Journal Entries
Angst again
Posted Mar 4, 2012
Ruined another weekend for DT by writing this..
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Latest reply: Mar 4, 2012
Angst again
Posted Mar 3, 2012
So.
After years of bullying my interpersonal skills are somewhat rusty. I'm not good at making friends and I'm very not good at allowing people in close.
Recently it's also occurred to me that I have abandonment issues as my biological father has been absent all my life and my lovely dad has taken a little time to get to that stage.
Being an expat seems to exacerbate these feelings. Although I'm the one that left, nearly ten years ago now(!), I have made (every?) effort to keep in touch and not be forgotten. I visit usually twice a year and call, send christmas cards and presents when appropriate. We don't do birthday cards in Iceland so I don't send those and I don't expect those in return either.
But I rarely get phonecalls and any extended family ignore christmas cards and birthdays. The only visitors we've had have been my mum and dad and three siblings, as well as my late gran.
From Iceland I have one friend. Se doesn't call, she doesn't write and she certainly doesn't visit. She has been my closest friend since 1998. She's single, childless, professional, and as harsh as it might be of me, I think she has no excuse. Now, we talk occasionally on Facebook(!) and whenever I go over she is who I prioritise spending time with over almost everyone else..
In the UK I now have a few friends. Mostly joint friends that have become 'ours' and acquaintances from school or work where I am rubbish at keeping in touch and being approachable because I still have my little damaged bits. But I did manage to make one best friend who I thought would always be there.
Except her life has taken an inexpected turn and in a month she is moving away. I'm trying really hard to be positive and supportive and happy for her but here I can admit that I'm struggling. I'm angry, to be honest. Which is when I finally twigged I might have abandonment issues (!)
So we've planned to meet up for one last girly outing next weekend (part of me trying) but the inner child now wants to cancel and to be brutally honest, wants nothing more to do with her. I am one of those women that finds it very difficult to share it if someone hurts my feelings because I don't want to hurt anyone elses feelings (!) and so I tend to laugh it off and shrug it off and minimise it to people. But the inner child wants to cut her off and punish her for leaving me. Even though she's not leaving me, more just moving on with her life as people do (and like I did when I moved to the UK) I feel hurt.
Except the rational part of me knows she's a friend, not my partner. She's allowed to make her own decisions and her life os her own. So I try not to feel hurt or left behind or lonely. Which isn't entirely working and I can't quite explain this to anyone face to face. The side effect of this is that I'm withdrawing from other people, like DT. I can feel myself doing it but seem unable to stop it.
Part of me is thinking I'd like to be single, I'd like to move back to Iceland, that I don't want to have kids in case I'd end up putting them in the position of being / feeling abandoned too. I feel depressed (which is something I know from experience is temporary and will pass) which I hate, as well as feeling slightly self-destructive, which is something that I know DT will have very little truck with.
I have no intention of doing anything along those lines because I know what's going on and I'm calm and rational and have been there before. I'm angry that these issues keep cropping up and I keep getting blind-sided by them.
I'm also angry that after 34 years and both my parents being professionals in the area, I may be a borderline, high-functioning, undiagnosed Aspie. Which I'm mainly ignoring as I have enough health things going on with brittle bones, oral allergy syndrome and recurring depression. Even if (very borderline) Aspbergers would explain a lot of stuff about my social skills and some other stuff.
I have no idea what to do later this year once I've graduated and I feel frightened. The vague future plan is to build an extension to our little house and have a kid or two. However, those aren't overnight things and in the meantime, I'm stumped. I haven't exactly had my confidence buoyed by the university experience and so I feel just as or more unemployable than before I started. I certainly don't feel like I'll go out and get a job in my new industry which makes the idea of a masters programme feel like a necessity, even if I'm also scared of attempting more in an educational setting.
DT is as supportive as it is humanly possible to be. I feel like such a horrible partner, needing more support from him on top of everything else he's already doing for me. And I know that it's the depression talking/thinking that makes me spiral down and question every single choice I've ever made.
I know I don't actually want to live in Iceland. I just want to feel remembered by family. I know I love DT with all my being and to be without him would be the stupidest thing ever. I know I can get a job, if not my dream job. I know our plans for our house and family will happen, eventually, even if it won't be in my preferred order. I know I will make other friends eventually if I can be brave enough to try it again.
I also know my friend from Iceland will never visit. I know I will lose touch with my friend who is moving away. I will never get christmas cards from my extended family. I will never get regular calls from my parents or my siblings.
My kid(s) won't speak icelandic properly. They won't properly know their extended families there. My mother will not approve, but neither will she make more of an effort.
I feel lost. I'm (strongly) considering going to see the counsellor I saw at college when I had the tumour stuff going on. I think I will still feel lost.
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Latest reply: Mar 3, 2012
That's better
Posted Nov 7, 2011
Right. Will need to have a look around this new place but what a relief it is to be back somewhere familiar!
Facebook is driving me crazy at the moment and I feel further removed from my RL and OL friends than ever before. I joined Twitter mainly so I could communicate with the DancingTree as he can't stand FB and for old times sake I quite like communicating with him online but he rarely sees my tweets and rarely responds.
As I'm in my final year at school I should really rather be cracking on with it and some days / some projects I do. Other days / other projects stall until the deadlines start to approach the speed of sound whooshing towards me.
I've gone from doing as much weightlifting as I could, just to see what I could do, to fantasising about long runs, just to see what I can do. GP basically said I had a choice of running or weightlifting as my knees don't like doing both and I chose running.
