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Back at the hotel after the first day. It went ok. I have some transportation issues to resolve and still don't have a contract or money, but it was ok. The people are nice. Tonight is all about rest and self-care for me. I'm still sick so just really want to get better asap.

I realized that all this stuff with work and money has been very triggering for me in a specific and not-so-obvious way. It all makes me feel very vulnerable and helpless, like I have no control over my situation. I am still worried about running out of money here, but realizing it doesn't have to happen just because I think it might. As a child, and into much of my adulthood, vulnerability meant weakness which lead to danger. So this whole trip prep and everything that went wrong really threw me into severe anxiety.

I am an adult now, and although I'm not in danger, I have such a strong urge to control as much as I can in my life to fend off danger before it has a chance to happen. I try to do everything myself and be resourceful and not rely on others. But I can't do it all. I have to trust that it's ok to ask for help, and I have to trust that others will help. My extra efforts to appear strong and self-reliant actually hinder my progress at times, and definitely push people away, or disappoint them when I fail after claiming to be fine.

I think that's as deep as I can go in that line of thinking for now, but I'd like to see what other realizations come up in time.

It's the day I leave. I'm awake early. My stomach is a bit upset and I'm still sick but will survive. It's my first time "at rest" in a week or so. My head is swimming with thoughts.

This post may be triggering to those who have been through work disputes or have been in financially abusive relationships.


I sublet my place which meant a ton of work to clean and make it ready even though I was sick. It needed to be done. I needed the money.

Work almost left me high and dry. I was lucky I have the sublet income or I'd be in trouble. I haven't received a contract for my temporary position and my living allowance that work pays is tied to that. Not to mention my actual pay. I'm supposed to get the contract sometime when I'm there. They are lucky I already work for them. Who in their right mind would go to work with no contract of employment stating their wage and particulars of employment? Only the desperate and working poor, which happens to be me, currently.

To cover that money gap, and because my work is requiring that I pay for my own hotel and then expense it, I was recommended to get a company credit card. Cool. But the company is switching providers and won't issue me one with the old one. So I won't get it until Dec. I have to expense 4 weeks of hotel, plus maintain a $1500 hold on my personal credit card, plus pay all my expenses during this time... Almost a month. So I requested a cash advance from my office so I won't be in hardship. They said they'd send $2500 but they don't issue cash, they will deposit it into my account.  I don't know when I will get that and I'll have to pay it back once money starts flowing regularly.

At first I thought they wanted me to put the entire hotel plus a rental car credit card. That would have been impossible. In trying to get a solid response I got 3 different answers. My last two weeks have been dealing with this gong show nearly every day.

So I have put almost all the money I have access to on my credit card and am hoping for it to be enough to tide me over. Every step of the way I followed up and tried to stress the urgency of re ei in proper pay.

This is normal for them. They assume everyone has huge amounts of money to float their business on, apparently. I am caught in a colossal failure in process and communication. I have two managers going to bat for me which I appreciate, but it hasn't helped yet.

Then the performance review happened. I was taking some of the feedback personally and woke up ruminating with my ICr. Rereading all this, I start to feel like their notes on my performance Pale when compared to mine on them.

I've got either the flu or a major sinus infection. Dr. gave me antibiotics for fluid in my ear/earache I have had for a week but right after I started taking them, wham! Every part of my body aches. And still have fluid in my ears.

It's my final few days of prep before I leave but my body is done. I'll only be able to do what I can, and some things will likely be missed. Just hoping to feel better by Sunday. Being sick on a plane is a miserable experience I hope to never repeat.

Pretty sure stress and my lifestyle of late led to me getting sick. Nothing I can do now but maximum self care to ride it out as quick as I can.

Supposed to have my 1yr review at work tomorrow before I leave. My mgr has been sick too, so it's been bumped to the last minute. Not sure how big a deal it would be if I am sick and miss it, then am gone for months. Oh well. Not really my fault, just is the way it is.

Just quickly getting this down and out of my head. This post contains triggers for guns, violence, death and children and grief.


