Messages

*Trigger warning: self harm, sexual stuff, CP*

Hey y'all...

So i've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
Ever since I discovered that my father is a (communal) narcissist, I seem to be seeing narcissists or at least toxic people everywhere. It makes me wonder whether there really are that many crappy people out there, or whether i'm turning something into nothing. But here's the thing: i've been thinking about my past relationships, and one of them in particular, with the man that I married. I was 19 at the time when I married him and 21 when we divorced, and i'm 35 now, so it's a long time ago. But remembering things and reading though old diary entries, and although over the years I always just told myself that he was really insecure (as was I) and that resulted in some toxic behaviour from both of us...i'm starting to wonder if there was more going on.

I'd love to gain some opinions or insight from you guys...was I abused?

For starters, I was 16 and he was 23 when we met. He found my MSN-profile, we lived in the same town and we ended up meeting. He was incredibly kind, supportive and understanding (almost in a cliché kind of way) for the first few months. I was wildly in love, but think it was at around 6 months when I started to doubt our relationship but I stayed anyway.
I know for a fact that he is attracted to young pre-pubescent girls, and I also know for a fact that he looks at CP. I'm starting to wonder if I was really in love, or if I was groomed.

He was very passive aggressive; I walked on eggshells around him. He acted nice around others, but if for example someone made a comment that I knew would ignite his insecurities, I felt the tension hanging in the air and I knew i'd be spending the next hours or days enduring the silent treatment or having to suck up to a sulking boyfriend. He never outright said what was wrong until there had been at least a few hours of sulking prior, and I had 'worked hard enough' to get it out of him.
Example: He bought two tickets to see The Who, then asked me if I wanted to come. I said no, it's not really my thing. He found someone else who cancelled later, then asked me again. I still said no. He didn't bother to look for someone else. Instead, he waited until the last minute ignoring me and sulking, then at the last minute got mad at me for ruining his evening. Then he began to pack his sleeping gear and said "if you're not coming, I might as well stay there". So I said "sure, will you call me if you decide to stay over?" and he put on a bitter face, stopped talking to me and left.
He also acted like this if I wanted to go someplace alone or hand out with friends. He always wanted to be with me, and would sulk and act passive aggressive if I did something for myself.

Example 2: He was a professional vocalist/vocal coach. I was an amateur vocalist. We both took part in a talent show, and he won the first round. He then emailed the organizer and told them to give his place to me instead, since it wasn't fair the he -a professional- won from me -and amateur-. They declined, and so I decided to participate again for the second round. I won, so we both ended up in the finals and battled it out. It was great fun, I thought, and I ended up winning the finals against him. He was entirely silent on the way home, and I already knew what was coming so I tried to be extra nice and divert his attention. I wanted to go to bed when we got home, it was late, but he insisted on opening my prize (a new dvd player) first. Then after that, we went to bed and he stopped talking to me. After days of sulking, he ended up crying in my arms that it wasn't fair how hard he had to work for everything, only for an amateur to win.

Example 3: He refused to get his drivers license, but did expect me to help him out all the time. I got up at 5 in the morning every day, did a paper route, went to school or work, got home late in the evening and sometimes he would ask me to wait an hour at the train station so that he could drive home with me. If I refused (it was late, I was tired and I had another early morning ahead), he'd just hang up the phone.

Example 3: we developed a way of talking to each other in kids voices. It may seem like just a quirk, but we did it ALL THE TIME. Like, we couldn't have a normal adult conversation. For me, it was a way of being able to say things that I otherwise couldn't get away with: if I said it in a different voice, it sounded like a joke that I could easily take back if I noticed that what i'd said triggered him.

He ignored how I felt, didn't take it seriously at all, or turned it into something else.
Example: In the stage in which he was starting his own business, he was on the phone all the time. I was fine with it, it needed to be done, but it also got to a point where I actually missed him.
We were on a trip at some point, and we were in the bus together talking, then his phone went again and he immediately picked it up. I felt rejected, and when he was done, I tried to tell him that I missed him. He got really annoyed and angry, saying that it was ridiculous since he was right there. And he said 'you know how it is, I have work', to which I said yeah, I get it, I just also miss you. He did this jaw clamping thing (which he always did, that's how I could tell he was angry) where I could see the muscles of his jaw tick, but he didn't say anything. And then he'd just stop talking to me again.

