The Last Few Days

Ok so the overwhelm I felt last week was bad bad bad.  V. Bad. 

On Friday, I went in to my new work place with a friend/former co-worker who has done this kind of specific spy work before and who let me volunteer with them during Spring/Summer.  We went over a few things (you know, like how to use the smoke machine to make lasers show up and how to cut a hole in glass on the side of a building) and I felt a little calmer.  Except that only lasted about a day and by Saturday evening I was losing it again.

It is SO easy to get overwhelmed and honestly it is a lot.  The learning curve is steep and add on to that the whole return to a work environment and all the fears around "social" stuff from social anxiety and panic disorders and oh hey, how about we just throw a frigging pandemic in there too and no longer have me safely in my own little bubble but back out in the wilds with who knows who and what and really, do I have to have that on top of all the rest?  COME ON.  (I mean, sure there are some protective measures in place and I'm fully vaccinated (for now) but still... it's just the too much cherry on the too much icing on the too much cake, you know?)  Sigh

Yesterday, I went and bought some spy supplies since there aren't really any there and my old stuff is boxed up somewhere else and I don't have it in me to deal with trying to get it.  And for a moment having spent stupid money buying spy stuff (you know, glass grip gloves and that wire thing you hang from ceilings with) I felt better but then again I just get hit with all the rest of what I don't know how to do and the expectations and the how on earth am I going to do this.

I explained on Friday that the help from the colleague took me down to between a 6 to 10 out of 10 on the anxiety scale and before that I was at like a 20.  So what I'm feeling now is more what I expected to feel going back to a new place, new position, after so long.  But it still is awful and I'm not doing super well.

I do have some medication I can use to help me right now but I weirdly sometimes forget to take them or try them, although I think that they may be how I get myself through this week and god bless the long weekend amiright?

Sigh.

I didn't think I'd get calm enough to write, to be honest, and had I allowed myself to write on Saturday night it wouldn't have been pretty.  I got into a pretty bad head space.  My brain does ugly things and sometimes I don't catch it in time to slow it down.  But my neck (an upper rib apparently) acted up so I took a muscle relaxant (Robax) and that helped me sleep and so I felt a little better Sunday morning.

Then I called Jason and vent-cry-spazzed at him and I almost always feel better about that even if I feel like a terrible friend for taking it all out on him.  And I do, for what it's worth, tell him "I know this is just my brain, I know it's not true" but it still feels real and true and that's the trick with this stuff.

If I'm smart (and have the medium ok head space) I should write more while it's not happening.  (Read: long weekend) but we shall see.

I don't think this post makes sense.  I just wanted to say that having someone directly help me helped a little (even if only for a while) and spending money to buy some supplies helped (even if only for a while and even if probably stupid and not necessary, but hey, a spy needs her favourite pen, right?  for filling out spy... uh... forms?)

And I'm not talking politics because I don't have the energy or space for it (and I already made that mistake with someone) but I mailed in my vote already and it's one of the many "real life" things I wish would just go away and not be happening right now.

Oh and there wasn't Burning Man this year but a whole bunch of people went down there and I have thoughts about that but I don't feel like getting into it and the official Org burned a Man on Saturday night and I cried but not about that, just about covid and how we're all dealing with it but so divided and how some people are still trying to bring joy and celebration safely.

I'm trying to think of something Jason said, like how the things my brain is saying right now aren't normal and most people starting a new position don't have those thoughts.  Something like that.  I dunno.  I don't want to think about it... the thing that happens now but yeah, it's here.  Sh*t.