zeptember

On December 13 I took a soma. I was hung over badly from it on the 14th and it affected me all day at work.

On December 14 I had a bad time, see last journal entry. Took NO soma.
Took 2 Lorazepam and went to bed. Woke up with usual early morning grogginess - not hungover. The drive to work was strange - no anxiety. No hurty stomach. No heart pains. No trouble breathing from stressing out. Thanks to Lorazepam before bed!

Went out for Mandatory Fun today. Didn’t spend a dime, but lost five hours of work. I have permission to make that up by working through my lunches next week. Wo0t!
Got back from Mandatory Fun and went manic when I got into my car and had time alone for the first time all day. This often happens after a social event. The babble started up badly. I was hitting the top of my head and smacking my legs. Good thing I’d remembered to pack the Lorazepam. I took one pill and it kicked in within 15 minutes. I had a nice silent ride home; No over-emotional near tears reactions to the news on the radio. No spontaneous babble or hitting or yelling out.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Also…Latest weight stuff
October 16 (starting weight): 154lbs (70kg)
October 23: 153lbs (69kg)
October 30: 152lbs (69kg)
November 6: No weigh-in due to george
November 13: Forgot to weigh in
November 20: 153lbs (69kg)
November 27: 152lbs (69kg)
December 4: 156lbs (71kg)
December 11: 153lbs (69kg)

(i.e. still plateaued in the low 150’s)

That is all.

I cry on average once a week, now. I’m not known to be a blubbering type of person. I’m more like a stone-faced hard-edged bitch. But since taking this job in October, my life has not improved. It’s merely gotten worse in other ways.

I get up at 5:30am. I leave by 6:45 and drive an hour to work. You know that much.
At work, I am chained to my seat wearing a headset for eight hours. I have a prompter to tell me how many calls are in queue and how long they’ve been waiting. I have an average of ten support emails in my inbox and that doesn’t include the replies that come in during the day to other tickets I’ve answered, or the emails that I have to send out to follow up on the call I just took. Then there’s the notepad that contains no fewer than eight escalated issues at a time throughout the week which I have to also keep checking back on.
Then they want me to try to market a service to customers while trying to troubleshoot their issues, and keep track of every sales pitch I’ve made. They want me to provide three leads per day to the sales team.

While I’m dealing with all of that, people are logging into the machine I’m working on so they can see what windows I have open and if I’m really working or not. And they’re monitoring my phone calls. This isn’t paranoia - it’s been told to me since day one that they regularly practice this. I’ve had some of my phone calls played back for me. I’ve had managers from other teams come over and try to coach me on a call they’d been listening to.

Then there’s the managers who will message me to ask why I’m taking so long to “disposition” a call, or who will message me to ask if I need help on a call because they see I’ve been logged onto the call for over 7 minutes.

They’re all very nice about it, and so it’s a total Big Brother call center.

At the end of the workday, I go outside and it’s already dark. My commute home is almost always an hour and a half with speeds averaging 30MPH stop and go on the freeway the entire way. This is when I become emotionally wrecked, because I can see out over the Bay. I can see how long a drive up it will be as I round the curve of the near-bottom of the Bay to get on the bridge.
I get home between 6:30 and 7pm. I have approximately three hours before bed to prepare tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch, wash dishes, do other chores, take a shower and get to bed. No wind-down time.

Since working at this job (it’s been two months this week), I have had one full nervous breakdown, weekly sobbing fits (or sitting as I did today on the way home from work silently crying as my throat and stomach tore itself apart), and suicidal ideation.

I have broken out on both temples and my chin - ZITS! - from all the anxiety and stress from this job and commute. Every single night I wake from a dream where I’ve been troubleshooting some hick’s website again.

I have only managed to save about $300 in two months time. I have not been able to begin paying my father or my boyfriend back the money I owe them, which totals over $2,000.

All my money goes into bills and credit card debt and groceries and gas and bridge toll and laundry.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and made good use of the health insurance I get through my boyfriend. I came home with soma and ibuprofen for my chronic back pain which dates back to my car accident in 1994, and lorazepam for my anxiety/depression.

I told my boyfriend a few weeks ago I’d get help. We’ll see if the meds help.

So after a hiatus of four years, I’m back on psych meds (the lorazepam). All because of the jobs I’ve had this year. I can’t take much more. I can’t. I’m not like my father who spent 35 years of his life working 18-hour days in a factory environment and never saw the sun. I’m not like other people who can just take the commute as pleasant quiet time. I’m not like those who can work through their job each day in a Big Brother environment and not feel put under a thumb and squished and untrusted and put on the spot.

I told myself when I got out of the horrid optometrist job that no matter what, I must love going back to tech support. I knew what I was getting into. I knew it had the potential to be as bad as excite@Home - the place where I pulled an Office Space.

And, well, by the middle of the first month on this new job, I was right. It can be a lot like @Home. Except as I said before, the people are all nice about the Big Brother crap.

Me? I’m just as revolted by it as I ever was. Just as bitter and sickened by it. Unwilling to conform. And I feel myself slipping every single day towards acting out on the job, which I have a total history of doing.

