Jesus Christ. I just can't take this shit anymore.
I've been on suspension from my unemployment support until yesterday. Everything's fucked up. At least the bills and rent should be covered. I regret everything. I can't deal with reality right now... I did reapply to the unemployment support yesterday, dunno did I do it too early, I don't understand the jargon they use very well.
Heck, I don't understand anything. I applied to two more jobs, even though mentally, I'm NOT in the right space for them. Well, I got to the first interview but haven't heard back for all week, so I guess I did not get through. Other hasn't replied. Eh, fine. They were too good to work out. It's me, everything's supposed to go to hell. I agonize and have anxiety over not having a job, I agonize and have anxiety over MAYBE getting a job. See why I'm absolutely tired of this shit of a life we are stuck in.
Friends did come together for us when I asked if they could donate some money for a drawing pad. Well, we got the amount. And -two- friends sent us their old drawing pads they don't use anymore. We've tested the first that came in last week. Works like a charm. Another is coming from Thailand so it's gonna take a while. Jenni's Christmas/birthday present. We are mainly traditional artists and crafters, but some things are easier with a drawing pad. It was fun.
My next cause of anxiety is the fucking report I had to do of my "business" of selling little shit on Etsy. That could land me in a lot of trouble with a lot of things and as much as I love doing it and giving people what they might need... I... Sometimes I think what's the use doing anything online... But the things we do... it's mainly for our enjoyment... we share shit for a few friends to see... I shouldn't take pressures for it... After Pohjantähti-opisto, my mental state has crumbled like a damn cookie.
My therapy is on Monday. Couldn't be sooner... but it's in a whole new place and going to new places alone gives me anxiety. Jenni has a dentist at the exact same time. I feel... hopeless right now and scared. Part of me wishes I could just be a child again and curl up onto granny's lap.
Speaking of, she has Alzheimer's. She's... well, she hasn't really gone worse, but she isn't going better either. I feel guilty for wanting to be elsewhere, when I should be helping gramps with her... Even though she told me, when she was still lucid, that it's not my responsibility to look after them, that I'm allowed to have a life of my own. But my dad can't help. Who else would... look after them?
So, mentally, I'm in a limbo. Financially, we are still in a limbo. I'm an absolute wreck. I've just focused on comics again, should do other things as well... I... I need to set myself work times I guess.
It's been a while and boy has it been a roller coaster. Pohjantähti-opisto went well. Smoothly I'd say. I loved it. Trying to learn new skills, relaxed environment, people appreciating what I did.
Then my contract ended. Ok, spent the summer chilling, then started doing the mandatory job applications. Two places said yes. Lidl across the street, a fast paced store with a lot of stuff, but a good training. And a fabric store. They hired us on the spot.
I was already anxious about it and the week we started, I couldn't sleep. I had turned Lidl down to choose my own field. I regret a lot of things.
Found out surprisingly fast paced, well established store where you know decently only half of the merchandise (and my knowledge was quite outdated with some yarns) and that kicked me in the guts. I couldn't sleep well, I could barely eat. Was told I was bad at cleaning, not a perfectionist enough (my coworker had barely time to tell me what to do properly) and I had to learn about the fabrics super fast or I'd be no help. Those struck deep and I just imploded mentally. I cried after both 7 hour workdays before I even made it to the car. Everyone was shocked, wife, me, family, friends.
I found out the word for what I'm prone to: catastrophizing. Overthinking and expecting the worst and that, combined with stress, low self-confidence, almost constant self-criticism and loathing, very little sleep and anxiety over new things and I went into the deep end. I had a panic attack. I tried getting myself a sick leave, but the boss called before that, already upset my wife was off for another day due to a removed tooth. I said I might be able to come, but I just had a panic attack. She got upset more and said what use are we if we are gonna be on sick leave constantly and said it better she undoes our contracts.
Turns out, she mixed us up again, most likely, as it was my wife, who got fired. I assumed it meant both of us and had a breakdown again. I quit later that day, with 2 days of sick leave. I think I'm in trouble with the unemployment office. The monetary support ban is 30 or 45 days in these cases. I hope...
I could have handled it better. Had I gotten proper sleep, most likely, I'd still be fine and working. Everything just piled up and overreactions galore. I know this is what if -ing, but I'm more clear headed after few nights of good sleep. My appetite isn't what it was, but it's slowly returning. I'm trying to organize my thoughts and what the hell happened.
