The Cloud in the Silver Lining

Tags

anxiety, choice, employment, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, jobs, life decisions, stress, worrying

I got the damn job.

To make it worse, the lady offering me the job is so NICE. She says that they are “excited to have me joining the team” and “looking forward to seeing me” and that she will arrange my schedule to be sure that I am out before my daycare closes.

Yes, that’s right, I’m COMPLAINING about how NICE she is.

“Carol always manages to find the cloud in the silver lining,” PH said over the phone to my mother today, which made her burst out laughing.

Let me walk you through my mind:

In order to determine how I feel about something NOW, I need to know how I will feel about it in the future. I’m afraid to be happy about something now if I think there may be a chance I might regret it later. So here are the future scenarios running through my mind:

Scenario A: Maybe I’ll love the people at this job, and won’t be offered the awesome charity job that would be perfect for me. I will be overworked from trying to work full time at my job PLUS the dog training business, and never see my family, but at least I will like my workplace.

Scenario B: Maybe I’ll love the people at this job, and will ALSO be offered the awesome charity job that would be perfect for me. Then I’ll have to choose between a full time job in a setting I don’t like but with awesome coworkers, and disappointing people who have been awesome to me and who I enjoy working with in order to pursue a more “ideal” job that may or may not pan out.

Scenario C: Maybe I’ll find myself in a similar situation to last time – feel incompetent, feel disliked, be generally unhappy. I won’t get the other job either, and I’ll just tough it out until the dog training business gets big enough that I can quit.

Scenario D: Maybe I will feel incompetant but then get the other job, and will leave feeling like a failure but at least I’d be going to a more “ideal” job.

Scenarios A and D are preferable, and I still dislike both of them.

I didn’t sleep much last night. I’m near tears most of the time. PH is alternately worried about me and frustrated as hell with my I’m-doomed attitude.

I can’t help it.

The future just… scares me. I have no idea if things are going to be okay.

Worrying About The Wrong Thing: Anxiety Girl Strikes Again!

Tags

anxiety, decisions, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, jobs, problems, stupid, worries, worrying

One of the things they kept telling us in my Generalized Anxiety Disorder group was that we worried about the wrong things.

Our obsession with worrying about everything actually CAUSED problems because we’d be so busy worrying that we would let problems build and build until they became HUGE problems.

Which was exactly what we were worried about.

Something else we learned was that our worries always tended to end up at the same place. Heather Armstrong says that when her daughter makes a mistake in her piano practice, she visualizes a series of catastrophes that end in her living in a cardboard box.

Well, that’s fairly typical, I have learned.

For some people, that ultimate fear is ending up homeless.

For others, it’s ending up dead.

For me, it’s displeasing people and making bad choices.

Doctor sends you for blood tests because your sore throat could be a sign of a serious problem? Pfft. Not worried. Maybe it’s cancer, but it is almost definitely not. Certainly nothing I can control if it is cancer (which it isn’t).

Need to make a serious decision that will end up disappointing someone? BIG PROBLEM.

I hate making decisions. What if I make the wrong one? What if this single decision alters the whole course of my future life? What if this decision turns out to piss someone off? What if this decision makes me a bad person?!

So now I’m here, waiting for a phone call, worrying that I’ll be OFFERED A JOB.

You read that right. Not worrying that I WON’T be offered a job. Worrying that I WILL.

Last Friday, you see, was a big day for me. I landed a big job on Elance, and a national dog charity put up a part time job posting in my area. Suddenly I had a plan – I would train dogs, work part time for a charity doing something I KNEW I could do well, and make extra money on the side as a writer.

It was like ALL MY DREAMS COMING TRUE.

Then I got another call. From a vet clinic.

This clinic is a sort of rival to my previous employer. She was his employee, and when she left to start her own business, three quarters of his staff decided they’d rather go work for her.

So when she asked me to come in for an interview, I could be really honest.

…I told her exactly why I was no longer working there.

…I told her that I have severe anxiety around anesthesia now, thanks to Mean Vet, who she used to work with.

…I warned her that if she was looking for a surgical tech, I might not be a good choice.

