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The Otherside

As if on cue, there it is; the anger, the frustration, the feeling of being tongue tied because I let people talk me out of believing in myself. What happened? Where did it start? Yesterday with "this is too good to last." After that I was chatting with Diane who commented that I was acting weird. I wasn't, I don't think. I was lighter and in a good mood, maybe a little bubbleheaded. That lead to her asking about therapy and us talking around the issues and eventually she sideways decided that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. Why does it affect me so much that she doesn't want to know about things about me? Because it makes me feel insecure. I'm starting to see myself as that little kid again who hid from people because I was told I wasn't good enough, or smart enough, or strong enough, or cool enough. I'm 32 and I'm still so small.

Anyway, when I talked to her last night on the phone I could hear the tension in her voice. She's guarded again, steeling herself against whatever she's afraid I'm going to say. It's that she thinks I'm going to become some other person, that I'm going to morph into something else. That I'm going to leave. So I put it away, all of it, and then I analyze everything I say, do and think, looking for those hints of "the other one", making sure I push it way deep down.

But it isn't just with her, but her's always comes up as more important. I think that if I don't have her, her love and approval, her support, I don't have anything. So when she can't deal with my shit, I can't deal with my shit, and so it builds and I get this pressure in my body that threatens to blow itself to pieces. Then I wonder what the other side of oblivion looks like.

So now the guys I work with have me wound up over stupid shit. My "snotty" emails about questions have been met with hostility, which makes me hostile in return. I was told "this is the new process" and now that isn't working, so they want me to "just phone". It's not the way I was told to work it. I had a system, they didn't like it so I adopted theirs. Now I'm supposed to put my ass out there so that they can make things easier? I know the material isn't there, but I should phone and check anyway?

So that's my mood today. What are you going to do about it? Well, I've had my rant and my hour of mad, screamy music turned up too loud, I know. Let's turn the music down, throw on something more soothing, say Concrete Blonde (because I had them in my head in the shower this morning), and just breathe a bit. It doesn't matter, really, about the material. The issue is dead. That's something I don't have to stress about anymore. They want to get away from the process that isn't working, so that's good, right? As for Diane, you'll just have to find a way to talk to her. But to do that, you have to figure out what it is that is going on in there.

posted by September @ 8:21 AM