I did get myself mental help. I seem calm now, but this is my life. A crying, sobbing, depressed mess one day, cool as a cucumber, functional adult the next. This can't continue. I asked for help to go through my whole life, to help me start changing the inner monologue and how I deal with things. I can't keep freaking out to the point of hysterical tears over things changing or making a small mistake. I simply hit the panic button, when I should have let the others cool me down and just get up and go and keep doing my best, even if it didn't seem to be good enough. What more could be asked from me?
This has me sort of anxious but also embarrassed and disappointed to the level I wonder am I even welcome to stay in this city. Which is stupid thinking. Yes, I fucked up. There are people in this town who have fucked up more. Way more. Maybe I'll do my best doing what I already do, at my own pace.
I got flashbacks to the other job I completely fucked up in and that was telemarketing. My now sadly former boss had been a telemarketer, a door to door saleswoman before that. Absolute iron lady. Freshly turned 70. Too fast for me =D I don't want to bear ill will towards her. I fucked up. If I could turn back the last month (August), I would. It hadn't been an easy month. Hell, this whole year has been a rough one. I think nobody has had a good two or so years recently.
Where it always boils down why I start melting down? Looking at our shit finances. I regret every goddamn purchase we've made. My savings are drained. My grandpa was right, I shouldn't have touched them. Oh well, I just need to sell more doll stuff. I think. I need to do better. As a person. As an adult. I thought I had this in the bag, but nope, there was a hole in the bag and now everything's a mess.
I have first therapy session in Turvapoiju next Monday. The proper psychiatric sessions start at the end of next month. I need to start probably using this more often as an outlet. Nobody really reads this, but at least to get it off my chest and if someone who finds it finds help from it or is in the same space, you can drop a line.
I should probably beat the lyrics into my head and never forget them. Honestly. She hits a point with this and no wonder it has become sort of an anthem.
Yes, I'm not "normal" as the people with a black-and-white mindset would put it. I'm a fucking lesbian. I am rough, tomboyish and I have a truck license, I swear a lot, but if I'm called a truck-lesbian, I'm punching. Or kicking. I'm more... demisexual, I don't necessarily feel too attracted to other people, some celebs get my engines revving, for a couple of months until I'm just meh, they are good looking. I'd rather just write raunchy shite of them. =D That's what I do.
I'm not a simple person personality-wise. I think. How the hell should I know? I just exist, not thinking of myself much. Not many deem me irreplaceable. One person at least. That's all that matters to me, but outside our home, that's when it does matter who else thinks I'm too important to lose. I dunno how many think that way, nobody says it to my face really. At least according to my shoddy memory.
I'm not sure is the category right still, but since people just LOVE sticking labels to things... *shrug* Whatever floats yer boat.
That's when it curves to myself again. How I see myself. How I literally see myself. I don't see myself much different from when I was 15 or something, I still feel the same. Just someone who can slip through the crowd and vanish without anybody noticing. I've liked different clothes as a kid, but I always got ruthlessly bullied because of them later, so granny told me that I should tell them what is the current style people are wearing at school, so they can buy me clothes more like theirs. In the end, I didn't give a shit. I wore whatever I pulled from my closet of people brought me. Unless they were toe-socks. I hated them. Felt like my toes had no circulation. Fuck that was a nasty phase in fashion, faded soon though. Phew.
I did always feel like I couldn't wear anything without getting shit. Whether it was a cozy Minnie Mouse black and magenta hoodie (took up wearing a fleece vest over it) or full pink almost matching pants and shirt, yellow woolly socks I partially made myself, burgundy winter boots (two different pairs, I had scraps of food, broken forks, and spoons in them or they were held hostage and tossed outside or around the school by complete strangers)... the list goes on... I tried to be normal and I got shit, I wore something I liked and got shit.
You don't walk away from that without issues. I'd probably still need a rage room, you can rent it for a small fee and are given a baseball bat to just destroy everything to vent out the rage. I need that. I'm not even kidding. All former classmates still deserve a fist in the face.