The agency I work for already knows I want to be reassigned to a place closer to home. Meanwhile, the company I’m assigned to has convinced a new person to come in on the 7am shift AND to move closer to work - he has a 55 mile one way commute - and he’s got a new place to move into next month. This has prompted the big boss to start asking me again if I’d be willing to move yet. My commute is 31 miles one way. He’s been asking me since my first week on the job if I am willing to move close to work yet.

This and my cube manager who also has a long commute (60 miles one way), tells us how she falls asleep at the wheel and got into a car accident because of it a few weeks ago. She also gets to work by 7am. Which means she gets up by no later than 4:00am.

And today when I whined about lack of hours this week due to a doctor appointment yesterday, even she asked me if I could possibly come in earlier in the morning as it would make my life so much better. But then she added a bit condescendingly, “but I know how you are about mornings.”

DUDE. I AM NOT GETTING UP AT GODDAMNED 4:30 IN THE FUCKING MORNING FOR YOU OR ANYONE ELSE.

I can’t believe these people willingly DO this shit.

They pay is not enough. I’m still in debt. The payoff will never be enough to cover my mental issues surrounding work.

Tonight my boyfriend is playing in concert over 45 miles away. I couldn’t be there because I had to prepare breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. His band goes on in the next half hour. I could have made it if I ran out the door by 8:45pm. But the prospect of driving the drive I do every day makes me want to vomit. But it would have been nice to see the guys. The lead singer of their band always gives me a charge. He’s probably as emotionally broken as I am, but he has the band as his outlet. I identify with the things he says and the way he looks out over the audience with a cold dare.

I have to be in bed by the time they go on. I must wake at 5:30am.
Five fucking thirty in the morning.

I can’t believe I allow myself to DO this shit.

I owe people money. Fuckit. I’ll always owe people money. This paying back thing will never happen. It just keeps piling up.

Oh and tomorrow is Mandatory Fun, so the team gets to go out to lunch and tour San Francisco. Since I’m a temporary employee, I don’t get paid for the time off work. But I’m expected to go and be part of the team.
I may rain on their parade and say I can’t join them tomorrow. They’ll lose money because they’ve got reservations. Not My Problem. It’s supposed to rain anyway, how can one tour the city when it’s supposed to be rainy and windy?

Time for more lorazepam, a nice hot shower, and bed.

The Grudge - Tool

Wear your grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip it to the lonesome end.
Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell.

Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip it to the lonesome end.
Saturn ascends, comes round again.
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done.

Wear your grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what you will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Wear the grudge like a crown. Desperate to control.
Unable to forgive. And we’re sinking deeper.

Defining, confining, sinking deeper. Controlling, defining, and we’re sinking deeper.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let’s you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone to
Consume you till you choose to let this go.
Choose to let this go.

Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor.
Give away the stone. Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.

Let go.

Last month I noticed the check I’d sent my nephew for his birthday back in September still hadn’t been cashed. I was pissed because I never even got a “thank you” call from my nephew (he’s 12 now) or my brother. To a lesser extent, I worried that the present never made it. But I know my brother better than that. I know the present made it and he just never called to thank me for it. But not cashing the check? What’s going on?

I began to leave messages asking if they’d gotten the birthday present. Still I heard nothing in reply.

I started to leave messages for my mom to ask my brother about the check and the book I also sent. Even she didn’t reply.

I began to get even more pissed off. That’s when my sister told me, “please don’t give up on them” (both of my nephews). She’s really good at nearly bringing me to tears upon reflecting on her words - in a positive way.
See, had I given up on her early on with all the bullshit I dealt with from her mom and succession of abusive stepfathers, what would have happened? But it was never a question of giving up on her. I’d adopted her as my little sister from an early age. She’s been my sister for 23 years now.

So why would I then turn around and get ready to throw in the towel for my nephews?
The difference is that with my sister, I could see her every day and see that she was rising above the shit she’d been dealt. With my nephews, I’m over 2500 miles away and powerless to the shit their parents raise them with (Authoritarian monitoring and Christian Fundamentalism).

My mom finally called me back last weekend and told me that my brother had in fact received the presents I’d sent for my nephew’s birthday, but he’d heard I was having financial difficulty, so he held off on cashing the check. I complained that this only makes things worse on me, because every month I have to remember to deduct that amount from my budget again because it’s still outstanding.
I called and left another message for my brother. Still nothing. I finally got updated cell phone numbers from my mom and so I called him again two days ago. This time he called right back.

He told me “I get a lot of mail trying to run this business on my own. I know we got the mail from you but I can’t remember where I put it.” I asked why he wouldn’t give his son a birthday present right then and there, but my brother didn’t answer that question. I know why - everything I send has to be carefully screened before he allows his sons to have it because I am not trustworthy as a non-Christian.

Aside from the check and my brother thinking he was being so nice to me in not cashing it, he also didn’t give his son a book I sent. This is the second time in two years that he’s done that. The first time, I’d heard that my nephew had a 10th grade reading level at the age of ten. I discussed reading material with my brother and he encouraged me to send fiction books that tenth graders read in school. I scoured teachers’ recommended reading lists and found two books I thought would appeal to my nephew. I sent them for his birthday and didn’t hear a word back.

