Every year since I was sixteen, I've made ten New Year's Resolutions. At the beginning of the year I write them down, and at the end of the year I go back and see how well I did. For over ten years I posted them in my OpenDiary - last year's resolutions with short commentary on how many I kept and what I did, and a fresh ten for the coming year. Now that OpenDiary has gone I put them all in a Word document, and it's a tradition so deeply ingrained in me that I forget it's actually a pretty weird thing to do.
For 2015, resolution number seven was "I will ask for help when I need it."
I thought this was a great resolution, and actually quite insightful in terms of things that would make a real difference to my life. I'm terrified of asking for help. I'm terrified that I'm being an imposition, or being annoying. If I can just learn to ask for help, I thought, I'll be less anxious, more secure, life will run that bit more smoothly, I can get things sorted as soon as I start to see a problem rather than letting it run itself up into a catastrophe. This is a Good Resolution.
It wasn't until Tuesday, when I found myself sobbing hysterically in my therapist's office for nearly an hour after the session was over that I realised there was a deeper layer to it. A conversation about my problems at work, my being completely taken aback by how upset I was about work, and the realisation that the session was nearly over and I was now going to have to walk my blotchy and red-faced self right into work were all feeding into each other and I just couldn't stop crying. My therapist, who had never seen me do this before, was rather concerned. I was struggling to speak, but between us we managed to establish that I did not feel up to going to work, but also had a meeting to take and didn't feel like I could call in sick. He suggested that obviously there was someone else who could take the meeting, it was no big deal at all, did I really think I'd be able to work in the state I was in? My brain acknowledged that this was not a question, this was therapist-speak for Holy shit, dude, GO HOME, and helpfully switched its narrative from you can't seriously be thinking about calling in sick because you're crying to now you have to call your manager and that's terrifying.
It sounds stupid to write down. The same brain that conjured up images of every single person in my office sitting around talking about how rubbish I was for calling in sick is now berating me for being so stupid as to be scared of that. But that's what happened, that's what I thought, and my upset got worse and worse until I was choking on my own tears. I knew what I needed; I needed him to make the phone call. You can't ask him that, said my brain, shocked. He's here to help you learn to deal with your own life by yourself. He's not going to enable your stupid behaviour by making the phone call for you. He thinks you should damn well be able to make it yourself. If he offers, fine, but you can't ask him for something so unreasonable.
He did, eventually, offer, and it was only when I heard him leave a voicemail that included the words "my professional opinion" that any part of me registered that this man was a mental health professional watching a patient have some kind of breakdown and of course he could make a phone call to my employer. It fought with the part still insisting that I was overreacting and/or deliberately and manipulatively trying to get out of work and not take responsibility for it. I went into work the next day, which was a very bad move, and the day after that I got an emergency doctor's appointment, a sick note, and some fancy new drugs.
This is not depression as I know it. Depression as I've experienced it in the past is a complete lack of motivation, days on end in bed, awake on the internet all night and asleep for most of the day, hoping to be able to stay asleep until the week, the month, the year is over. Depression is not speaking to people, depression is not being able to feed myself, depression is taking three or four days to force myself to leave the house. That's not what's happening now. Up until this week I was diligently going to work every day. I'm going out with friends, on courses, to dinners. I've almost completed my first self-made skirt. Yesterday I bought general housing supplies, ordered some chocolates for my mother, and went to a friend's party. That would have felt like a goddamn miracle to any previous incarnation of Depressed Jen. But my brain is being nasty to me, keeping me worried and scared and guilty and upset. I feel bad that I haven't cleaned the bathroom. I feel bad that I don't go home as often as my family would like. I feel bad that I left the party early last night even though the host told me she wanted me to stay. Everything makes me feel like a bad person, or a useless person.
I ended my worst period of depression by breaking up a relationship. That relationship took away the things that interested and excited me piece by piece, while keeping both eyes fixed on me to make sure I didn't find anything else to fill my mind. That relationship made time stretch out so far it exhausted me, but berated me for being so exhausted by doing nothing. That relationship told me I wasn't good enough, would never be good enough, that I was a pain nobody else would put up with. To this day, ending it has been the best thing I've ever done.
Now my relationship with my partner is healthy, encouraging and supportive, and he wants me to get better, which is so unfamiliar to me that it sometimes still confuses the fuck out of me after nearly a year together. But I see shades of that former boyfriend in the relationship I have with my job, and that's the one that needs to end. I've been aware of this for a little while, though not with quite so much urgency as this week, and I've mentioned it to people before. They say, "That's a great idea. Get a new job if you're not happy! It'll do you good to change things up a bit."
The thing is, I don't know how. Apart from Saturday work during my A levels, I've never worked for another company. I've been here seven years. I came in at the suggestion of a friend, doing admin grunt work, and through promotion and pay rises and moving to a different city, I'm up to twice my original salary (which still isn't a lot, mind you). I don't know how you get a job at this level or higher. Every job I've applied for has been on application form, so I've never needed a CV. I've never done an interview that wasn't civil service competency-based. I've been working my way into a company, not a profession, so I don't know what I want to do or what sort of thing I could reasonably expect to get. I don't know how the real world of job-hunting works. I need help, but I don't want to ask for it, for several reasons:
1. I don't really know what I'm asking for
2. I don't know what or how much is OK to ask for
3. Part of me is convinced that at age 30, this is not the kind of thing I should need help with
This last one is a real sticking point for me. 30-year-olds should know how to get jobs. The kind of 30-year-old who needs help getting a job is a really pathetic 30-year-old.
I'm not at my best right now. I'm sick, I'm exhausted, I'm upset, I'm taking a brand new anti-depressant, and I'm terrified of going back to work (also, terrified of getting fired and having no money and not being able to live in this city anymore). It's not unreasonable to think I would need help. And yet I judge myself, because asking for help is just an excuse to be lazy, or sure you can ask for help but you really shouldn't need this kind of help, or what the hell are people going to think of you asking for stupid things like that, or this is something you should be strong enough to do yourself. I give myself lists of things I've been able to do by myself as proof that my need for help isn't actually real.
I probably do need really stupid help. I probably need someone to sit and go through job websites with me. I need from-scratch CV help. I need people to tell me what I'm good at. Since I'm not only trying to do a thing I'm unfamiliar with but trying to do it when I'm not well, I probably need a lot more than that. I need people to understand I'm having a shitty time. I need hugs and stupid conversations and reassurance that the world won't end if I miss a few parties. I need to be occupied but not overwhelmed. I need to put my mental health first for a while, and I need to acknowledge what a bastard hard thing that is to do.
This was long, and sad, and tough to write. I judge myself for how depressing my blog is sometimes, and how it's not the fun storytime I started off with, but this is where I am right now. Stuff about sunshine and puffins, I hope, coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment