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My latest breakdown
Oct. 28th, 2016 12:17 amI've been feeling generally and consistently better lately. My anxiety seemed pretty under control. I was feeling some depression, which came as a surprise to me, but it was managable. I was starting to figure out where that was coming from and how to get a handle on it consciously, like I have with the anxiety. I was starting to feel like the primary source of stress in my life was connected to a feeling that I'm not contributing as much as I should, or in the ways that I should, to my partnership with Danae. Along with that, I felt stress from not having an income and money of my own to feel okay spending on gas for trips to see friends, or saving for the long bike trips that I want to do. Taking all of that into account, I decided that it was a good time to seek a job.
Erik had suggested in the past that I work for the company he works for; they photograph newborn babies in hospitals. It would be better than sitting in an office. It used a number of skills I already have. Erik offered to lend me the appropriate equipment, walk me through the process, and make sure his manager knew he was referring me. I'd expressed in the past that I wasn't ready to do this yet, but I contacted him last week and let him know that I'd decided this would be a great opportunity for me. I met him at his place on Sunday to talk about it and was excited and hopeful.
Some of the job made me anxious. Beyond just being anxious about time and dealing with people that I would feel about any job, there were a few aspects that were particularly concerning. There was a slight sales-persony aspect to it, as well as explaining why people ought to let me come into their maternity room and position them and their baby around for photos. I was nervous, but it seemed manageable. I'd probably get used to it as I did it. When I first started in tech support, I was nearly terrified of talking to people on the phone. But it's what I needed to do and I did it. I still hate it, but I can do it.
I was going to need a portfolio to apply for the job. That's where things seemed to start coming apart for me. I don't really photograph people. Honestly, I don't really find them visually interesting. Some of my portfolio could be dogs; I have a lot of great photos of working therapy dogs, and that's a bit like photographing people and babies. But I also needed some pictures of kids and infants and things.
Erik offered to connect me with his nieces for some photos. Other friends kindly consented to let me photograph their baby, and to contact people they knew with babies. Danae asked some of the people in her school program about photographing their babies. I had a number of possible babies to photograph. The more I tried to plan doing so, the more terrified I became, and the more things began to terrify me.
A lot of it centered on obligation. I hate trying to schedule other people's time to fit me. I hate it so deeply. I hate being an imposition. I hate telling people when they have to do things. A couple people I could have photographed were in the same general area, an hour or so away. I thought I'd schedule seeing both of them in one trip, but then I couldn't. One person at a time I can manage; I just go when it's a good time for them. But two people? I just can't do it in a way that doesn't feel like I'm forcing them to juggle their lives for my convenience. They're already doing me a favor; how dare I make them do it on my own terms and my own time?
More of it centered on feelings of incompetence. I don't know how to photograph babies. I imagined myself showing up and having no idea what to do. Taking random pictures that turned out useless. Looking at this baby or toddler who I'm supposed to wrap or dress or pose and just freezing up, having no idea what to do. I don't even know how to work with adults for posed pictures. I guess babies seemed a little more manageable; as Erik said, they don't really do much. But kids and parents and trying to work with them...it makes me feel a little like I felt when I was a facilitator for a study group for an anthro class in undergrad. I felt like I was just faking it, and someone was going to find out. Or worse, I'd do something wrong and no one would realize it and I'd have messed up their education / kid's photos.
Those things teamed up to make me spiral a long way down through most of the week. I spent some hours those days sometimes crying on the couch next to Danae, or eating lots of sweets and cuddling the dog, or sleeping.
Other fears and worries that live down in that abyss took the opportunity to sidle up to me while I was visiting. Though I was incapable of taking good baby and kid photos (I believed), people were expecting me to come do just that. It was a no-win scenario; it was impossible to meet people's expectations of me.
I was going to let people down in other, more important, ways too. Danae, who I'd told I was going to apply for this job and contribute to our finances. And especially Erik, who had taken so much time and effort to tell me and teach me, and who had recommended me to his manager. It felt just like the situation with Syracuse, where people had recommended me and I hadn't worked out. I was going to fail Erik like I'd failed them. Thinking about all these things was giving me a panic attack, and I withdrew into sleep and zoning out on the couch.
In our Thursday session, my therapist reminded me of breathing exercises and thought-stopping techniques as I explained what was going on and my breathing accelerated and my sentences became less coherent. I've been reminding myself of that since, and have been keeping better control. But more irrational fears and confusions came out in that talk, and in talking with Danae about it all. Those added to the fears and worries that already existed, though I at least seem to be able to approach them in a more stable frame of mind.
