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haptalaonI feel so utterly wretched about work.
I'm trying to decide whether to take some money and go away, or fight with them about it - maybe for more money, mostly for an apology.
Part of the problem is - there's nothing I want all that much. The things I do want are extremely expensive: to become a gentleman of leisure, to live in a stately home and spend all my time redecorating it and gardening, to go back to study, build my own village, set up a mustelid rescue/rehoming center. The other things can't be bought: I want to be valued as a person, and have parity of respect with my non-disabled coworkers, and to stop people hurting me, and regain faith that the world is kind, and most people in it good and true.
Part of the problem is - job loss means home loss, and also place loss. So it's very difficult to do the things one does to move on from a bereavement or break-up, like get really into hobbies or another life goal or spend time with friends. My life is here; it's ending, and it makes it hard to make constructive choices. Like, I could buy a tonne of books - but there's an even chance we're going to go live in a caravan, so material possessions aren't a good distraction. Nor is anything that exists here, be it people or opportunities, or the simple pleasure of going for a walk. Nor are the things you can build: I can't get a pet, for example; I tried throwing myself into community stuff, but it's not cool for the community for me to do that knowing I'm about to evaporate. I have a bag of daffodil bulbs that I can't face planting in a garden I may not stay to see them bloom in.
(I've always been existentially distressed by gardening. Happiness, stability, home: it is an apple tree you tend, knowing that in two years you'll have apples, and every year to come)
Part of the problem is - my union is as helpful as a popped balloon, and comes back to me with information and aid months after it was needed. My therapist is not returning calls. Other available therapists have waiting lists and keep shunting me from service to service ("Do you have the crisis line number?" "Yes, I have the number." "And you know where A&E is? Because people with your condition..." "Yes, I know we are 50 times more likely to commit suicide than regular folk." "Because we're not actually able to treat people like you")
Part of the problem is - having a personality disorder is very much like being set on fire. You don't know who you are or what you want, beyond - you're on fucking fire and you want someone to make the fire stop. And others need you to calmly fill in forms, get groceries, make consistent decisions, be patient, follow procedure, and life is one long scream of I AM ON FIRE. PUT OUT THE FIRE. I WILL BE MORE AMENABLE TO EVERYTHING WHEN THE FIRE IS OUT.
But nothing puts the fire out. And it's impossible to make decisions like "should I take some money and go be somewhere quiet, or assert my dignity and rights?", because I don't actually want either of those outcomes. I just want the pain to stop. Sometimes, the idea of fighting is distressing; sometimes, the idea of going away is. I decide to do whichever one makes the pain stop in that moment, and it's a darned nuisance for my partner, my union dude, and also for me, because it's mood roulette that one can't actually do anything practical with. It's not actionable intelligence, its an I'M ON FIRE SOMEONE STOP THE FIRE I CAN'T THINK ABOUT THIS UNTIL THE FIRE STOPS.
Cue the David Foster Wallace quote (TW: suicide, fires in high rises)
I feel like Maslow's hierarchy of needs has just been repeatedly stomping me, for years and years; it's hard to think about the practical benefit of money, or even like "I could buy a Lamborghini, possibly, or whatever it is that people want", because I can't see past - I'm hurt. I'm not welcome in society. I'm never going to achieve a basic level of stability, or be valued for what I can do instead of penalised for what I can't. People are terrible. I'm terrible.
There's a nice BPD description as someone who is stuck in "unrelenting crisis and inhibited grieving". It's a beautiful set of words, and pretty much this year in a shell. I can't quite figure out when things started going wrong, because whenever I look backwards my brain takes me further, but I remember 2001 being consistently pretty OK.
Like, idk. Maybe I should just junk all my possessions and live in a caravan and try and make it a cool, liberating, Fight Club/Instagram #vanlife experience, instead of a - I'm about to lose my home and my garden and my job and all the things I've been working towards experience.
But knowing where you are is so foundational; or at least, it is for me. So life goes on, and I know this; but it would be easier if I could imagine being in my sitting room with a cup of tea in the sun in 1, 3, 6 months time, instead of this big empty ?????????? And I don't really know what I want in terms of tangible goals; I just want the feeling of sitting in the sun with my tea, not worrying about anything in particular; and I'm OK with any outcome that gets me to that place.
But it's impossible to know what pathway leads there, and none have pointed me right so far, perhaps because it doesn't exist because the problem's mostly me. And it's impossible to even start thinking about, mid-crisis, because the alarms are too loud and my toes too singed to reason calmly.