I've always been called fat. School nurse put me on a diet in elementary. Granny was pissed. Who fucking counts how many slices of sausage or cheese you can put on your bread and how many glasses of milk you can drink as a kid?! I have granny's body type and she sadly did tell me that and to stop dreaming of losing weight, when I was really trying and I needed support. I took a habit of sucking in my stomach after I was mistaken to be pregnant by one Chinese restaurant owner. I only went there once after that, shame, they had dumplings. The only place that makes dumplings.
My junior high classmate, who was alright, a bit too rough sometimes even from my point of view, once told me of what she thought when she first saw me. She had thought that "there's a girl who'd be really beautiful if she only took care of her looks." I've tried caring for my looks, but what for really? If I blend in the crowd with uncombed hair and hand-me-down clothes and don't get bullied for it, sign me up.
I liked the princess dresses as a kid, but it got embarrassing over the years. I never saw myself cute, despite what people said. I have a handful of pictures as an adult that I can actually look at and not cringe. I can't look at the wedding photos. I saw one and I just wanted to delete them all. I never realized I was so fat. I didn't pay attention to my figure, just keeping myself from freaking out over the fact I was in the spotlight with her.
I just can't look at the pictures. I can't. I hate my double chin, my belly, my thick thighs, I don't mind my big ass, though I keep knocking everything off with it as I try to sneak past. I rather wear black and baggy to hide myself. During summer, I wear lighter clothes, but even then, it's a struggle. I have days when I can wear anything and not care, then there are days I try to doll up and then just... not go...
Ugh, body positivity. Sure, it can help, young people need better role models, to know it's ok to be what you are, but... To me, it's just sure, rub it in. I am like this, but I don't' want to be like this, but there's fucking nothing I can do. I can't keep up habits long enough for my routines (what little I have, actually none...) to change permanently. I don't have that motivation. Wow, here it is again. Motivation. I don't have much of it.
Why I can't function like a regular human being?! Look at the mirror and smile at the reflection. All I see is somebody who should get her shit together. Somebody who shouldn't go out in the public at all for the sake of sparing them of nightmares. Sometimes I just... sit and wonder how can somebody love me despite being like this, I don't understand it. I know love doesn't care about looks and so what if she looks what she looks? I love her. She says the same. ...I just don't love myself. Opposite of love isn't hate, but ignorance. Now that is what I mostly feel towards myself. So what. I didn't have the best of role models as a kid, no matter which way you tilt your head, I think it all stems from there. I was often humiliated in front of people, I still have huge difficulties to go in front of people. It causes me anxiety.
I do have some form of panic disorder or anxiety disorder. At some points, it does hinder my life. I can't up and go to the archery club anymore. I felt so inferior there it wasn't even funny and all the attention on how we were doing was insane...
I can't listen to my own voice without feeling humiliated by how it sounds. I can listen through my videos once or twice, then post them, but never listen to them myself again. Or listen to somebody listen to them. I wanted to become a voice actor, but I don't have enough talent and guts for that.
I was asked to give my name and my parents' names in to microphone as a kid. I wasn't really told of my whole fucked up family situation then and I called my granny -mom-. Who else, she was only mother figure I fucking had! Easy for you lucky shits with both parents! Everybody was staring at me and I managed to stammer something, but it was humiliating. I didn't remember my granny's name and I was so confused. I'd still love to stick a knife to the teacher's throat for that and bomb the whole room. All the smiles ever since have felt like a mockery. All nice words I've gotten have always turned out to be lies. I don't really trust kind words, because they are always a mask to me. It's easy for me to lie in people's faces for that. Hide. Hide fucking everything.
Why people always humiliate me? Pick on me? What the fuck is wrong with me and you?! Why me?! What the everloving fuck have I ever done to you?!
If one could get away with murder, I'd have a long trail of bodies behind me. And all my inner demons would be silenced forever. Well, one can dream. At least it's free, even though I don't really dream anymore, what's the use really? You'll just get disappointed when the dream ends. Life just fucking loves shitting in the fan. Getting just really tired and fed up with all the shit.
Been too long since I've written here, to be honest. I know there's probably nobody reading, but... Oh well... At least I get things off my chest.
I've been with Kela's Nuotti rehabilitation program for some time now, once a month for 2 hours with the coach. Mostly been with me talking, but I've got some goals set up towards getting some structure for my weeks. I don't want to just float around anymore.
