bated-breath.net

Ezrik has his first night of work tonight.  He’s been there for a few hours now, and I hope everything is going well.

It has, however, sent me into an overdrive state on doing things around the house and being domestic.  Several loads of laundry already done, dishwasher loaded and running, as well as cleaning up other odds and ends around the house…

… it also set me on the path to applying for food stamps and looking into Social Security Benefits because of my… disabilities? It’s hard to say that for me, it’s hard to admit that I am functionally disabled, but I kind of am in several ways.

My left eye is so bad that when my right eye is closed I can barely make out shapes anymore, let alone specifics, and the right eye is not nearly as good as it used to be.  Together they form a kind of mildly useful vision, but it’s not as good as it used to be, and it’s making situations more difficult than it ought to.  That, though, isn’t really much of an issue.  I can deal with that.  It’ll be hard to do fine details on things, but how often is that a problem in current work?

The real issue is the crippling social anxiety that I have that bursts me into panic attacks when I even go shopping in a store.  I zoom through as quickly and quietly as possible, flush red, get dehydrated, and generally grip the edge of the shopping cart like I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t.  It wasn’t always this bad, but I wasn’t always forced to make these kind of social interactions without the safety net of childhood being an excuse.

As an adult, I’ve gone from being just a shy little girl who wasn’t good at making friends, to someone who has to psych herself up for ten minutes to walk into a stylists and ask when they have an opening.  I’ve managed to make it so that I can – with some success – approach people for quick things like applications, quick information, or things like that… but asking for real help? Having to talk more than a few seconds? I fall apart.

Even writing about it has me tensing up, the idea that I really need to get over this, get out there, and make something of myself so I can help with the household – especially so Ezrik and I can get out on our own and he can feel some independence – has me running my tongue across the back of my teeth so frantically with each word I type that I’m afraid I’m going to run it raw again.

It’s not something I want to admit, because it means that I’m also going to have to try to get out there and get an interview about this even to get the benefits.  Having to talk to someone about why I’m messed up while having panic attacks over having to interact should be an easy way to show… but still.

My mom told me when I was visiting her this winter that the government said if I showed serious damage from what happened to me with being molested when I was four, that they would take care of me – I don’t know if this is true, but it might be my only way of getting through life with some sense of independence.  Honestly, I would love to hold a job, it’s an exciting prospect, but the day I get it, I’m so nervous to ask for any help or even help customers (I worked briefly at Wal-Mart and that was soul suckingly bad in the way that it’s a very personable job and I want to tuck my head down and not be seen.) kind of ruins the idea of being a good employee.

I don’t know if this will even work, and I understand that the process for getting benefits is long and will likely make me hate the idea of public interaction even more, but it has to be done.

It’s a weird thing to me, because even online where I have an easier time – because let’s be honest, you fuck up online, you log off and don’t show up for a while and usually it goes away – it still takes me a long time to be fully comfortable with someone… to get on Skype or have long conversations for hours on end.  Very rarely do people get into that bubble, especially now that I’ve been thrust upon the world – not independently, always supported in some way by someone else, but still – it has become an increasingly difficult problem to deal with.

We’ll see in the coming weeks just how fruitful this will be, but I might end up having to work a job I hate and deal with physically painful panic attacks for the sake of it.

I once said I think I could work in a field I’m passionate about, but getting jobs that involve music, gaming, or anything like that are really quite difficult when you’re almost 30 and have no experience.  To be fair, getting a job period is pretty difficult with those stats, but I digress.

Here’s hoping things work out.

Again with the Insomnia, only now I’ve actually had sleep but find myself more tired than ever. I’m seriously sitting here, after sleeping most of the day, and wondering how long I should stay up before I try again.

The problem with this is that I’m tired for most of the productive hours of my day, and then when it creeps around the time I feel okay laying down, I end up not tired anymore and up until like 6 am.  Which… is a bit of a pain in the ass.  I’d love to be able to find a happy medium with what I can do as far as sleep and time management go.

When Ezrik starts his job he’ll be working third shift, and for that I’ll be trying to somewhat adhere to that schedule so things aren’t all awkward for him with me being awake while he’s sleeping and all that – which shouldn’t be too hard to do – but I still wonder if I’ll be able to find the awake-time that I want to do things without feeling butt-exhausted.

So very tired of the feeling, I’ll tell you that much.

Everyone has friends, and no matter what people say, even if they think they don’t… they have friends.  They might not have the friends they want, but they’ve got people out there who care about them.

And then you’ve got your best friends, those people who you talk to every day if at all possible and can’t imagine your life without.  It’s like having a boyfriend or girlfriend without having the emotional ties of sex and such being put into it.  It’s not always ideal for some people – some people fall so stupidly in love with their best friends that it becomes difficult to function around them – but generally best friends are the exception to the statement that pops up every once in a while in everyone’s life of: I hate everyone, go away.

I have very few of these friends, and even when I need time alone I’ll try to work them into my schedule.  Three of them come to mind but names don’t need to be named because only one of them really reads this blog and he’ll know damn well he’s included.

What I’m getting at is the statement made in the picture in this post will always hold true to these people.  You’ve made your way inside of me – in a nonsexual way, hurdur – and are likely never to be rooted out.  I know none of the people mentioned really need that affirmation or reassurance, but it makes me feel better to let the world know, I guess.

You’re loved.  I love you.  I will always love you.  Don’t go away, please.

With my ever increasing insomnia, which isn’t at all helped by the fact that I have nothing to alleviate it, posts might get less and less interesting for a while.  Also, since some of my best ideas tend to come when I’m in that state between sleep and not sleep and flow like butter down a hot pan and disappear almost as quickly… it’s highly possible I might post reminders to myself from my tablet if it’s handy so I can make posts later on topics that seem interesting at the time.

I’ve learned, also, that posting small itty bitty things at night – like random thoughts in my head – is possible with my tablet and helps me keep up this idea of writing something every day.

As an aside, I’m still a bit amazed at how my fingers flow when I’m typing – this is how tired I am, these are the things that are amazing to me- and I’ve had this type of typing skill for a long, long time.  Homerow and quick typing is just… really weird, but also kind of a beautiful thing when your mind is in a state of disconnect and you start to understand just how amazing your brain is to be able to type with this sort of accuracy without even seeing the sequence of letters you’re typing because you’re looking at the screen.  The fact that I can, without trying anymore, remember all these keys and where they are kind of makes me wonder why it’s so hard to remember sequences of numbers larger than nine-ish.  My brain likes words more, I think.

I’m tired, forgive the annoyance of this post and take it for what it is: something to be written right now to get my mind from mushy state into something a little more coherent so I can stay up a bit before attempting to get sleep.  Because if I went to sleep right now I’d sleep well for a few hours and be up at 4 in the same state I was yesterday.  I hate my body sometimes.