want more than this world has to offer. (Disney reference!)

I need to find a way to open my heart to something that might not be perfect. Messy is not necessarily bad, it’s just not what is expected. And the unexpected can be great. Spontaneity can not be planned, right? Which is something us romantics tend to appreciate.

This is the beginning of me just accepting life as it comes, not planning how things SHOULD be, but letting them happen as they unfold and appreciating those things all the more.

The Truth in Longevity.

I’m writing these words with anger driving me. In a few weeks I may not feel the same way, but I want to know how I felt at this exact moment in my life when I read this twenty years from now.

I’ve spent two years in my position. Two grueling, tragic, and downright ridiculous years fighting to love something that I knew I would grow to hate. When I first began this job I looked at it as a new beginning. I was getting to work with people from all around the world, I would be getting valuable experience in a field that matched my personality traits, I would spend my days gabbing to people about their kids and jewelry and not be yelled at later because I wasn’t turning over tables fast enough. It was a new chapter; a new leaf to turn over. And for the first time, I felt like the work I would be doing wouldn’t be a job anymore, but a passion. This was short lived in my opinion. Within three months, most of the employees had quit due to poor management and lack there of and I became the most knowledgeable person in the building. I had to learn things on my own, without training and help. I had to be on the phone with our systems everyday for weeks. I spent so much time learning all that I could so that I could take care of the company that I was so excited to be a part of. Within the first six months I had obtained two raises and numerous praises from our owners about how well I had handled things. I could do no wrong and I excelled in everything I did. This feeling was short lived however.

After a year of being the MVP of the hotel team, I was put on a back burner as we welcomed a new, fully-equipped-for-work-ethics, General Manager into our midst. I was extremely pleased that someone had come in to take some of the weight off my own shoulders and felt even more confident that I was in turn teaching this new woman how to do her job. It was enlightening and educational to work along side her and transform a broken system into what I considered to be a fully functioning atmosphere to be called a hospitable work environment. Everything from that moment forward was truly blissful. We had a team that was nice to each other and went out together after work. We helped each other learn and grow as a team. Our new management right along beside us. Again, this was a short lived feeling.

Do you see the pattern??

In our line of work, or at least in MY line of work, where every happiness is dashed away almost as quickly as it came, it’s hard to stay positive. As soon as our new manager got the hang of our brand, she didn’t need me anymore. I was just a front desk person again. Not being needed or useful began to torment me, so I began coming up with more and more ideas for projects that I would never finish because hearing the words “this is a great idea, but we can’t really do that” became the loudest silence I had ever heard. So I just did my job, day after day, continually repeating the same steps, the same words, the same slow paced environmental tasks that I had to do. I became bored and started finding “unsatisfactory” ways to waste my time. I watched so much YouTube and television. I played countless app games on my phone. I even started this blog whilst sitting behind my desk when I should have been doing something productive on a work scale.

During this downfall of my own productivity, all the others in my team were also on a decline. Within a few months that entire team had moved away, found new jobs, or just left us to do something else. I had an entirely new group of people to be with and while they were and still are great, they are not like the old team. They don’t take care of each other like we did. It’s constant nit-picking and down-grading and outright destruction of emotion. I do love my new co-workers, but the emptiness I feel when I think about them makes me realize that it’s just not the same.

With all this lack of love and kindness from everyone, the change in my shifts from the days to the nights, and the recent news of our General Manager leaving us for a better job (which I am completely excited for her about, though I did cry for a week about it), it’s just shambles now. Pieces of what was left of a once great empire. All the emotions of this are magnified by the lack of people I get to meet on my night shift. I have no audible outlet anymore. I collect my thoughts into webs of ire and pain and stew them for weeks at a time, which is completely outside of my personality traits. I don’t like to sit in a puddle of depression, contradictory to my bathing preference.

With all this pressure and anxiety and emotional turmoil that I’ve endured in just a few months, it’s no wonder that my presence at this company is now in jeopardy. I don’t want to be here any more than anyone else wants me to be here. My path lies in another direction and I think it’s time to run. I’m nostalgic for my lost co-workers and their amazing personalities, but maybe this has helped me grow into a knowledge of who I want to be in life and who I want to surround myself with.

Maybe I’ve learned something bigger than how to put a person in a hotel room.

The Passed-Over Promotion.

Have you ever been passed over for a promotion that you didn’t want? There are so many mixed emotions that follow that line of thought.

First: you feel slightly upset because you’ve been working at this place for two years and have never really felt appreciated anyway.

Second: you get even more upset thinking about all the things that you did that helped the company prosper, like working the entire front desk by yourself when all three of your co-workers quit in the same day, or bringing in new clientele because you went out of your way to push forth a project that benefits the whole community.

Third: you calm down a bit thinking about all the things you didn’t do and all the areas you need improvement. You didn’t really want to be in that particular position anyway. There’s too much responsibility and not enough freedom to make your best decisions.