He could be explosive in anger.
Example 1: I'd come home from a long day at work, and he had been home all day at his pc (he worked evenings). He hadn't made dinner yet, although it was his turn that day. I said hello, he ignored me. I asked him if he was planning on making dinner soon, and he ignored me. So I left him alone and sat down at my own pc. After about an hour, I asked him again, which he ignored. Then, after about 15 minutes, he angrily got up and demanded "Well?! What do you want to eat then?!". Caught off guard, I said "Uhhhh" and he replied with: "Well?!?". So I said "Hey, calm down, you've been ignoring me for over an hour, you can't just demand I answer you in a split second", to which he got so angry that he threw a bowl of cutlery accross the room and stormed out. I then left to have dinner at a friends house (this was before mobile phones where a big thing, so there was no whatsapp or anything), which I didn't tell him about. When I got home a few hours later, he was in a total frenzy and his parents were there consoling him. He was crying that he'd searched everywhere for me and was scared that I was going to hurt myself (I was depressed at the time), and he'd called his parents, my parents, my friends, he'd even called the hospital. Then the rest of the evening, he was sweet as ever and pretended nothing had ever happened.
Example 2: We planned a holiday in which we were going busking, and he wanted to practice our repertory almost every day for weeks on end. It was driving me nuts, as I already knew the songs and was tired of practicing. So at some point, when he asked to try again, I sighed. To which he got so angry that he threw his guitar across the room, causing a hole in the side. Then he started saying "Now look what you've done, my guitar is ruined".  I was so terrified that I had a panic attack, which he tried to console. Afterwards, we talked about it and since I was too scared to say that it was because of him, I told him that i'd just been really busy and stressed at work. To which he got really nice and protective and took me over to my parents, to talk to them about letting me have a day off.

He could be very derogatory, or give backhanded compliments.
I remember having a discussion with him about someone elses behaviour, where I tried to explain where it came from and he replied with something along the lines of "That's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard, you're an idiot if you believe that". I also remember that years after our wedding, he told me about how his parents had been embarrassed by the clothing my brothers wore to our wedding (they had gotten new clothes, nice but casual, not in suit or anything). And I explained that to him, but he agreed with his parents that it was disrespectful.

When I was ill with depression and self harming, it was always about him. He didn't believe depression was real, he thought that it reflected badly on him. He thought that if I did enough fun things and loved him enough, it would go away. So for example he convinced me to go a holiday with him that I didn't really want, asked me to pay for half of it, and I didn't enjoy myself at all. Of course I didn't: I was depressed. But when he asked me after coming home whether i'd enjoyed myself, I told him honestly that no, I hadn't. And he was so mad! Que more silent treatment.
Whenever he found out i'd harmed myself, he was the one who would sulk and cry about it, or get mad. And then i'd be the one consoling and making up to him. My parents didn't know at the time that I was on medication and self harming, let alone that I was in therapy. I was planning to tell them during out first family therapy session. But my husband took that opportunity away from me when he got so mad about an incident, that he ran out of the house, called my parents and told them (when then came over to my house bawling, which was awkward).

He was incredibly insecure and easily felt rejected.

Example 1: If I didn't feel like being intimate (which I often didn't, as I was depressed and on meds that greatly reduced my libido), he didn't take rejection well. He'd turn away and sulk until I would come and make up to him. After a few years, there was a point in our relationship where I couldn't be bothered rejecting him anymore since I didn't want to deal with the consequences, so I'd just let him do his thing, or i'd pleasure him and get it over with. It was dark, so he couldn't see my face anyway. I remember a moment where he had gone off to sleep and I was just laying there with tears rolling down my face, completely frozen so as that he wouldn't notice.

Example 2: When we were having a hard time during out marriage, he developed a crush on a friend of mine who lived close by. She was a few years younger than me and had quite a few issues herself.
My husband told me about this crush, and I acted quite understanding. Not only was I doped up on medication and didn't feel much at the time, but I also understood that given the difficult time we were having, it made sense that he was attracted to some kind of distraction. When I told him this, he got really mad at me, and then really sulky. Instead of being relieved that I was being understanding, he was insulted, saying that this didn't bother me enough for someone who supposedly loved him.

After we split up, I found out that he had been telling people that I was crazy. Telling them that I read too many books about depression/self harm/ED/s, and talked myself into developing them.

We had remained friends after we split up and we spoke to and saw each other regularly. He often cried about how lonely he was, and how he missed having someone who knew everything about him and accepted him, like I did. And then he got a new girlfriend and stopped replying to my messages from one day to the next. If I ever run into him, he turns into a side-street and avoids me completely. I told myself that it was because his new girlfriend was uncomfortable with us, but i'm starting to think that I was just discarded.

Another weird thing: I have no memory of the majority of our honeymoon. I remember where we went, and I remember getting in the train to go there. I remember arriving at the hotel, and taking off my dress. I remember one other snapshot in my brain, of a bridge in that city. That's it, nothing else. I have no clue what else we did that weekend.


I'm curious about you guys's perspective on this...

Take care, rainy!

Interesting observation. If wonder if women are more prone to be passive aggressive, because as women we are "not allowed" to be "aggressive". Like, set firm boundaries, get angry, anything like that. And thus you learn to get your needs or boundaries met in a more "hidden" way, hence passive aggression.

True that. I suppose as a small kid, you did exactly what you could, and needed to do, in order to survive. If you physically can't fight back, fawning is a much more effective and appropriate response, survival-wise. But I can totally understand how that brings you to believe that you can't fight back. It takes time and practice to learn that there's a much wider spectrum of options now, as an adult.

An interesting concept.

My N dad brought me up with the notion of the "emotional bank account", and basically taught me that everything is a transaction. Which to him, it was. To me, it resulted in me feeling guilty for virtually everything. It took me a long time to start letting that go, and i'm still not quite there. It still baffles me when someone says: "please let me help you, it actually makes me feel happy to be able to do something for you", or something of the sort. I mean, I even felt guilty when helping someone, because I was worried that they would feel like they were in debt to me.