I just woke from a dream nightmare unlike any I ever had before. In it, I had a 3 yr old daughter. She was playing in her room. Don't remember what I was doing at the time. I finally realized something was wrong. Did I hear a sound? Not sure. But now it was too quiet. I looked at the baby monitor and knew. I went to her room and she was dead. She had found a gun, my gun, and accidentally shot herself while playing. The most unspeakable grief. Being responsible for the death of my child.

My husband came home. He was a famous climate scientist. I had to tell him she was gone. It was my fault. In the grief he stopped caring about his work and was regularly quoted saying things like "what is there to save in humanity and why should I bother? If my child can die in this way, , there is nothing left to save."

Thhe death was highly publicised. I think I was a teacher. Or maybe a student. I tried to return to classes. A peer had written a song about the tragedy and decided to perform it. I had to leave the room and go downstairs. I woke up as I was cowering in my dream under a table while a song of m most unspeakable grief filled my ears.

Too awake to sleep, too tired to... Anything. Just poking at my phone now.

I have a lot to do and 1 week left at home. I want to stay in bed all the time but manage to drag myself out. Not looking forward to my trip like everyone else seems to think I should be. I suppose it will be ok. Not worth getting into worst-case scenarios.

I'm soul-tired. If money were no object I would live without purpose other than my health and a hobby or two. As it is, fitting in costs me all of that.

I find moments of joy but they are fleeting and I need to work harder and harder all the time to achieve them. I often want to quit everything. I have admiration for the homeless who chose to opt out of societal systems of oppression and just live. It's what I want. I've known it for years, but I've been groomed to stay on the career treadmill. I've accomplished a lot, but at what cost? And the damage to myself necessitates I have medical benefits... Which I then rarely use because I struggle to keep up with life. I don't know what I am doing anymore. I just want to sleep all the time. And be free.

Since last week was so, so bad at work, followed by sleeping sickness Saturday, I decided to change the timing of my meds. My small dose is in the morning and my large dose at night, now. I'm hoping this might help with the exhaustion.

Having said that, I hardly slept at all last night because I was so anxious and panicky about work and life. In the little I did sleep I dreamed about work and train cars being knocked off the rails. (though I read a news story that I think planted the seed.) Har-dee-har, brain, dreams aren't even subtle anymore. 

So today I called in sick and took a mental health day. Cleaned and organized a bunch at home. My manager was texting me through the day asking questions about work. I was surprised they didn't just let my stuff sit, but it is a busy time of year. So not quite the break I needed. It never is. I'm pretty sure it's innappropriate to be texting an employee that's said they can't come in. I'm tempted to say something. But it's just one more thing in a long list of things that's wrong in my workplace.

I should be gearing down for sleep now. Am breaking my own rules. But felt this last week/end really needed to be commented on. Probably the first time I've called in sick without thinking somehow that I should drag myself in and beat myself up with guilt about it. After all the crazy that got dumped on me last week, I didn't mind too much that I left a mess for them. So basically this work trip will make clear to me if I do have any future in this company or not. As it is now I can't stay because the realist in me can't see things improving, and my health is suffering for it. So maybe things will be better in the other role. My anxiety is rooted in the perception (probably accurate, sorry not sorry) that things will not be better on the other side of the country, and may in fact be worse. At least it's only 3 months.


Edited to add that I slept 4 hours with much tossing and turning before waking. Might take some time to see if the meds impact this or not.

Thank you Sanmagic7. I have been trying to breathe deeply.

Ironically I'm so busy that finding the time to do that during work is exceedingly difficult. I know that sounds like exaggeration but it's not, really. At the end of my shift I had people lined up to ask me questions... And I'm not a project lead or manager yet. It was nuts.  I worked 9 hours yesterday,  had a good dinner, and have been in bed since, for the most part. A combo of burnt out and side effects from my meds, I think. I've actually had trouble keeping my eyes open all day.