When I look in the mirror, I see the same 15-yo girl who didn't want to go anywhere, because there was nowhere to go. I'm just fatter and look more tired. I guess that's because I'm 28 now. I look back and I've come far. I'm happily hitched, two cats, rented apartment and a hobby.
That's where I start to see differences. I look around. Some have illnesses and they cope with them, some are just as hopelessly unemployed as I am and some have jobs and steady income that doesn't evaporate 12hrs after it's been deposited in their accounts. What have I achieved in the eyes of others?
I'd say nothing. Sure, some people have it worse, but I feel like a failure for not being able to help the person closest to me. For not being good enough or confident enough to get a job. To support that way. What I'd like to have? A job that I can stand and feel it's worth getting my ass up and out. A pay that I don't have to count every cent of can we get groceries and cat food and litter plus the bills and rent and last until the next pay...
Life likes to throw wrenches at me like Ratchet, with too great of accuracy for my taste. We had savings and our computers broke. I had money and the car repairs were way over what money I got monthly. The second repairs drained the savings again. I'm tired of penny-pinching. The stress is putting a huge strain on me.
I know people would say get a fucking job. It is easier said than done. Right now, Finland does have more jobless people than workplaces open, but compatibility... You can't stuff a ball through a square-shaped hole, you know, we all tried as a kid, I bet.
I might see a job that would be interesting and I'm actually thinking of it, until few hours later, I realize I wouldn't be good at it. I'm afraid.
Afraid of being a failure.
I'm afraid of failing.
Few times I've tried my best, only to fail and get told that it wasn't the right way. I can't handle it. Go ahead, you can criticize my art, I know I'm not good at it, but I like doing it and I try, but god... whatever else I do and it tears me apart.
Thrice in Lankava I just wanted to drop everything and walk out, never to return. I fucking tried!
Almost every other day, I just wanted to drop everything and hop in my car and drive away from Powerpark. The register was just too complex for me and I couldn't grasp the details even after the whole season.
Few times I just wanted to sit and cry in the grass when doing park maintenance, I don't know shit about taking care of flowers or anything, I was tossed in and had to hit the ground running.
In the Children's Culture Center, I was so underqualified I'm amazed why they hired me? How bad was the other applicant that showed up?! I was completely lost with everything and just... flopped around like a fish out of water.
At the call center, that's where I broke the first time from getting chewed out by an angry customer for my mistake. The place wasn't really good, but it broke me. It simply broke me. I can barely call anyplace nor keep my shit together if my old mistakes are brought out. I wish I could thank the Swedish coworker who tried to console me. That job wasn't worth it.
People make mistakes and I am always aware of them, but I'd love to just rave at everyone's face that I'm trying, don't tell me where I went wrong. I am trying my fucking hardest.
I don't really try anymore. Not so people can see. I don't want to hear about my mistakes. I've made them and will continue to make. I just want to forget they ever happened. I know I'm trying to shut the world out. Shut the negativity out. It's just... it's like trying to block one of the nozzles in a fountain.
Why try when you know it's going to blow up in my face?
Why bother?
Why should I go to be the spitoon?
I don't have the answers for those. I wish somebody had. Go through that shit for money isn't what I wish for, but I tend to live in dreamland. None of you probably wonder why if you read my other slice of life shits.
This is my darkness. This is something not even my imaginary friends can save me from. I know I should just... grow the hard skin back now that it has been peeled off. I guess the shit was easier to take from the family in the form of always-broken promises, but it's the same shit that life keeps giving me, so it cannot be that either.
Sometimes I feel like the whole world could burn and I don't care. Other times I just... want to be someone people can trust. That people would trust me and look at me with a smile, with no lies to me.
...see why I don't really even apply for jobs? Why I see the psychotherapist and am in a rehabilitation program? I might look like a well-functioning 28-yo adult. Yet inside, I'm still that confused and broken, angry teen who just resigned to fate and was planning to be a bum under the bridge.
I was exhausted of expectations from everyone and fighting their visions by the time I was 20. I've tried to get a job and enjoy it, do it to my best abilities, but not being good enough. There's only one person who thinks I'm good enough and we live together. I'd probs be still holed up in that tiny village and write stories on the computer in the upstairs of my grandparents, in my childhood home. Without her, I'd be nothing.