She said she liked me a lot. She thought I would be a good fit at her clinic. She appreciated my openness and my candor. She always made decisions like this jointly with her staff, though, so she would talk it over with them and get back to me on Friday. Would I be available to start next week?

So now I’m scared.

If I get this job, I should definitely take it. A bird in the hand, right?

She seems nice. She and her employee vet introduced themselves by their first names, which is a nice change from the old place where I had to call them “Dr So-and-So” all the time.

But I don’t want it.

Why?

Because then what if I also get the job at the charity? 

WHAT IF I HAVE TO CHOOSE?

I SHOULD be worried that I WON’T get this job.

I SHOULD be worried that I won’t get ANY job.

But instead, I’m terrified that I may have to make a choice. I may have to let someone down – someone who took a chance on me.

It doesn’t help that I have so much anxiety about working in a clinic that just the THOUGHT sends my heart racing.

So… to sum up…

I’m waiting for a call, scared that I will be offered a job.

When I should really be scared that I won’t.

Anxiety Girl AND Working Mom – I’m Doubly Screwed.

Tags

anxiety, babies, family, GAD, jobs, work, working mothers, workplace

You know the effect – you learn a new word, and suddenly everyone is using it. A friend buys a new car, and suddenly you think you see her car everywhere.

Well, look what I’m seeing everywhere:

I GET IT, BABIES ARE BAD

 It was on the radio, too. I heard it as I was pumping away at work:

“A recent survey reveals that 80% of employers claim that they try to provide a family friendly workplace, but many admit that an employee is more likely to advance if they don’t have family commitments.”

I don’t know what to do. I’m not happy in my current job, but how hire-able am I with this baby in tow? What if the good places won’t want me? It doesn’t help that I am rusty at certain aspects of the job – I haven’t done surgery in years, for example, which gives the mean vet lots of opportunity to rake me over the coals.

I’m a good tech. I am great at lab work, I am fantastic with clients, I know animal nutrition and pharmacology, and even radiography. But I feel like all my workplace must see in me is my milky boobs and my sleep-deprived mental state.

PH still thinks I should leave if it doesn’t get better, but he also reminds me that a lot of this is my own inference. No one has actually SAID anything to me about my milky boobs, and no one has actually SAID (other than the mean vet that they all say I shouldn’t take personally) that they think I’m incompetant.

But they don’t make me feel like I’m not, either.

I don't usually like Natalie Dee, but damn, THIS IS ME

I’m pretty sure that just thinking about the upcoming week at work should NOT make me feel like my heart is going to explode.

You know I don’t ask you guys to “share” me around much. But if you could share my previous post a bit… tweet it or something… I would appreciate it. I am hoping for more encouraging feedback. The more stories I hear from women who found a good job despite a baby, the better I will feel…

Daycare? I call it SCAREcare.

Tags

anxiety, babies, child care, daycare, employment, GAD, jobs

My anxiety levels are through the roof.

I had a lot of anxiety while on vacation and I’m still having it now that I’m back. I don’t know if it’s generally because I’m coming to the end of my maternity leave or what, but today it is DEFINITELY because I’m coming to the end of my mat leave.

I started calling daycares today.

I’ve been putting this off for forever because I just HATE the fact that I even have to put him in daycare at all. In my mind, the person I am leaving him with is immensely fat, sits on a couch all day smoking like a chimney, and hollers,

“Shuttup, I’m watching my STORIES!”

All while my baby crawls around at her feet, sobbing, with his feet entwined by loose electrical cables.

I know what I want to a certain extent:

• I want a home-based, licensed facility. I don’t want a big centre because a) they are more expensive and b) Psychologists are actually concerned about disruption to attachments in babies attending those facilities. They’re fine for bigger kids, but for babies they’re a little too impersonal – too much staff turnover, too different from home etc. On the other hand, a kid DIED in an unlicensed facility just down the road from me and now there is a police investigation.

• I want a caretaker that I can trust and who can serve as Babby’s other attachment figure, the way a grandmother or an aunt would in a simpler society.

• I want someone who is flexible, because I may have to drop Babby off or pick Babby up before/after the traditional 7-5, depending on my work schedule (most vet clinic shifts are either 7 am-2pm or 2pm-8pm). Not to mention that I have no idea what days I’ll be working, or where I’ll be working.

