Sleeeeeep

It's a long-established fact that I don't function well when I'm tired. I don't run at full capacity, my attention span shrinks and my patience diminishes. It makes little things considerably more irritating than they normally would be. I find myself snapping at objects, events and people, which simply isn't me. It often scares me quite how much it effects my judgement and personality.

I've spent much of the past three years keeping my sleep patterns in order, to the extent that I'd wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, not tired or yawning or stretching but up and at 'em and ready to go. At the start, when I first realised how rested I was feeling, I was amazed at the difference it made to my whole existence. My brain felt like it was running at full speed, the world seemed more colourful and I felt much more capable of dealing with the stuff day-to-day life throws at us.

For one reason or another, for the past two months my sleep has been broken or shorter than it should be, and this has had a massive effect on my mood. Stress at work has compounded this, and occasionally I feel like a seething mass of shit and growling. I know it's steadily been getting worse for the past couple of months, actually since I found out we were getting this new flat, but yesterday it was brought to my attention in a novel way.

I took a day off work yesterday to keep an appointment with a BT engineer who was coming between 8am and 1pm to activate my line and broadband in the flat. I have a houseguest at the moment and we spent the morning relaxing and enjoying each other's company, waiting for the engineer to turn up. Midday rolled around and I started getting irritable; I knew it was unlikely they'd arrive now. I started getting more and more anxious and tetchy, standing at the flat window watching the building site to distract me from my increasing anger.

This is not the first time BT have fucked me about. I'm not going into detail here but it's fair to say that the corporation itself are massive, massive cunts. It was their fuckup, their mistake, their blatant lie to cover their tracks and I know I was justified in being annoyed with them. Normally I'd be happy to let the anger flow, but I was aware how uncomfortable my guest was getting and tried to stay calm for their sake.

I fundamentally dislike letting my dark moods effect other people. Not that it happens often but it's usually daughter, bless her, who's the only one around and sometimes takes the flak from my frustrations. Yesterday I could see the effect my mood was having on my guest and it bothered me greatly to see her uncomfortable around me, to the extent that I actually left the room at one point so she didn't witness my blunt and forthright attempts to squeeze two day's missed wages out of poor Sonya at BT's call centre in the Phillipines.

Later in the evening, we ordered a huge batch of Chinese food and a cab to pick it up and deliver it to us. I sat at my desk gradually getting more and more hungry, eventually realising it was twenty minutes late. I called the cab office - my colleagues, my workmates, the Mickey-Mouse-piece-of-shit motherfuckers I work with to chase my order. "No one knows where you live." LIKE FUCK! Goddamn it that pissed me off, can you tell? Why not call me, why not ask all the drivers where I live? At least seven or eight drivers have dropped me off at home in the past two months! ARGH!

Anyway, after the phone call I had to get out of the house and calm down. The day's stresses had taken their toll and I found myself bubbling up under the surface. I put on my coat and hat and stomped out of the flat like a petulant child to wait by the front door for this useless cab driver. Grrrr. Still pissed off about this, how can I let it go? I'll work on that later.

The food turned up, I growled at the driver, gave him his money and went upstairs to get fed. We dished up, laughed at Scrubs and ate lovely lovely food; I had a happy daughter, happy guest and ultimately a happy me.

I'm aware, though, that I'd acted somewhat irrationally and outside my comfort zone, and definitely made my guest feel uncomfortable. We talked about it because we're good friends and we share this kind of stuff; she has good reasons for her reaction, she expressed feeling useless because she couldn't do anything about my mood and uncomfortable because some members of her family let their anger loose and sometimes she's caught up in it. I feel in future I should put some distance between my anger and other people because it's a volatile emotion and one that causes srong reactions in some people. For example, I was visiting some friends - a couple - last year and they had a heated debate about something I considered insignificant but was obviously important enough to them to warrant shouting at each other about... Actually, I think that disagreement was on top of other frustrations they had or hadn't discussed... Anyway, my point is that while they were arguing I felt very uncomfortable, reverting back to a little boy, less than ten years old, scared and frightened by his parent's shouting, swearing and slamming. So I know how easy it is to revert to old personalities or coping strategies when confronted with actions or emotions which make you feel bad. I can definitely relate to that. I'd like to talk to her further about this, actually, as it seems we have similar reactions to similar situations.