Fourth: you get mad all over again, because the person that they chose above you does not have the experience you have. Sure, she’s been here over a year now, possibly, but that doesn’t mean she can handle an entire front desk by herself for three days, or work a 26 hour shift because there was a freak snow storm and she can’t leave and no one else can come in. She didn’t teach herself how to do the Accounts Receivable at your company from NOTHING. Those were things you did and still maintain to this day.

Fifth: this is where you begin to accept the fate handed to you and start thinking about your options. You HAVE to have a job to make enough money for your car payment, but do you necessarily have to make that money here? You have friends, you have windows of opportunity, USE THEM. Stop wasting time being upset and find a new path.

Sixth: you realize the person they are looking to being in charge really wouldn’t be that bad, except that you’ve been here longer. You still wish someone would have at least CONSIDERED you for the position, even though time after time you told them that you wouldn’t want to do it. It’s still frustrating to know that you weren’t good enough, but this person has experience being over other people that you don’t have.

Seventh: you blog, because, well, you blog all of your strong emotions. That’s how you move on from things. Writing out your feelings to complete strangers helps you understand what those feelings are in the first place and at the end of this, you will have realized that what you imagined at the beginning of this is probably nothing compared to the reality that someone is better suited than you for this promotion.

Eight: You make peace with life again. There’s no use holding on to anger and resentment towards someone or something that is undeserving of it. Plus, keep in mind that since you’ve been here longer, she might be afraid to fire you and you will have a lasting job forever. Focus on your life, continue to move forward and don’t let others success make you feel small.

Famous to Fulfilled.

My life is not a complicated mess of events strung together by a series of fatal mistakes. Honestly, there’s not much I would change about where I am today. I have a mid-paying job that I love, I have a few great friends that keep me from being bored, and I’m living rent free with my grandparents. Okay, that last one is up for debate on contentedness. I would prefer living on my own, but with my $400 car payment it’s not really an option. Even so, I am entirely glad with where I am in my life.

The point of explaining all this is to bring up a question that I have recently been twirling around in my brain. When should I begin to worry that I am unfulfilled? Others seem to think that I should want more out of life, that I’m hiding my true feelings about being stagnant and stale. How do I explain to someone that has so many goals and dreams in life that I don’t really have any? I often wish I could be in attendance at church more often and that I will get a sizable raise at work, but these are normal longings in our lives. We are programmed from a small age to constantly want more, but most do not stop to wonder if more is going to mean happier.

Ever since I was a little girl, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t have an answer for them. You can’t expect a five-year-old to tell you, “oh, I’ve always wanted to be a desk clerk at a hotel”, it’s not a thing. Kids will tell you that they want to be the impossible. Their minds are creative and work differently that one would expect. How could a child possibly know what a space cowboy is? Don’t they understand how hard it is being a REGULAR cowboy? We don’t ask these questions because we know in ten minutes a five-year-old will change their mind. Now she wants to be a firefighter, which we know isn’t going to happen either because she’s terrified of the sprinkler. I knew from a young age though that I was exceptionally different. I wasn’t asked often what I wanted to be and if I was asked I always said famous. It was vague and I knew it would answer their question.

Most kids don’t grow up to be what they said they wanted, because realism sets in. We now know that a space cowboy isn’t a real person and being a doctor takes twelve more years of schooling, and most of us cut it close just getting to graduation, so that’s definitely not an option. After that final ceremony I had no plans. When asked, I always said that I wanted to go to school to be a psychologist even though I didn’t actually know what being a psychologist was. I knew that I liked helping people solve their problems and I knew that I liked telling people what to do; it just seemed like the only career path that where both of those things meshed well. I had no experience in the real world to back up my decision, but adults kept demanding that I choose a major. It didn’t last long, nor did my higher education. I spent most of my days making posters for the various clubs I had involved myself with and hanging out in the band hall with the other populous rejects. I wasn’t hell bent on getting my diploma because I had no idea what I was going to do with it when I had it. I wasn’t prepared to be a college student and there are far more than just I that get told that we absolutely have to get a college degree when we don’t even fully understand what that means.
I spent the next few years working as a waitress or clerk, small jobs in my city that didn’t make a ton of money, but paid the bills I had now accumulated. I moved back into my grandparents’ house to avoid trying to find a roommate that I wouldn’t want to kill. This was a low moment for me. I was constantly upset and I began to lose confidence I gained at college and the friends that went along with it. The only thing that kept me going was having a job. I got to leave the house for eight hours a day and not have to think about my misfortune because I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. It took months before I could openly think about what it was that I wanted out of life. I had started going to church with a friend of mine. She had been raised in church and she was sure that it was what was going to bring me out of my funk. Being with those people opened my eyes to other options I had. I had never once thought about working with kids, but as I hung out with the tweens in the back room of that building, listening to their problems, all the things that they were going through that I had gone through years before, I started to see an opportunity. I had struggled with faith a lot in my life, but being in that room, I knew I had to help those kids with whatever power I had.

Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be a religion story. I’ll save that for later, but it’s important to know about this moment because it’s what set me up for my grand realization later. I developed deep feelings for this group of misfits and even to this day, I still chat them up on Facebook. I spent all my free time with the church group and I watched each person in the adult classes carefully and saw many of them had chosen careers paths that were way outside their original desires because of opportunity. I knew that I would have to decide what path I would travel soon or forever be a waitress, which was not an option.
I thought for a long time about what my heart wanted out of life and it turns out I knew the answer all along. I didn’t want to grow up to be anything. I wanted to live the life I had in the moment and not waste years striving for something that I would grow to loathe. I couldn’t imagine going to school for four years hoping to be a dentist and then suddenly realizing that I hate teeth. I didn’t want that future; I wanted the present. I wanted to be happy with what I had and feel my emotions in their current form, not as a fond memory.

This is where I lose people. I try to explain how content I am just being alive, living life day to day in cheerfulness. I’m only 24 and if that means that a fourth of my life is gone and I will never get it back, I can proudly say that I spent 24 years being true to myself and being happy. Sure there are moments of sadness and anger, but I never dwell in these places. I am thrilled to only have to please God and myself. I’m not the average person who can have goals and dreams and strive to be better, because what’s wrong with who I am? I’m not saying I want to be the person I am right now, forever, but why rush through life and never stop to know who you are in THIS moment. Stop thinking about who you will be in ten years and let yourself be who you are now.

Don’t influence me on how to feel.

So here’s the scenario:

You just dyed your hair, you feel fierce, you even put on a splash of makeup before driving an hour to work an overnight job. You feel a little sick because it’s flu season, but that isn’t keeping you from singing your favorite songs on the radio at top volume. You feel kinda awesome.

Then you get to work. Normally this doesn’t bother you because you love your job and your co-workers. It doesn’t even matter that they have you working graveyard; it gives you plenty of time to think of concepts for your new blog. Today is different though. You had a bit of a panic attack leaving work yesterday because your paycheck didn’t post to the bank at the time it usually does. You got just a bit worried that something was wrong so you had been looking forward, all day, to getting to work and opening the pay stub to make sure it was there. You rush into the building, put down your purse and immediately walk over to the cash drawer where the checks are hidden. But, something is in the way. It’s your co-workers knee. He’s blocking the drawer. You politely say excuse me and he responds with “What do you need in there?”. It seems like this would be obvious because payday is filled with people digging around in that drawer, but for some reason he wants to ask you about it. “I’m getting my paycheck” you say in a questioning tone, not a forceful one, but full of confusion as to why this person is questioning my motives.

“Are you having a bad day?”

I am now.

This is my thought process. Why is getting my paycheck so threatening that you feel defensive about me being in our cash drawer? It’s not like I have ever taken money from it for my personal gain. I haven’t ever thought about trying to screw up your count. Why, today, do you feel the need to question my motives? I was genuinely happy and having a grand ole time until you said something that made me instantly defensive.

I began to wonder if there was some reason that I should be concerned about getting in the drawer. Did something happen that I don’t know about? Do people think I’m a thief? Did I forget to do something with money that is causing my co-worker to believe that I can’t be trusted in my own cash drawer? The answer to all of these is no, but somehow I can’t help but feeling that his reaction is somehow my fault.

________________________________________

Why do we let others dictate how we feel? With six simple words, my co-workers question changed my entire perspective on my night. I am now full of hostility and judgement. Why does today have to be a bad day in order for me to be determined to see my pay stub? Is it okay with you, person I only see ten minutes a day, if I have other things going on in my life that don’t involve you?

Now let me interject here that I LOVE talking with my co-workers. I have personal relationships with all of them and adore them. I’m not the kind of person that can come in and just begin working. I want to know how your day was and how the kids are. I would not, however, start a shift of with “Are you having a bad day?”. People don’t respond to this well, as we can clearly see from my own reaction. If someone has genuine concern for how your day is, they will ask about what you did that day, not the tone of it. “Are you having a bad day?” is code for “What is your problem?”. It means that you, the bad-day-haver has some form of wall around you that others can’t see. My wall, in this scenario, was my determination to make sure things were okay with my cash flow. Obviously, my co-worker didn’t know what I was thinking or doing, so he reacted the way anyone would react to my actions, but in a nicer way than “Why are you invading my personal space?”

Sometimes things that people say, give us these insane brain signals that tend to make us defensive, even if there is no reason to be. People who ask “Have you lost weight?” only mean the best by that statement, but for people who have previously been overweight, this could bring up painful memories and trigger our barriers to come up. It’s very hard to know what string of words will cause these reactions, but when we hear them we will and instantly it will be war between the unsuspecting offensive speech maker and the unwarranted defensive emotionalist. Something neither of you intended but exists all the same.

So for those of you that have experienced this, please make sure that the person that is now shocked by your defensive outburst knows that you didn’t mean any harm. The words spoken reminded you of another time and you shouldn’t take that out on your co-workers, they might be your boss one day.