• I want someone who is relatively nearby, since I have no idea what direction I’ll be working in.

This last one seems to be what concerns the daycare ladies the most. One lady, when I asked if she had any spaces for September, snapped,

“Where do you live?”

I described my general location.

“You’re too far from me. I’m in [she named another city that I live on the border of]. I know a daycare closer to you that has a space.” She gave me the contact info and rung off.

Another lady was more laid back about it.

“I’m quite a drive from you, but if you don’t mind travelling…” According to her address, she was only about 10 minutes away.

My initial search for licensed daycares consisted of a 5 km span around my postal code. I’m beginning to realize that this search was too broad, but I don’t know how to narrow it down. The government website that gave me the list seems to have inexplicably quit working.

I have two appointments on Monday to meet with potential daycare providers – both Persian, judging by their names, and both “quite a drive” from me, according to them – but I looked them up on the Fraser Health website and both of them have repeated violations under the inspection list. I don’t know how normal that is.

So, to sum up:

• I don’t know where I’m going to be working
• I don’t know what my hours will be
• I don’t know how to narrow down my 11 page list of potential daycare providers, given that many of them will consider themselves prohibitively far from me
• I don’t know if I will find someone I like
• I don’t know if I will find someone who likes me (somehow the “I don’t know what days/hours I need, I use cloth diapers, and sign language with my baby” spiel may not sell me all that well).
• I don’t know if they will be trustworthy with my baby.
• I feel pressured to make a decision quite quickly lest I lose a space, but am afraid of making  a decision TOO quickly and settling with someone I’m not comfortable with.
• I don’t flipping even want to go back to work at all. I want to stay with my baby.

Help.

"Oh boy, Mommy's going to leave me with a neglectful weirdo!"

Lurking Anxiety Monster is Lurking

Tags

anxiety, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, post partum, stress, work

My anxiety has been coming back lately. I’m dealing with it as I’ve been taught: facing the thing that makes me anxious, instead of putting it off. Trying to accept the anxiety and let it in instead of pushing it away.

But I wish I knew why it has come back, or what it is even about.

I’m not anxious about anything in particular, most of the time. I just feel the tightness of it, clawing at me. Like there’s something important that I need to remember. So I try to remember it, and instead I dredge up all the minor to-dos on my mental list, which just add to my stress instead of helping to identify it.

It might be related to the fact that my old workplace has shoved its way into my life again in a highly stressful way. The issues don’t directly involve me, but they strongly affect me and people and dogs that I care about (I obviously can’t share it publicly, but if any of you want to know, send me an email and I’ll share what I can. I’d like to share it with someone, but I’m not idiotic enough to post it here).

If so, then it’s not so much the anxiety of this particular event but the ghost of anxieties past, come floating with the new troubles, like an old smell. Maybe it arrived with the news but it lurks around corners, emerging when I least expect it.

It’s mostly just when I’m alone. When I have Babby with me, I’m never anxious.

Tired? Sure.

Frustrated? Sometimes.

Joyful? Often.

Relaxed? Every time I nurse.

I feel bad for mothers who don’t breastfeed, because it’s practically impossible to be nursing ( when it’s well-established, I mean, not the first few weeks when it hurts like a mofo) and stressed at the same time. Hormones won’t let you. You might as well try to have a panic attack in a warm bubble bath with soft music playing.

Besides,  how can you be anxious when you’re dealing with someone who makes this face?

Babby: Not Anxiety-Compatible

 

A Visit To Carol’s Brain

Tags

babies, babywearing, carriers, fabric, GAD, mind, rebozos, research, slings, wraps

Thought:

The weather is too miserable to go for a walk. I wish I had a way of wearing Babby on my hip or back. He likes to be carried but it’s hard for me to get anything done around the house when he’s hanging out front like that.

Thought:

Maybe there are more ways to tie the Sleepy Wrap. Hip and back carries.

After a visit to Youtube:

Apparently there are! Must try some of these.

One very cranky baby and a lot of failed attempts later:

Hmm. This wrap seems too stretchy for these ties. It may be worn out, or naturally too stretchy. I wonder if there are used wraps on craigslist that might be a tighter material?