The point of this post, though, is to reflect on the fact that when I'm properly rested I act much more rationally and with less emotional reactivity as I do when I'm tired and worn out. This is a big hint to get my arse to bed at more reasonable times, to make sure I get proper rest and solid sleep, to nap when I feel I should and catch up on all the sleep I've missed over the past three months. At least then I can trust my brain to make sound decisions, to emote appropriately and to keep my affairs in order so everyone around me can lead better lives.

Streeeessss

So work is shit, as ever. How many of these posts are about work being shit? How many of them profess a desire to get the fuck out of here, to apply myself more, to get something that makes me feel valued and where I'm paid what I'm worth, somewhere I can be proud of what I achieve on each shift, somewhere I don't dread getting out of bed for and watch the clock until it's time to leave every single day.

How many of my posts say that? Too many. It makes me wonder what the issue is with me actually getting off my arse and doing something about it.

I don't know what I want to do
and doing anything at all takes me out of my comfort zone and into the big unknown world. I need a job that fires up my brain and excites me and fulfils me and makes me want to get up in the morning and go achieve shit. I want to be motivated, I want to be successful, I want to make a difference. Ultimately I'll get there, and I want to work harder on getting the charity moving this year so there's momentum there. It fulfils me so much that I want to make it a bigger part of my life, but at the same time I must earn a wage and for that to happen I need to be out working. The charity will unlikely ever be worth much financially, but it has so many other benefits that its currency will be self-esteem, making a difference, helping people and making lives a percentage better.

Working out what I want to do is key. I need to sit down with a pen and paper and go through industries and jobs and careers and see where I want to take myself. The world is still there waiting for me to make a difference, and I'm lucky to have the choice. I wonder why it doesn't fundamentally feel that way though.

I've fucked a few jobs up in my time
due to self-destructive depression, lack of focus and self-worth. This is all behind me now but I'm terrified of getting a job I like and messing it up again. I know the likelihood of this is low because I'm self-aware and… hang on, I know why I have an issue with this in particular. It's because I know I was judged last time I fucked a job up. My brother recommended me to my old boss, I let him and everyone in the company down and I know my brother judged me for it. I found an email from that period while going through my stuff recently; it was from my brother after I'd confessed my situation to my boss, lord knows why I printed it but it basically said "I don't understand depression, to me it seems like something doctors say you've got then you start believing it" and demeaned my experience. His judgement hurts because he's successful and driven and well-off and doesn't ever seem to have put a foot wrong. He's smart and on-the-case yet his empathy for my feelings and state of mind in the past have been absolutely zero. Part of my fear is that if try again and fail he'll judge me again – and he will – but what I have to ask myself is whether his judgement should bother me at all and, if so, whether my current situation could be judged less worthwhile than trying again and failing.

I'm not totally sure I'm worth more
despite all the work I've been doing on myself to improve my self-esteem, despite renewed confidence in myself as a person and my abilities as a parent, employee, partner and human being. I still doubt myself and my abilities. I put this down somewhat to having sat in this stinking job for the past three years and not learning any new skills. I know my brain isn't as sharp as it once was, simply because I cannot just pick up my guitar and learn a new song any more. I don't remember fluid chord patterns any more, lyrics don't stick in my head like they used to and my ability to write beats and melodies has dwindled simply because I'm not using those skills. I know this is just one area but I fear it reflects my whole brain and that I'm less capable of learning things than I once was. I'd put this down to age but I know that's bullshit and an excuse: it's simply because I'm out of practice and haven't been using the learning part of my brain for so long. I used to be shit-hot, on-the-case and know my stuff, I was dynamic and logical and someone people turned to, to get stuff sorted. Now I'm none of those things and I doubt my ability to get there again.

I need to get my brain back into gear. How the fuck do I do that? I guess I need training, get into some workshops or courses or anything to get my brain back to running speed. It's like an old engine I guess, it'll take a while to get going, maybe it'll need some oil or a little adjustment to get it turning over, but once it does it'll run for ages.

There's a lot more to talk about, but I'm finding it difficult to express it. I need to sit and talk to someone about it really. Each one of these past posts ends with "So now I'm motivated to go and do something about it." Despite going through things again above, I still wonder if that's really true this time.
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