I finally got to see my shrink on Monday.
Ever since I started this job I have been mentally telling her about everything that has been going on. It was good to finally be able to ACTUALLY tell her – for some reason it had a tattling quality. I felt like I was running to the teacher and pointing a finger:
“THEY’RE making me ANXIOUS!”
But then I felt a bit let-down after the session. Because, really, other than tut, look appropriately shocked in the right places, and assure me that yes, that sort of thing really IS out of line and no, I shouldn’t just put up with that… what can she really do?
Was I hoping that she’d write me some kind of doctor’s note saying “Carol is too anxious to work here, so please let her stay home and write and play with her baby”?
Actually, the session was more upbeat than it would have been a couple of weeks ago. Partially because I am coming to realize that while this job has certainly sent my anxiety sky rocketing, my mood is holding fairly stable: I’m not depressed. I’m not hopeless. I’m not miserable.
I’m tired. I’m stressed. I’m UNHAPPY. I want to stay home in my safe little hamster cage, and I want to have time to blog again, and I want to catch up on the HUNDREDS of items in my Google Reader. I miss writing, and the internet in general. I don’t feel like we have any more money than we did before I started working, which makes me feel like I am putting myself through this for no point – why am I suffering through all this and yet we still can’t afford a new car seat for Owl? (But actually, it’s just that PH is trying to clear the backlog of non-saving, non-debt paying from my year on mat leave, and we WILL buy a new car seat as soon as we find a good deal on one that doesn’t look like it will crumple the second someone bumps it).
But… I am not depressed. I have hope that things will get better. And actually, on Saturday I was told that the Cranky Vet is leaving (and I’m vaguely worried that he quit because he was so sick of putting up with my idiocy/incompetence). So I only have another month of him. Hurray!
So that took a bit of the wind out of my sails when whining to my shrink about this guy. Ultimately, she couldn’t do much other than urge me to increase my Wellbutrin if I felt I needed to, and book another appointment for me for December.
“I was thinking today would be our last appointment,” she said, “you were so sure you’d found a nice vet and a nearby job and I thought you’d have settled in and be doing fine… but now I think I want to see you again, to make sure this work stuff gets sorted out.”
I get the feeling that I’m a novella she is reading, and she was hoping for a happy ending, only to end on another cliff hanger…