Weeks passed with me trying to get in touch with my brother even back then. When I finally got in touch with him, he admitted that he’d screened the books and denied his son those gifts because one of the books contained the word “bitch”.
I asked why he couldn’t have told me this - why he couldn’t have even returned the books to me or anything. He laughed! I never got the fucking books back and my nephew was out a birthday gift for his tenth birthday, too.

Early this year, I’d contemplated sending my old National Geographic magazines to my nephews because I figured they were getting too old for the kid’s version of the magazine (age 11 and 7 at the time).
My brother replied that I could go ahead and send the magazines and he’d just tear out any pages that didn’t pass his screening!!!!!!!!
You know this includes anything relating to evolution! Which is what a lot of National Geo is about.

That brings us up to this year’s birthday. The book issue I had with my brother this time? It was written by a kid my nephew’s very age. I suspect that the fact that the kid wrote about adventures with dragons and mystical powers is the reason that my nephew was denied the book, because those things are deemed Satanic. I set myself up for anger in that regard.

Why do I even keep trying? That thought has had me down for over a month now.

And then to top it all off, while I was on the phone with my brother two days ago over this latest incident, I heard them repeatedly telling the youngest nephew to “beat it” and “get out of my face”. He’d tried to listen in by getting close to his dad when he realised his dad was on the phone with me. In the past, both of my nephews loved talking to me and telling me what they wanted for birthdays and Christmas.
Finally, I heard my brother’s wife exclaim, “Go away! Can’t you see your dad’s trying to talk to his sister?”

his sister??

Since when did I become “your dad’s sister” over “your aunt”???

What the fuck did I do?

Is it because I’m not around, living over 2500 miles away and not able to visit home in 3 years? Am I that easily written off?

When our first cousin died in 2004, I’d called my brother to talk about it. He was so cold and bitter. He didn’t even care. I exclaimed that this was our family, and at one time we’d all been very close. He bitched about “what have they done for me?” He went on to say that that side of the family has not cared to keep in touch with him for years, so why should HE bother to keep in touch with THEM?

That’s what makes me different from my brother. I keep in touch to this day with some of that family (the Appalachian side, it’s always them). I don’t know why I can’t let go of them when most of the time spent is with being angry or bitter with them.
Well, I’ve speculated as to the reasons…

Anyway, is that how I’ve become now in my brother’s eyes? The whole “you’re not here, you don’t keep in touch enough, and you haven’t done anything for me” story?

You know, I’ve never been allowed access to my nephews, even when I did live in Michigan. I’ve never taken them out for a stroller walk when they were infants, nor have I taken them shopping or to a movie or to a park. I wasn’t allowed and excuses were given each time I offered to babysit or take the kids for a few hours.

All because I’m not Christian.

So I go on thinking, “this may be the last year I stay in touch.”

And then my sister’s words come back to beg me.

And then I think of my brother’s harsh words.

And then I think, my sister has two kids. She and her family are my family. Why do I need my blood brother and his kids?

And then my sister’s words come back to beg me.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

One good thing came from that phone call, though. When I was inquiring as to what is appropriate to send for Christmas, my brother replied “gift cards”. I asked what sort of gift cards and he replied “Toys R Us or game stores”.

I heard my youngest nephew in the background say in his adorable elfin voice, game store.

Done, then. The kids are who matter, and they’ve spoken. I’m listening.

What breaks my heart is that they don’t know I’m listening.

THAT’S my whole problem. I’m afraid I can’t save them from the Fundamentalist hell I grew up in - the same hell they now grow up in. The oldest nephew has protested since age eight over the harsh Christian restrictions imposed upon him - he can’t even read Harry Potter.

And isn’t it ironic?

Fundamentalists are all about forcible saving of souls for their god.

And I’m trying to save them from that aweful “salvation”.

Ok, I admit it. I’ve been following an emotional local news story for nearly a week now. You can start at the beginning by clicking on the last link on that page in the box titled “Missing SF Family”.

My feeling the morning before they found his body was of dread. Once I found out the guy didn’t make it, I was at first devastated, and then by the end of the day PISSED OFF.

I was pissed off because he was an executive for a tech company for crissakes and yet he had no cell phone or fortitude to check various maps and road conditions and the long range weather forecast?

But I say this with the full knowledge that I could have done the same idiotic thing, even though I myself am also a tech worker.

Therefore it is because of this guy that I will pack food in my car along with the sleeping bags and first aid kits that I already have in my car all the time. And I need a cell phone again, too.

We as humans in “civilised settings” need to acknowledge that we have forgotten how to survive in the wild. Then we need to brush up on survival skills.

That is why I was so mad. Mad at him for being so impatient as to turn off on a mountain highway that had signs stating that roads were closed in the winter. Mad at putting his family in danger for a shorter route he hadn’t researched ahead of time.

But I could have made the same mistake. So from him I learn.
But it still doesn’t stop me from feeling sad and mad. And I didn’t even know the guy. How crazy and emotional (emo) is that?