Now I'm a wife and a cat mom. A doll modifier. A jewelry maker. A shy writer. None of that pays, but it keeps me alive and sane. If I was ever sane in the first place. I dunno. I've never been like others. I've never known how to do things others do.
Getting a job is a hurdle. Not really my fault either, the job markets are utter crap here. You'd need a million-dollar idea to become an entrepreneur. And you need those fucking million dollars to start that cycle of crap. I just want financial stability. It is just pure impossibility really... At least dreams are free.
I don't like to dream either, they just remind me what I don't have. Money. From a job.
I'm on the road to getting shit done per week, that is one step. I'd just need more help with my mind than can be provided freely. I can't go back either. My hometown is my personal nightmare for me. All the past bad memories flood me. I'm not going back to live, not until I'm better.
If I'm ever getting better.
One thing I have stopped dreaming about completely though. Losing weight. Granny told me I was never gonna lose weight since I had her body type. Well, she is right. Do I hate my body? Yeah, duh, you are lucky you haven't seen it. What do I do about it? Nothing. Nothing's gonna change anyway. My ass and thighs are never fitting in any nice clothes and my gut makes me look preggers, so I just wear oversized clothes. I'm done caring. If she still wants to wake up every morning next to me, even if I'm like this, so be it =) I'm very much fine with it. I don't care really about myself in physical sense.
I know it shows. One classmate said that the first time she saw me, she had thought that I'd be pretty if I just looked after myself. I never trusted her again, even if she promised to help defend me against rumors. Let them talk if it's their only hobby. In that town, it is the only thing to do. Gossip on others.
I did look around the other day, seeing all these things we've collected but never seem to have time for them and I felt sad. We've put so much love and effort into them. Then what? When we're gone? Who cares of them? Who is there to read their stories? I'm almost tempted to embark in that journey next November. To give them all a voice. Starting from my old imaginary friends. Somebody should hear their stories. Fanfiction-y and impossible they are, but it's our DollWorld. Our stories.
Maybe I should. I don't want this all to go to waste.
Ok, maybe the rant is over. I've unloaded a lot off my chest. Some might call this just attention whoring. It's not, since it's not on IG or Twitter or FB. I'm the type who needs to get things off my mind and out on paper or in digital form. Then I feel better.
A lot has changed and I miss the old times. When I was 15. This new world is harsh and cruel and twisted. Maybe that's the reason for Selenia to exist. It's a safe haven for us. A place where everything is well. It's in this doll room and in our minds and in our word docs. It's in our dreams.
I'm 28. I don't have a job. I love dealing with fashion dolls and handcrafts. I love music, heavy metal in particular. I wish I could turn one of my hobbies into a business, but I know I'm not good enough. I know I'm lazy, but that could also be me being... tired. Tired of failing. Tired of being scared.
Three stints through school at a week-long "Work Experience Tryout" and they were at two different local stores and my old elementary (gawd, nightmare trips all of them!). They proved I'm most comfortable doing something under somebody's supervision, assisted, but with only one other person. That's what I've found out. And that I don't always think clearly. Not when nervous. Which is most of the time.
I didn't want to go to do a summer job, everyone else did, it was almost a scandal I was the only one in our village who hadn't been working summertime in the village cemetery. My grandparents let me chill the summer, take it easy and load batteries. They said after a school year, time off is a good thing. Besides, I never went anywhere beyond hopping on my bicycle and hitting the neighborhood, and later, not even that. So I was at home. All the time. I never went anywhere. I had my own shit. Though the paranoia caused by a former classmate spying on me left me unable to go outside for years, so that did cause the isolation as well.
Anyway, I digress. Next job was after I simply got fed up with studying after the semi-fiasco that was Joutseno... I simply crashed and burned. I had also tried phone sales and lasted a week, berry picking just destroyed my knees and the owner's wife and father were horrible to be around with. Few days only.
I was thrust into a personal service through the employment office, who got me to 6 months in a youth workshop. I first was nervous about it, then, liked it, then, ended up absolutely hating it. I also got some arguments in there, was sent to see a shrink (that led simply nowhere except the fact I had depression, had known that since junior high, that place changes people into monsters) and luckily I got to apply to art schools. Two of them I did get the entry to but chose Lappia Vocational College. It was crap as well. A trainwreck of a school.