Re-reading my last post, it comes off overly dramatic and I didn't intend that. The whole going on living thing is more of a philosophical issue than crisis. I'll try to be more careful with my words.

Today was a high-pressure day. All week, really, escalating each day. It's so busy that most days the last few weeks, now, I come home, have dinner, then crawl into bed and play a game on my phone until I get sleepy. Then it's bedtime until my midnight wake, then a couple more hours of sleep if I'm lucky. I suppose it sounds like I sleep too much but with the wakefulness and ultra-earlystart,  I really don't.

I don't have the supports I need at work to do my job effectively or even at all sometimes. I was upset about work I'd done 2 weeks ago not being maintained by others responsible, but a bigger issue will actually  make me miss a deadline (again, not me) . Instead of getting stressed out by this today, I was able to figure out what I needed to push ahead, and contact the multiple people who could help get it done. So that is some significant growth for me. And I am proud of that. It's possible that after over a year on the job I fully understand what is needed to do it. 

It's not to say that I don't make mistakes or cause others to be inconvenienced - I do. And I am so hard on myself when I mess up. My inner critic kicks into overdrive as soon as a mistake is noticed or a problem pops up. Deep down I think most of my projects are failures because I "could've done better". Deeper down I think that means that I am a failure for the same reason. But today I overcame my hurdle despite all my negative leanings.

And I'm going away in 2 weeks to work with a huge new team from all over the country. I am so anxious about this. My manager talked to me today - gave me the rundown but also said I was representing my location, it was a privilege to be invited to work there, and that it was so important that I really know my stuff and can work fast. That if team members have deadlines, they won't be able to help me.   Which is where I started to feel panicky. I am not confident in either of these things. My job has manuals upon manuals that I am expected to know, without having been given any work time to memorize the material over the past year. And I am not salaried. So I am studying, hoping I can shore up my knowledge before I leave. But I also have to practice on my software because any hang-ups on the technical end could cause major problems for me. So much of my unpaid time is being devoted to work now and into the foreseeable future. I suffer from terrible imposter syndrome and this whole situation makes me feel like I don't deserve to be there. And having to do so much unpaid work just to ensure I am ready for the work ahead is just another reason I find work so awful most of the time, even though I can also say I am at one of my dream jobs.

The pattern is that under extended periods of stress and uncertainty, I manage until right before the finish line, right at the highest point of stress, I breakdown, sometimes publicly. The kind of thing that shakes me to my core as to whether I should even continue living, because it's all too much for me.  Will it happen before I leave, after, both, or neither?

Just wanted to reach out and let you know that I empathize with every word you wrote. I go to bed at 7pm some nights, exhausted, empty and overwhelmed because that's the only way I cope lately.

Our safety lies in the spaces we create inside us. The trick is carrying them with us and remembering we can access them as needed. At least, that's been my experience.

Good luck and hang in there. You're not alone.

Awake again, for an hour now, in the middle of the night. My brain gets going on work thoughts before I am fully awake, so there's some subconscious activity spilling out from my dreams that I don't have much control over. I do things to influence myself into feeling safe at night. Not that I feel "unsafe", but some subtle tweaks have a good influence. Soft, warm lighting in the hour or so before bed. Wind-down time, meaning a period of stillness before sleep. Quiet, calm, looping music and nature sounds mixed with white noise, that I can play all night. If I wake and the music is going, I know I'm it's still bedtime. No glowing clocks to fret over. A cool room, as much as possible. I tend to overheat and I think that contributes to my waking.

I didn't set the music tonight so thoughts got active, quick. I guess I wanted to rest my techniques. I do notice a positive difference when I use them, even if I don't sleep any more.

Lots of thoughts lately about the ways in which I am "difficult" for others. Not sure if I can or would want to change any of it. And not apologizing. Just trying to see myself through a different lens.

Think I am tired enough again. Mid night wakes seem to generally last 1.5 to 3 hours, no matter how tired before sleep.

Well, vacation flew by.