Starting to think about Next Year and moving on from what I call the holding pattern. DT disagrees and says our lives have continued while I've been at Uni, which is true, but any big planning or decision making has all been put on hold. Mostly I'm scared and have no plan, other than fantasising about impossibilities.
How are you all? Finding your way around here alright? Your lives all OK? Seen any good films? Read any good books? Heard any great music? Had any epiphanies?
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Latest reply: Nov 7, 2011
Anger Management
Posted Aug 31, 2010
So. Looking back over previous entries and blog posts, this isn't really a surprise.
I'm angry a lot. No particular reason necessarily, just angry. Today is a good example: had a nice lie in after a late night with DT, easy breakfast & lunch, read a bit, pottered a bit, planning a gym trip later with a swing towards groceries at some point. Fairly nice, calm day, really, by most people's standards.
But I'm sitting here, completely irrationally angry. I'm not taking it out on anyone, I'm not shouting or swearing or slamming doors. I'm not angry with anyone in my life and nobody deserves to be shouted at for no reason.
The odd thing is, until a random conversation with the school therapist year before last, I never realised I was this way, that I had this irrational anger, which although I can control it, certainly colours my days a bit.
Have had lots of nasty stuff happen. Have survived, mainly unscathed. Just residually angry.
So how to manage it? What to do about it? Yoga helps. Kickboxing helps. Exercise helps. Other people don't generally help, even DT. Even dog doesn't really help. Observing that I am angry for no reason helps a little, mainly because then I feel silly on top of angry, which is very difficult to maintain.
And I can't cope with getting angry - I do the typically girly thing and cry if I am legitimately angry at someone and have to discuss it in any way, leading people to think you're either a wuss or a complete lunatic, crying instead of shouting, shutting down instead of tearing someone a new one..
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Latest reply: Aug 31, 2010
Things that make you go Grrr
Posted Jan 16, 2010
Last year was spent in something of a drug & hormonal daze. Also, with my blood pressure through the roof as it was, I didn't really have any energy left over, even if I'd had some brain power.
So instead of getting worked up about things that were unfair, illogical, badly handled, stupid, wrong, mean or anything else I don't like, I just kind of took it on the chin, shrugged it off and carried on going. All my energy was concentrating on managing myself, I didn't want to take on the world too.
(It might help at this point for you to know that my other life prior to Uni was spent as a fairly hard-core, high-flyin' PA. I've worked for some big companies and I've worked for some high level people. Basically I used to run their lives - and I was good at it.)
Now that I'm cured of the high BP, my hormones are fixed and normal and I'm not on any drugs, the old urge to fix things that aren't right is reappearing. The problem with that is that last year I was kind of happier, concentrating on my own little patch of stuff. Tilting at windmills is tiring, frustrating and ultimately, few things will improve.
At the moment I'm writing my final report for the first semester at Uni. The same brief has been issued to the 3rd years and to us, the 1st years. This feel a lot like setting us up for failure, although I'm assuming we will be assessed on a different level to them. There are no 2nd years to be assessed. (and that little fact is a story in itself)
My Uni is an Arts Uni. It's not academic in the common sense. There's a huge emphasis on hands on experience and we're learning a lot of stuff (like MIG welding, lathe-ing plaster, laser cutting and so on), some of which is immediately useful and other stuff which isn't at all at this point.
This is a small course - there are only 9 of us in the 1st year. Our teacher is also the head of department for our course and the much much larger 3DD department which includes glass work, ceramics, metal work and jewellery, with many more students in each of those.
Our teacher is very busy (and somewhat disorganised - my PA muscles are twitching) and as he is our only regular teacher, this usually means his time with us is cut short. On average we're supposed to have 6 hours with him a week, split over two days. We often only get one day out of those, i.e. 3 hours a week. This is our ONLY teaching some weeks. There have been no formal lessons or lectures, no discussions about parameters for things (stuff like knowing furniture is designed differently in the US to Europe to Asia - often due to average population height / size), or which materials are suitable for which sort of usage or their load bearing features or tensile strength.
I know we're in Yr 1, but somehow I would expect there to be some discussion of this seeing as how we are supposed to include it in our project reports!
Also, there have been several projects that have been cancelled and nothing has replaced them. We were supposed to do a 'flat pack' project in November - cancelled. We were supposed to have a week of learning how to build scale models - cancelled.
Our projects are due in on Tuesday, except our teacher has double booked himself, so he's asked us to bring everything in the following week instead. In effect, we've been given an extension, except we've not seen him since December and won't until the day of the assessment.
He is frequently late or doesn't show up - but when he's there he is hugely generous with his time. He is a brilliant designer and has worked for some really cool companies and he is just about the one teacher EVER that I can respect.
Which is why it kills me that I have this sinking feeling in my stomach - that this isn't going very well.
The reason I picked this Uni still stands. It is my local place and it's easy to do without uprooting everything. The hands on thing really appeals to me and I've very much enjoyed it. But I've also studied academic things before and I'm struggling to accept the whole self-motivated thing. I want to be TAUGHT something.
If I wanted an entirely self-motivated education, I'd have gone to the library or to the Open University. I want direction and attendance requirements and classes.
Now, I don't think I'm the only one with issues in the class. But I also think I'm about the only one crazy enough to try and fix things and I'm trying very very very hard to not get involved. I've even resigned as the student representative in an effort to be more self-centred and more selfish in a way - to concentrate on ME and MY studies, not everyone else. 
all the way.
But it's a hard fight. And I need you people to remind me why I shouldn't get involved and why I should just keep my head down and do my own thing and why I should complete the degree and why I shouldn't give up (again - that would be number 3!) because it isn't perfect and just go off and have kids.
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Latest reply: Jan 16, 2010
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