A visit to craigslist ensues:

Wow, these things resell for almost retail price! I don’t have 40 bucks to spend on another wrap. I like my wrap fine, but I want different carries. Also, I do wish I could have something super stylish, like this:

But that’s over 100 bucks. That’s a ridiculous amount of money when you think of the fact that most wraps are just long pieces of cloth. Maybe I could just buy cloth. Can I do that?

Google “make my own baby wrap”:

Apparently so! Wow, these sites claim I could buy fabric for my own wrap and get a new, less stretchy one for five bucks. I wonder if there are any fabric stores around here…

Google fabric stores in my area:

Hey, they have cloth prices online! Let’s see what a cotton jersey knit would cost… 15 dollars a yard?! At 5 yards of wrap, that’s pricier than my brand name wrap! WTF?

A phone call to my mother later:

Okay, my mother is going to check her local fabric store for more reasonable prices. I’ll have to send her these links about making your own wrap. Hey, here’s a new one. Rebozo. What’s a Rebozo?

After some Internet research:

…Rebozos look awesome! They’re like pashminas that also carry your baby! I like the bright colours. Stylish and useful! And they’re shorter than standard wraps. That would be good. I could get a non-stretchy fabric for a rebozo and keep my stretchy Sleepy Wrap and then I’d have two different kinds of carrier!

Thought:

I have a pashmina. I’m sure it’s too short, but I should check.

Thought:

Where IS my pashmina?

Thought:

Seriously, where the hell did it go? It should be with the scarves. Why is it not with the scarves?

…Perfect Husband came home to find me ransacking the coat closet and threatening to tear the house apart because I’ve misplaced my pashmina. He convinced me that he has not stolen it for his own nefarious purposes and that it will turn up.

General Updatey Thing

Tags

acupressure, anxiety, counselling, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, Perfect Girlfriend, Perfect Husband, pools, swimming

Yesterday was my third session with a new counsellor lady. The shrink at the women’s reproductive mental health unit set me up with her. It sucks to drive an hour into town for a counselling session once a week, and I don’t really enjoy them (how can you, attending something that invariably makes you cry??) but I go because I know it’s good for me. The counsellor is okay. She’s a young graduate student originally from Shanghai, and I’m clearly one of her “practice” patients. She spends a lot of time getting me to rub various parts of my body, supposedly acupressure points, to try and release my tensions and open up my energies or something. I’m willing to try it – with labour approaching, any kind of relaxation technique could be valuable. She spends a lot of time on breathing exercises, too.

I always feel kind of shaky and vulnerable after counselling – being forced to talk about all the stuff you try not to even THINK about kind of messes you up for the day. But she had talked to me about how we can’t change feelings but we can change behaviours, and thus change thoughts, and thus eventually change feelings, so I decided to do what my CBT group leaders would have called an “anxiety exposure” and go to the pool on my own.

It was awesome.

In the recent heat wave that has hit Vancouver, I’ve thought of the pool several times. But I had never gone alone before, and besides, some part of me feels that if I start swimming by myself, Perfect Husband won’t take me any more (he tolerates swimming but doesn’t really enjoy it) and I love swimming with him. But the pool was deserted and swimming and thinking, swimming and thinking, then pulling out The World According to Garp and reading on the steps in the cool water was definitely a good way to recover from the counselling session.

I’ll go again today. Perfect Husband is very proud of me.

My friends are planning a baby shower for me on July 25th, which I’m looking forward to, but here’s a shot of me, many months ago, receiving a massive care package from Perfect Girlfriend:

Me at 3 months pregnant. We didn't know it was going to be a boy yet, but Perfect Girlfriend had a hunch

"What's THAT, Mom?"

Social Nudity Anxiety

Tags

anxiety, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, massage, pregnancy

Perfect Husband booked me for a pregnancy massage today. It would be nice to get those knots out of my back and be able to bend over comfortably again, although ironically my back feels better today than it has in a long time.

But I’m not really looking forward to the massage.

WHAT IF I GET NAKED WRONG?