I had work dreams last night. Tonight I have that anxious insomnia going on, after sleeping a ton during my vacation. Depression naps galore. But I accept that my body wanted the sleep. I wanted it, too. Sleep is becoming my favourite pass time.

I leave on an extended work trip in a couple of weeks. I'll be leaving everything I know for several months and living in a hotel, working near to there.  I found out right before vacation, so that significantly ate into my ability to relax. I am very nervous about it and there's a lot to prepare. But it's going to be a good experience for me. Growth, whether I can actually handle it or not. I wish I was more confident that I was ready. I plan to study my technical notes so I feel better prepared. I have a friend in that province, so at least that's one definite positive thing.

Things move so fast. All I've wanted since 2009 was for things to slow down. They never will, will they? Not in work, and not in life unless I avoid things, which I do. I'm not ready to commit to every day moving at light speed, and me along with it. I can make it work at work for a while, but that's the limit.



Today self-care involved making my breakfast and lunch ahead of time. I've also started wearing a mouthguard again. They have so many more options now, and I was able to get a comfortable one.

OK, enough fighting sleep. Once I'm moving again, I'll be ok. And post-vacation blahs are normal, so that shouldn't surprise me.

I went to my Dr. and said I wasn't coping well. That my anxiety is paralyzing me and I haven't been taking care of myself. My dosage of my meds has been increased, and I'm stepping it up now, on vacation. LOL. Another aspect of my life the "normals"  would never get. "What did you do on vacation?" "Not much, just increased my antidepressants so the side-effects will interfere with my work life as little as possible."

I am experiencing headaches and some mild dizziness so far. Jaw-tightness and ear-ringing seems up, too. Otherwise it's ok.

Thanks for both of your responses.

Coming out of it enough to recognize it for what it is,  is definitely progress for me. Of course the holy grail is not getting to that state in the first place.

I hope it's not just a more optimistic mood talking, but I like to think that the more I understand what is happening to me and why, the less scary and isolating it is, and maybe even knowledge encourages me to come out of it sooner than I would have previously.

Dissociation is a real problem when combined with a freeze response because it's so disempowering and paralyzing. I end up turning to pretty unhealthy coping mechanisms to try and soothe myself and ride it out.

Now that I know it's a 1-2 punch, I can see that I need more than the usual grounding exercises to break out of it.

Can dissociation and an emotional flashback happen concurrently?

I'd been feeling exhausted and disconnected and depressed today. I've only just figured out why. Today it was due to life changes, uncertainty and lack of control while waiting to take my next steps. I think the causes vary but are often around those themes.

How would I know if I'm experiencing a freeze-response EF, or Dissociation, or both? If anyone has any experience I'd like to know.

Thanks.

Woke from some intense dreams. Feeling discombobulated.

In the 2nd, I listed my ideal traits for a partner, but they were reflected in the dream-mirror of an old high-school classmate who was dating a former college prof. I'll see if I can remember them, in no particular order. It was a long list. Intelligent, funny, thoughtful, considerate, kind, motivated, witty, dedicated, honest, emotionally in-tune, attractive enough (not hot), good conversationalist, treats her well, interesting, curious, adventurous, generally optimistic, confident but not arrogant, humble, helpful. I spent the first part of the dream at a weird outdoor winter concert for one of my favourite musicians, then indoors, trying to find something, in a home filled with stairs and ledges. Right at the end of the dream I was talking with a pregnant friend when she said she had just noticed that I was pregnant, too. And I was. "I'm scared, " I said. And she said, "Me too."

In the first, I remember nothing except the last moments, in which I witnessed a kitten get run over by a car. In the dream I cried out his name, "Smokey". In reality I whimpered loudly in my sleep and the sound woke me up immediately.

Despite bad dreams, I feel little desire to get out of bed today. I am on my vacation. It's raining. I'm tired from cramming too much in yesterday. I got a lot done, which is good. In 3 weeks I'm travelling for work to Eastern Canada for several months. It's a big challenge  that I learned of late last week. It started sinking in over the weekend. I need to do so much to get ready, but I also want to take time to savour my home while I can.