One of those new fears came out as I talked about my fear of disappointing Erik after he invested time, effort, and equipment in my success. Both Danae and my therapist suggested that, just maybe, he did that not because he expected something out of me, but because he likes me, enjoys spending time with me, and wants to help me?
I hadn't thought explicitly about his motivations before, and it confused me. It also reminded me of my interactions with one of my ex-wife's boyfriends. Maybe that's because I had some kind of nebulously-intimate relationship with Erik last Summer when he expressed that he had a crush on me and we got together for a few visits for photography, dog park visits, thrifting, and one session of impact play. Since then, I guess I haven't known how to deal with interacting with him, because I can't figure out how I feel about him. I think that once dating or play or sex are on the table, it kind of breaks my brain. My ex's boyfriend once told me that he loved me. My immediate reaction was confusion and worry. It didn't make any sense. How could he feel that way when our relationship was so strained, and when I didn't feel like I really knew him that well? When Danae and my therapist suggested that Erik just liked me and wanted to spend time with me, I felt that same sort of confusion. Why would he like me that much when I still feel so awkward and uncertain around him?
If Erik likes me and wants to spend time with me, there's nothing wrong with that. If he feels like he knows me and likes me that well, it's really nice. I think if it wasn't someone I've had such confusing and distressing experiences with (through, I will emphasize, no fault of his own), maybe I'd feel the same way. But my brain just seems to be broken around this. It makes me sad and angry. It's been six years or so since I had a new sexual partner, and that was Lisa who I'd already known for most of a decade by that point and actually felt comfortable around her. It was also one of the more positive and encouraging times in my life, when I'd just broken up with my ex and was living on my own in Chicago. It's been longer than that that I've wanted to be a part of the poly and/or kink communities and have been longing for play partners to share mutual care and respect with. Reading poly or kink advice often makes me sad or angry because so much of it seems obvious. I think I'd avoid most of the pitfalls that people talk about. Rationally, I think I'd be a really good partner or playmate. But I'm just, for lack of a better way to describe it, emotionally broken when it comes to trying to figure out how to approach any of it at all.
And that seems like an awfully tenuous tangent to connect to panic attacks about a potential job, but either that just goes to show how far afield my brain goes when I'm in a bad space, or that these things are in fact all connected, or both. I want to address this relationship stuff in therapy, but I feel like there's other more important stuff. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe I should send my post here to my therapist and see what she thinks. Sometimes I wonder whether I'll need to consider a therapist who specifically works with relationship and sex issues, at some point. I dunno.
Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat better. Enough to be functional, but not enough to actually contact people and explain what's going on. I want to try to do that soon. I want to, but I don't know whether I will.
Erik had suggested in the past that I work for the company he works for; they photograph newborn babies in hospitals. It would be better than sitting in an office. It used a number of skills I already have. Erik offered to lend me the appropriate equipment, walk me through the process, and make sure his manager knew he was referring me. I'd expressed in the past that I wasn't ready to do this yet, but I contacted him last week and let him know that I'd decided this would be a great opportunity for me. I met him at his place on Sunday to talk about it and was excited and hopeful.
Some of the job made me anxious. Beyond just being anxious about time and dealing with people that I would feel about any job, there were a few aspects that were particularly concerning. There was a slight sales-persony aspect to it, as well as explaining why people ought to let me come into their maternity room and position them and their baby around for photos. I was nervous, but it seemed manageable. I'd probably get used to it as I did it. When I first started in tech support, I was nearly terrified of talking to people on the phone. But it's what I needed to do and I did it. I still hate it, but I can do it.
I was going to need a portfolio to apply for the job. That's where things seemed to start coming apart for me. I don't really photograph people. Honestly, I don't really find them visually interesting. Some of my portfolio could be dogs; I have a lot of great photos of working therapy dogs, and that's a bit like photographing people and babies. But I also needed some pictures of kids and infants and things.
Erik offered to connect me with his nieces for some photos. Other friends kindly consented to let me photograph their baby, and to contact people they knew with babies. Danae asked some of the people in her school program about photographing their babies. I had a number of possible babies to photograph. The more I tried to plan doing so, the more terrified I became, and the more things began to terrify me.
A lot of it centered on obligation. I hate trying to schedule other people's time to fit me. I hate it so deeply. I hate being an imposition. I hate telling people when they have to do things. A couple people I could have photographed were in the same general area, an hour or so away. I thought I'd schedule seeing both of them in one trip, but then I couldn't. One person at a time I can manage; I just go when it's a good time for them. But two people? I just can't do it in a way that doesn't feel like I'm forcing them to juggle their lives for my convenience. They're already doing me a favor; how dare I make them do it on my own terms and my own time?