The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Orange Popsicles

Tags

anxiety, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, Popsicles, to-do list, worrying

Okay, first, before I write anything else, I have to ask:

Does anyone prefer orange Popsicles? I keep wondering why Popsicle companies always insist on putting orange ones in. The other flavours may be raspberry, or strawberry, or grape, or pomegranate or something, but there is always, always orange. Like, it seems like 50% of the Popsicles end up being orange in any given package. Why?? They are the least exciting flavour. They are the ones that always get left for last. People rummage for the red ones and the purple ones, and only start on orange once all the good flavours are gone. Ditto for orange suckers, when it comes to that.

Maybe it’s because they want you to run through the box faster, and buy more. You think you’re getting 14 Popsicles, but once you’ve eaten 8 or so, you realize that all that is left is orange ones, and after a couple of days of half-hearted eating you go and buy a new box. But surely any brand that sold grape-only, or red-only, would rocket to the top of the charts as the most popular brand?

These are the things I think about.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about – why am I finding it so much harder than some of my group-mates in facing my anxieties?

The only answer I really have is that unlike some of my fellows, who are terrified of talking to their ex-wives or abusive relations, or who avoid driving because they are afraid of car crashes… I don’t have any stressful situations which I am avoiding. Instead, my avoidance is the cause of most of my anxieties. Cleaning the house doesn’t make me anxious. NOT cleaning the house makes me anxious. Writing in my diary doesn’t make me anxious. NOT writing in my diary makes me anxious. So, I’m supposed to be doing things that will make me anxious, so I can tolerate the uncertainty. But I’m also supposed to start doing the things I’ve been avoiding doing. So should I clean the house, or see how long it takes before it resembles an episode of Hoarders?

Because it’s totally all the things that I’m avoiding doing that are making me anxious. And then I begin to associate the things on my mental to-do list with the anxiety that thinking about them all the time causes, and then that makes me avoid them more. Which makes them build up into bigger problems. Which makes me… you guessed it… more anxious. Like, the more I stress about being late for work, the later I end up being, because stressing about being late for work makes me avoid getting ready. It’s really, really stupid.

When I think back to the times in my life when I have been happiest, it has been times  when my to-do list has been pretty small. I love being on trips because I don’t have to worry about cleaning the house or washing the dishes. I can just have fun and be on vacation.

But when stuff builds up like this, it becomes a vicious cycle. All the stuff becomes overwhelming, so I avoid dealing with it, and it becomes more overwhelming, so I avoid doing it more, which makes it worse. And now it’s hard to feel any kind of joy at all because the weight of all the things I have to do are pressing down on me all the time, and some part of my brain is constantly going, “don’t forget to look for that missing DVD. Don’t forget to trim your dog’s nails. Don’t forget to sweep – look at all that dog fur. Don’t forget, you have to get printer ink so you can print your resume. Don’t forget, you need to preserve those torches. Don’t forget, you still need to install baseboards around the house. Don’t forget…”

I’m supposed to write my worries, but they aren’t worries so much as endless thoughts about the things I’m not doing.

So, here they are, for the world to see. You can all help me not forget.

• Groom Beloved Dog
• Clean floors
• Throw away or organize clutter (Perfect Husband got a great start on this last weekend, when he went into the Baby’s Room aka The Room Full of The Boxes We Haven’t Unpacked Since We Moved Last August and Cat Litter) and spent a whole day sorting through the junk. You can actually see the floor!)
• Wash dish rack
• Do laundry
• Figure out why there is laundry under the bed and deal with that, too
• Figure out where that smell in the bathroom is coming from and eradicate it
• Figure out where the missing DVD went
• Buy stands for the torches
• Buy book case/entertainment unit for the living room
• Buy stuff to fix the soot on the torches because I keep worrying that it’ll all rub off
• Get house measured
• Get baseboards
• Get baseboards installed
• Finish painting the house
• Paint the baby’s room
• Buy new eye glasses
• Clean car
• Turn up the earth in the garden
• Get sod for garden
• Get outdoor planters
• Get plants for said planters
• Get small charcoal barbecue
• Pick up patio set from friends who have offered us said patio set
• Frame pictures needing to be framed
• Hang framed pictures
• Call friends who think I’m dead
• Write in diary regularly so I can worry there instead of worrying about how I need to go and write backlogs
• Write backlogs in diary
• Get hair cut
• Go swimming regularly
• Get psyched for our upcoming trip to New York
• Tell my mother about our upcoming trip to New York

That’s all I can think of for now, but I know there’s more. I’ll let you know when I think of it.

Aren’t you excited?

Finding Courage

Tags

anxiety, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Finding Nemo, GAD, group therapy, Psychoanalysis

…I didn’t do my homework, but I did spend the whole week stressing about the fact that I wasn’t doing my homework.

…What if I write down my worries wrong?

…I spend so much time worrying about the things I’m not getting done. Why can’t I just do them?

…What if they never get done?

…What do you mean, worrying about stuff and thinking about stuff are two different things?

…I’m worried about how much I’m worrying.

…Yes, of course worrying means you care. How can you care about someone and not worry?

…What if my child stops breathing?

… If it’s bad news, then I can handle it. What I can’t handle is not knowing.

…What if I can’t handle it and everything goes wrong?

…I’m so tired all the time. I don’t have the energy to face the world.

…What if I feel like this forever?

Every Wednesday, the people at my GAD group meet, and talk about their week, and cry. All of our stories are different, but the same thoughts and feelings fill the room like echoes. Sometimes, the room will fill with chuckles, as we recognize ourselves in each other, and share a laugh at our own expense.

What if I forget to lock the front door, and someone breaks in? What if they take everything we have? What if the insurance doesn’t cover it and we have to go into debt to replace our things? What if we end up so deep in debt that we lose the house? What if we end up on the street? Maybe I should research how to keep warm when living in a cardboard box.

We are all slaves to that ancient proverb:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.

For want of a horse, the rider was lost.

For want of a rider, the battle was lost.

For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.

All for the want of a horse shoe nail.

Wikipedia says the point of this rhyme, which has reverberated in my mind since I was a child, is that the consequences of tiny events can only be seen in hindsight. But Wikipedia is wrong. A person with GAD  would have fretted over that nail, and probably invented all of the consequences within seconds of the shoe dropping off of the horse. Surely, the people in my GAD group would say, the rhyme should include “For want of a worrier…” because we would have caught it.

Or would we?

The leader of our group assures us, even as we look at her suspiciously, that people with GAD actually end up with more problems, because they tend to stress so much over tiny ones that they avoid dealing with them, and thus the problems become bigger and worse. In other words, the rider with GAD was so stressed over losing that nail that he never got around to re-shoeing his horse, and hence the kingdom was lost.

We’re supposed start recording our worries, and start facing them. We are supposed to start exposing ourselves to uncertainty. They want us to start with small things, like only checking the baby TWICE while it’s sleeping, or letting someone else do the laundry, or tackling some of the mess in our bedrooms.

We hate the idea. We are all like Marlin in Finding Nemo. We want to be sure. We would rather not have anything happen to us, than risk something bad happening to us. We want to double check, and triple check, and maybe even check a fourth time, before we even leave our anemones. Any scenario presented immediately starts a train of thoughts leading to disaster.

Marlin: They’re going to the drop off?? What, are we insane? Why don’t we just fry them up now, and serve them with chips?

…

Marlin: It’s a fish we don’t know. If we ask for directions, it could ingest us and spit out our bones!

…

Marlin: Hey, that snail was about to charge.

…

Dory: Everything’s going to be all right!

Marlin: How do you know? How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?

Dory: I don’t!

Now, I realize it was good for Marlin’s anxiety to go out and almost get eaten by sharks, and jellyfish, and whales, and sea gulls, and pelicans. I realize that it generally improved his attitude towards life, exposing himself to all of those horrible things and living through it. I realize all of this intellectually. In fact, we have a couple of Marlins in our group who skipped the only-checking-twice-before-leaving-the-anemone stage and went right to jumping into pelican’s mouths. They are the ones making the really impressive progress. They come to group each week looking more encouraged, more empowered. They did it, and it wasn’t so bad. Their world is being handed back to them. They are blooming before my eyes.

I’m not even up to doing my homework, yet.