the shadow is back

It felt like things had been slowly getting back to what I can only say feels like a bit of normalcy. But another bad nightmare, plus some other things happening and we’re back in the land of the darkness again.

Hmmm where to begin.

About a month ago, I got offered a new job. It’s with the same department but a different sector and it means no more physical labour, audits or radiation safety. Hallelujah! It took me a while to decide whether or not I wanted to give it a go because let’s face it, any change after 18 years in the same position is going to feel a little bit scary. They wanted me to move over permanently but I agreed to give it a go for 6 months just in case I didn’t like it. My new supervisor was totally okay with the 6 months and wanted me to start this month but first had to have a discussion with my current supervisor to see when they would let me leave. Long story short, they’re making me stay until mid to late June. I’m not happy about it and it feels really unfair because technically I could have given my 2 weeks notice and be done with it all. I don’t want to burn any bridges but they’ve never done this to anyone else who’s wanted to go on assignment before. The reasons–I have to finish decommissioning a radiation lab, they need me to be around for the student summer training session and they need to find someone to replace me. While the first two reasons I can live with, the last one blows my mind because I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s my responsibility or concern if they can’t find someone to replace me. And what happens if they can’t? Does that mean they’re going to try to keep me past June? If that happens I’ll give my two weeks notice and move over permanently rather than for just 6 months to begin with.

I got another call from M. This time I actually talked to him but it was more of the same lashing out, swearing and telling me he hopes I die. I honestly don’t know what to do with these situations anymore and I wonder if there is more I should be doing. I decided this time I’d reach out to see if something had happened to set him off like that. I knew it was a bad idea and just as I’d imagined it turned into me being blamed for everything and told to just not worry about it because he’s just be a teenager. I was told that whenever he gets upset about something it always gets turned against me. I also learned that they have a landline. I always thought I had to go through one of their cell phones to talk to M, which mad things a bit harder. Knowing they have a landline, that will perhaps make reaching out easier but I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I can’t do anything right when it comes to M. If I reach out, I always hear ‘no’. If I don’t reach out I get accused of not caring. I’m not sure what I should be doing really. I think a person can only be rejected so many times before they finally give up. But is giving up the right thing to be doing? And maybe it’s not really giving up, but more like giving in because one person can only take so much abuse and one-sidedness before they build up walls to protect themselves.

I’m still doing DBT. I’m not sure if it’s helping really. There’s tons of homework which is different. It feels like a chore but she says I’m doing a good job so I guess that’s important. Last week she told me she things I have unresolved anger issues. You think?? She told me that’s something I have to work on with T because she doesn’t deal with that. She also said I have PTSD which I already knew. I think the thing I find hard is that mentally I know what I should be doing but emotionally I have a hard time doing what I should be doing if that makes sense. So I can do the homework, write down the right answers and next time do exactly the opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s like everything goes in one ear and out the other. I have a few more weeks of sessions so we’ll see what happens then.

Tomorrow I finally have another appointment with my psychiatrist. I’d reached a really low point with my weight a few weeks back and had rung her office but she was on holidays so I didn’t leave a message as she’d only be back a few days before our scheduled appointment. We definitely need to address the weight issues because I currently have zero self esteem and loathe the way I look. The problem is that I feel like I’ve reached the point where my sleep is not great, but acceptable. And I’m worried that if she suggests lessening the Seroquel my sleep is going to get worse again. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Seroquel helps, but makes me gain weight which makes me feel awful about myself. I don’t know if any similar meds have the same side effects but I did some research and apparently Metformin can be used to contradict the weight gain. Taking more meds is not what I really want to do, but if it helps I’ll be willing to try anything.

I had the nightmare about the shadow again last week. It was standing beside me and I don’t know why but it always feels like it wants to destroy me. T and I talked a bit about it on Friday and I tried to explain it but I’m not sure I did a very good job of it. Since then, I’ve felt withdrawn and sad a lot of the time. I’ve thought of reaching out to T this past weekend but I didn’t want to bother him so I didn’t. Sometimes there is a desperateness to the need to reach out, like I just have to know that he is still there. If I still feel this way in a couple of hours, I think I’ll send a short message.

So that’s what’s been going on with me. A couple of good things and a bit of not so good things. I’ll be glad to get through tomorrow with my psychiatrist and hopefully that’ll get us started on a way forward to finally feeling a bit better.