More of it centered on feelings of incompetence. I don't know how to photograph babies. I imagined myself showing up and having no idea what to do. Taking random pictures that turned out useless. Looking at this baby or toddler who I'm supposed to wrap or dress or pose and just freezing up, having no idea what to do. I don't even know how to work with adults for posed pictures. I guess babies seemed a little more manageable; as Erik said, they don't really do much. But kids and parents and trying to work with them...it makes me feel a little like I felt when I was a facilitator for a study group for an anthro class in undergrad. I felt like I was just faking it, and someone was going to find out. Or worse, I'd do something wrong and no one would realize it and I'd have messed up their education / kid's photos.
Those things teamed up to make me spiral a long way down through most of the week. I spent some hours those days sometimes crying on the couch next to Danae, or eating lots of sweets and cuddling the dog, or sleeping.
Other fears and worries that live down in that abyss took the opportunity to sidle up to me while I was visiting. Though I was incapable of taking good baby and kid photos (I believed), people were expecting me to come do just that. It was a no-win scenario; it was impossible to meet people's expectations of me.
I was going to let people down in other, more important, ways too. Danae, who I'd told I was going to apply for this job and contribute to our finances. And especially Erik, who had taken so much time and effort to tell me and teach me, and who had recommended me to his manager. It felt just like the situation with Syracuse, where people had recommended me and I hadn't worked out. I was going to fail Erik like I'd failed them. Thinking about all these things was giving me a panic attack, and I withdrew into sleep and zoning out on the couch.
In our Thursday session, my therapist reminded me of breathing exercises and thought-stopping techniques as I explained what was going on and my breathing accelerated and my sentences became less coherent. I've been reminding myself of that since, and have been keeping better control. But more irrational fears and confusions came out in that talk, and in talking with Danae about it all. Those added to the fears and worries that already existed, though I at least seem to be able to approach them in a more stable frame of mind.
One of those new fears came out as I talked about my fear of disappointing Erik after he invested time, effort, and equipment in my success. Both Danae and my therapist suggested that, just maybe, he did that not because he expected something out of me, but because he likes me, enjoys spending time with me, and wants to help me?
I hadn't thought explicitly about his motivations before, and it confused me. It also reminded me of my interactions with one of my ex-wife's boyfriends. Maybe that's because I had some kind of nebulously-intimate relationship with Erik last Summer when he expressed that he had a crush on me and we got together for a few visits for photography, dog park visits, thrifting, and one session of impact play. Since then, I guess I haven't known how to deal with interacting with him, because I can't figure out how I feel about him. I think that once dating or play or sex are on the table, it kind of breaks my brain. My ex's boyfriend once told me that he loved me. My immediate reaction was confusion and worry. It didn't make any sense. How could he feel that way when our relationship was so strained, and when I didn't feel like I really knew him that well? When Danae and my therapist suggested that Erik just liked me and wanted to spend time with me, I felt that same sort of confusion. Why would he like me that much when I still feel so awkward and uncertain around him?
If Erik likes me and wants to spend time with me, there's nothing wrong with that. If he feels like he knows me and likes me that well, it's really nice. I think if it wasn't someone I've had such confusing and distressing experiences with (through, I will emphasize, no fault of his own), maybe I'd feel the same way. But my brain just seems to be broken around this. It makes me sad and angry. It's been six years or so since I had a new sexual partner, and that was Lisa who I'd already known for most of a decade by that point and actually felt comfortable around her. It was also one of the more positive and encouraging times in my life, when I'd just broken up with my ex and was living on my own in Chicago. It's been longer than that that I've wanted to be a part of the poly and/or kink communities and have been longing for play partners to share mutual care and respect with. Reading poly or kink advice often makes me sad or angry because so much of it seems obvious. I think I'd avoid most of the pitfalls that people talk about. Rationally, I think I'd be a really good partner or playmate. But I'm just, for lack of a better way to describe it, emotionally broken when it comes to trying to figure out how to approach any of it at all.
And that seems like an awfully tenuous tangent to connect to panic attacks about a potential job, but either that just goes to show how far afield my brain goes when I'm in a bad space, or that these things are in fact all connected, or both. I want to address this relationship stuff in therapy, but I feel like there's other more important stuff. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe I should send my post here to my therapist and see what she thinks. Sometimes I wonder whether I'll need to consider a therapist who specifically works with relationship and sex issues, at some point. I dunno.
Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat better. Enough to be functional, but not enough to actually contact people and explain what's going on. I want to try to do that soon. I want to, but I don't know whether I will.