Before that, I had my second most difficult job ever. Amusement park ticket cashier. Oh sweet bejesus! Only people not enjoying that place has to be those who sell the tickets. I can't go to details, but I couldn't handle the pressure. Even until the last day, I couldn't grasp the details and fumbled with the register, which was old fashioned, but still, gawd, it was horrid. I like going to the place and I have sympathy to everyone who starts as a cashier, it ain't simple.
Through Lappia I had to go and get a month's work practice place. The local weaver didn't reply or seem keen into taking a free worker, so I just called up my birth town's yarn store and was instantly taken in for the month. Hard, yes, did I blunder there too? YES. I never seem to do things right even after directions, which did hammer me down for weeks and left me with fear of failing so crippling I just can't. I liked it and visit the place, purchase stuff, but still...
I would have probably gotten to work in the local Chinese restaurant, I was good friends with the owners, but we moved and soon, they quit. I'm still rather bummed out, the owner would have taken me in right away. But I needed to get away from the town. I still have difficulties being there.
When I got to Sea-Lapland, I was pointed towards the free vacancy and appointed a place as a temp for Children's Culture and Art Center. 3 and a half months. Well... I was the one they picked, I was also hilariously underqualified for the job that I was simply dropped into. I had no idea what to do and was just fumbling around, barely managing to keep it together with the kindergarten groups that I had to help manage and run craft classes. Not really popular ideas I seemed to have and I just... I learned one thing, I don't want to deal with kids. I seemed to be a child magnet growing up and maybe still a bit too, but I don't like them the least bit. They couldn't have picked the worse worker than me. Out of three of us, one never showed up and the other... well she couldn't have been worse than me!
I don't remember how long was I without a job, when I was put into the care of employment office through the city and managed to score a place for 8 months, my longest yet, with the city's park maintenance unit. It was... a double-edged sword, it caused (and nearly broke my knees and back) my significant other's fibromyalgia to manifest and was full of friendships drama, but at least two good friends came out of it. There were days when I absolutely hated it (not a morning person and idiots make my blood boil) but also fun and an interesting job at times. Helped me know the city better.
Been unemployed for a year now, I pretty much shot myself in the leg with my anxiety as I didn't sign up with YTK sooner, so I didn't get their support (18 fucking hours!), but the government's, which fluctuates nowadays, thanks to the "Active Form", which means if there's no job or any courses checked up, I get reduced unemployment support and that just destroyed the last remnants of my sanity.
I've been almost to the brink of a total meltdown at least twice a month since I've been unemployed, struggling with money and not able to find a job I know I can do. I have tried asking the park maintenance do they want me back to the watering unit, but nothing yet, I'd have almost 4 months of the supported pay left, so they wouldn't need to pay me, but... I've also applied for housing support, which we are getting and living support, though I'm still waiting for that decision, do I even get it.
I'm a total wreck, left at everybody's mercy. Broke and Broken. I'm not even good enough to hire and nobody is really interested of my art or jewelry. I haven't felt this insignificant in years. Honestly.
Working on art commissions and after struggling several weeks with not much money, it's finally payday, the last support for me arrives today. I don't have a summer job, so this summer will be spent with me doing completely crazy and sleepless. And without money. I wished to go to Satama Open Air to see Sonata, and to Tulivuorirock Unplugged, visit Imatra again, Tampere too, but no job, no money.
One of the artworks I was supposed to do was an acromantella. I'm utterly terrified of spiders and even the thoughts gives me goosebumps. Other creature I cannot draw is a horse-spider hybrid. I've never noped that hard in my life. Some people can cure their arachnophobia by getting a spider, the closer I get to a spider and the bigger it is, the closer I am to tears. Just no. Seriously no. I cannot even draw a spider anymore and I definitely can't touch a drawing of one. Even spider crabs are giving me the creeps. I haven't overly advertised in fb or anyplace else that I'm terrified of spiders, because people are such assholes they will post everything about spiders to me. If I see one more spider within a week, I'm gonna cry.
Sucks to be me, I live in the woods. Spiders are everywhere. I can deal with snakes, even some bugs, not those clinging type, I screech and flail and go completely on panic mode if I find one clutching onto me again. I know they are handy... But I don't want to see them. Spiderwebs are... icky... If you wrap clean spiderweb around a small, bleeding cut, the bleeding stops. Or that's what they say.