I'm trying to decide whether to take some money and go away, or fight with them about it - maybe for more money, mostly for an apology.
Part of the problem is - there's nothing I want all that much. The things I do want are extremely expensive: to become a gentleman of leisure, to live in a stately home and spend all my time redecorating it and gardening, to go back to study, build my own village, set up a mustelid rescue/rehoming center. The other things can't be bought: I want to be valued as a person, and have parity of respect with my non-disabled coworkers, and to stop people hurting me, and regain faith that the world is kind, and most people in it good and true.
Part of the problem is - job loss means home loss, and also place loss. So it's very difficult to do the things one does to move on from a bereavement or break-up, like get really into hobbies or another life goal or spend time with friends. My life is here; it's ending, and it makes it hard to make constructive choices. Like, I could buy a tonne of books - but there's an even chance we're going to go live in a caravan, so material possessions aren't a good distraction. Nor is anything that exists here, be it people or opportunities, or the simple pleasure of going for a walk. Nor are the things you can build: I can't get a pet, for example; I tried throwing myself into community stuff, but it's not cool for the community for me to do that knowing I'm about to evaporate. I have a bag of daffodil bulbs that I can't face planting in a garden I may not stay to see them bloom in.
(I've always been existentially distressed by gardening. Happiness, stability, home: it is an apple tree you tend, knowing that in two years you'll have apples, and every year to come)
Part of the problem is - my union is as helpful as a popped balloon, and comes back to me with information and aid months after it was needed. My therapist is not returning calls. Other available therapists have waiting lists and keep shunting me from service to service ("Do you have the crisis line number?" "Yes, I have the number." "And you know where A&E is? Because people with your condition..." "Yes, I know we are 50 times more likely to commit suicide than regular folk." "Because we're not actually able to treat people like you")
Part of the problem is - having a personality disorder is very much like being set on fire. You don't know who you are or what you want, beyond - you're on fucking fire and you want someone to make the fire stop. And others need you to calmly fill in forms, get groceries, make consistent decisions, be patient, follow procedure, and life is one long scream of I AM ON FIRE. PUT OUT THE FIRE. I WILL BE MORE AMENABLE TO EVERYTHING WHEN THE FIRE IS OUT.
But nothing puts the fire out. And it's impossible to make decisions like "should I take some money and go be somewhere quiet, or assert my dignity and rights?", because I don't actually want either of those outcomes. I just want the pain to stop. Sometimes, the idea of fighting is distressing; sometimes, the idea of going away is. I decide to do whichever one makes the pain stop in that moment, and it's a darned nuisance for my partner, my union dude, and also for me, because it's mood roulette that one can't actually do anything practical with. It's not actionable intelligence, its an I'M ON FIRE SOMEONE STOP THE FIRE I CAN'T THINK ABOUT THIS UNTIL THE FIRE STOPS.
Cue the David Foster Wallace quote (TW: suicide, fires in high rises)
I feel like Maslow's hierarchy of needs has just been repeatedly stomping me, for years and years; it's hard to think about the practical benefit of money, or even like "I could buy a Lamborghini, possibly, or whatever it is that people want", because I can't see past - I'm hurt. I'm not welcome in society. I'm never going to achieve a basic level of stability, or be valued for what I can do instead of penalised for what I can't. People are terrible. I'm terrible.
There's a nice BPD description as someone who is stuck in "unrelenting crisis and inhibited grieving". It's a beautiful set of words, and pretty much this year in a shell. I can't quite figure out when things started going wrong, because whenever I look backwards my brain takes me further, but I remember 2001 being consistently pretty OK.
Like, idk. Maybe I should just junk all my possessions and live in a caravan and try and make it a cool, liberating, Fight Club/Instagram #vanlife experience, instead of a - I'm about to lose my home and my garden and my job and all the things I've been working towards experience.
But knowing where you are is so foundational; or at least, it is for me. So life goes on, and I know this; but it would be easier if I could imagine being in my sitting room with a cup of tea in the sun in 1, 3, 6 months time, instead of this big empty ?????????? And I don't really know what I want in terms of tangible goals; I just want the feeling of sitting in the sun with my tea, not worrying about anything in particular; and I'm OK with any outcome that gets me to that place.
But it's impossible to know what pathway leads there, and none have pointed me right so far, perhaps because it doesn't exist because the problem's mostly me. And it's impossible to even start thinking about, mid-crisis, because the alarms are too loud and my toes too singed to reason calmly.
