Month: December 2018

Ecstatically Terrified

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Some of you are reading this because you subscribe (thank you! And sorry!) Some because you’ve seen it on Facebook and hopefully some of you because the title means something to you.

Ecstatically terrified probably explains my emotions 50% of the time. As a human being I’m extremely adventurous and excited about my next journey. As a human being with anxiety I’m terrified of everything. And even if you don’t suffer with anxiety we all live with a little fear. So I’m in a constant state of unbalance, between ‘I want to fly to Nepal’ and ‘if I don’t make myself sick the plane will crash’ (OCD). ‘I want to visit Everest Base camp’ and ‘it will be my fault when my husband dies on the way up’. (Typing that makes me feel guilty like somehow it’s now more likely, I’ll be surprised if I don’t delete it.)

I felt the same hiking in California and Yosemite but when I made it to the top of Taft Point looking 8,000 feet down all my fears were gone. I could have died right there knowing I had truly lived. It taught me something I had said all along…

“The best views come after the hardest climb”

I mean in this sense it was literally. It really was the best view I’d seen in my life after the most exhausting climb. But it rings even more true in everyday life. Some of you will be going through the hardest battles you’ve ever faced and some of you will be facing your own challenges day to day, but you’ll make it through and I promise you it will be worth the climb.

Right now I only have 2 weeks left at my current job before starting a new opportunity. I’m absolutely terrified. Terrified because I love the people I currently work with. It’s the only work place that have accepted me for who I am, and a big part of why I’ve been quiet the last year because I haven’t felt the need to write so much. They have taught me that I am enough. They have loved me for my successes and my flaws. They have listened and they have taught me to listen, and for the rest of my life I will be grateful. I don’t know that they will ever understand the impact they have made on my life from now and forever.

That’s exactly why I have to leave. It would be so easy for me to stay, to be comfortable in my role but to never push the boundary and explore more. Being that routine makes me comfortable, I need to keep challenging myself to keep challenging my mental health and grow my comfort zone. I’m ecstatic because I get to take on a new role in a University which is so exciting to me because I love learning. The people seem incredible and I’m really excited to learn new things and meet new people.

So here I am. Stuck somewhere in-between ecstatic and terrified. I’ve thought about staying put, staying in my safe place with the people that have looked after me so well this past year and a half, taking the time to understand my OCD and anxieties. But if I do that I’m never giving the rest of the world an opportunity to prove that it too can be kind.

And I remind myself that if it all goes wrong, if I slip and I fall again, I’ll pull myself up and keep walking like I did before. I’ll climb up that mountain and I’ll remember Taft Point and feeling more content than I have in my entire life.

Whatever you may be facing now remember that when you get to where you need to be it really will be magical. You might not even know when you will succeed or what that even looks like. I didn’t know that my current role was going to be so good for me, I just made that jump with no expectations or preconceived thoughts. I would like to say that they fixed me but really they just allowed me the space I needed to fix myself. Sometimes all we need is a little patience from others.

I recently read online that in video games you know you’re going in the right direction when you meet the biggest enemies. Whatever your enemy may be and whatever battle you are facing know that it will be worth it and you will make it through. Don’t allow your excitement and ‘ecstatic’ to loose against your ‘terrified’ and when it does remember that it’s OK to slip and fall, no mountaineer ever made it to the top without some stumbles. It’s what you do after the stumble that matters. Get up and keep climbing.

The view really will be one of the best you’ve ever seen.

A Circle of Worthless

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Find your Rainbow 🌈

So looking through my drafts it says I wrote this on the 2nd January 2017, almost 2 years ago.

It’s always good to look back sometimes to see how far we’ve come. I can honestly say I feel differently now in a good way. Don’t get me wrong, I still do have days where I feel this way, but certainly not on a daily basis like I did back then. I’ve also been helped by the most incredible woman who has taught me that feedback is a gift and that you don’t always have to accept it. Now I see feedback as an opportunity rather than fear it – more on that another time.

I thought it was worth a post anyway, to show that even when you feel like this you can still turn it around so that you don’t have to. Sometimes you just have to learn to find the rainbow in the rain.

XxX

Sometimes I feel totally worthless, like I bring no benefit whatsoever to this earth or to what I do. Sometimes receiving ‘constructive’ feedback, to me I just hear ‘you’re so stupid’ ‘how thick can you be’ ‘I may as well have done it myself’ ‘what’s the point in you being here’ ‘you’re like a child’ ‘do you have no initiative’ ‘do I really have to explain this to you again’.What’s the solution? I honestly don’t know. Can people perhaps sugar coat their feedback more? Possibly. But would that really make a huge difference? When all is said and done I will still be receiving feedback on something I need to improve upon.

I seem to lack the ability to defend myself sometimes, even if I’m right, not wanting to appear ‘defensive’. So I take the blame myself, perhaps I didn’t position that right, maybe I should have explained better, no honestly it’s completely my fault, I probably am just totally useless. Further reinforcing my belief that they think I’m useless.

I often wonder what happens once that door is closed behind me. Do those I work or interact with roll their eyes like ‘she’s just not getting it’ ‘spoon feeding her again’ ‘argh she’s so exhausting’ ‘she’s so lazy’.

Day by day I get this impression that I’m just not good enough and I never will be. I’ll always be the one riding on the coat tails of other’s successes. And anything I do create myself will just be pointless, completely off the mark and wrong.

So why am I here? Why do you want me here? I’m continuously a burden that you have to help and that is totally and completely annoying. To top it off I bring no benefit whatsoever because anything I ever do will never be good enough.

So in the end I stop trying. I stop trying to be great. I stop trying to be my best me. And I stop trying to have a purpose. Because when I do try it’s never quite right and it’s just another example of a time where I’m wrong. So I accept that I am useless, that I am stupid, that I’m totally unqualified and that I’m totally worthless. It’s easier to produce nothing than to produce something that is totally pointless.

And then I feel isolated. Wondering what the person next to me or in front of me is thinking about me. I can’t concentrate so I stare at a blank screen reading the same line 10 times until I realise people must think I’m mad or most likely lazy ‘she’s not doing anything’ ‘waste of oxygen’ ‘here I am working my ass off and she’s just sitting there again.’

It’s funny, I’ve only felt this way for the past year. I was always so confident in myself and my work. Always ready to take on the next adventure or fight the next battle. But something changed in me in my last 2 roles. My only regular feedback was the negative kind and anything positive just, didn’t need to be said. You can only face so much negativity before you start thinking ‘what’s the point’.

It’s a vicious circle. A circle that I’m not sure I will ever escape. I’m not good enough = anything I do will be pointless = don’t do anything through fear of doing it wrong = she’s lazy = what’s the point of her she’s just a burden = I’m not good enough. And so on.

The only way I will ever get out of this circle for good is to accept that what people think of me is not who I am. Sure I can try really hard and produce something really worthwhile but it’s only a matter of time before I will fall down again. So the only way to truly escape is to accept myself as I am and to not be driven by what others think of me and place my worth on the value of what others think.

Easier said than done.

XxX