Seeing it as a continuum, is a different way of seeing it, and I quite like the idea.

Urgh, the system in the USA is bizarre. Seriously 

Hope you have a nice Xmas all the same!

For me personally, changing the word "fault" to "responsibility" changed a lot. That brought me out of victim mode, and into a place where I felt empowered to take ownership of my life.
It moved me away from focusing on what was wrong and who's fault it was, to a more positive "how do I want it" and "how am I going to get there". And it helps remind me that whatever I do, it's my choice, and if the result doesn't work for me, I can choose to learn/do something else.

Thanks y'all.

So, change of plans, haha.

The government sent us back into full lockdown. From one day to the next, on saturday evening, they suddenly decided to close everything but the essentials per the next morning.
So suddenly I had no gym classes to teach in the morning, and on monday we had an emergency meeting at school to figure out what to do next. We ended up having the kids come to school in shifts on tuesday so that we could see them one last time, pick up their stuff and check that all their iPad's are capable of logging into teams. And then we spent the rest of the day preparing for online classes, and cleaning out the entire school. It's a shame, as we had so much planned in this last week before the xmas holidays. I had all their tests planned this week, and we had some festivities going on...

What's annoying is that everyone I talk to now says "lucky you, early holiday". Guy's, it's no holiday. I may not actually be physically at school now, but I have double the amount of work for lesson planning, as the government doesn't decide until january 3rd whether or not we'll be allowed to open the schools again on the 10th. So I have to prepare material for actual physical lessons, but I also have to prepare for online ones. And only one of them will end up being used. It's a lot of work, and half of it is going to be worthless in the end
But it's all we can do.

I will say though, this lockdown feels less stressful than last year. The main reason is that this time, I have a proper job that continues to pay me despite being closed. I don't have to worry about my rent, even though the gyms are now closed and that costs me a portion of my income.
Also, I have moved house, and I have a lot more space now. I don't have to sit in a cramped, one bedroom apartment, shuffling from my couch to my desk for a change of scenery. And I don't have to walk on eggshells for my downstairs neighbour who complains about every noise I make, because I no longer have anyone living beneath me. So I can do my workouts at home and have room to move around (even though it's boring and hard to motivate myself without my group of participants to yell at, and without being paid for it...), and I can jump without a downstairs neighbor to complain about it. Another plus is that I have a home studio now, which I bought stuff for over the summer, so I can continue to make music from the comfort of my own home.

Granted it still is frustrating as heck that I can't just live my life in freedom the way I would so much love to...but at least the circumstances are vastly better than last year.

I'm having my family over for x-mas. I'm looking forward to that as well, because it's going to be a belated birthday-housewarming-xmas get together, and it's going to be the first time that I get to host. I've never been able to do that in my house, as I've never had a big enough place to do so. And now, I have a proper grown-up house to welcome people into. Excited about that!
I bought my first x-mas tree this year (never bothered before..) and decorated it myself, just for my own pleasure. And I bought everyone a few little gifts to put underneath it as a surprise (we weren't going to do gifts this year). Getting gifts while only essential stores are open, as a challenge, but I worked out alright, I think.

You know, i'm actually quite thankful for these few extra days "off", even if it's because of lockdown. It was beautiful weather the other day, cold but sunny, the first ice on the canals. I got to sleep in, and do whatever I wanted. I can easily plan the work I still need to do for another day, so that I can enjoy this time for myself. It feels like "stolen time", because this time wasn't supposed to be mine. And thus, it doesn't matter what I do with it, because I wouldn't have had it to begin with. So i'm not losing anything, i'm not wasting any free time if I decide to do nothing at all. I like that. It's kind of like i'm hiding away, and I needed that. Usually when I have a holiday, it takes me so long to unwind and get to a point where I can relax, that the holiday is already over by the time I'm finally ready to relax. Now it's like I have a pre-vacation, so that I can actually relax in the vacation.
I do hope the gym starts providing online classes again soon though, as that will give me some work to do, some income, and it's easier to get me motivated for that, than to just be workout out in my living room by myself.

Hey there, it's been a while (again). Busy as usual.

I'm not quite sure how i'm doing. Practically speaking, i've done so much this year. I was looking at my list of goals and wishes for 2021, and the amount of things that i've been able to tick off the list is absolutely insane. Especially the big ones, like finding a new job, a new house and a new car all within a very short period of time. And not to mention getting my name changed!
I guess you could say i've been making big steps, getting the building blocks together to build a new life. But emotionally, i'm not there yes. There's just too much to process, and I have yet to come to a point where i'm comfortable enough to let go and start processing. Life right now is still too uncertain and stressful to come out of survival mode. The pandemic isn't helping.

I figured it would do me good to find a therapist, because although I wouldn't say i'm depressed, I do recognize that I have some things to work through that I can't do alone. It was really hard finding a therapist though, because the type of help that i'm looking for often isn't covered by insurance, and financially i'm not in a position to pay for it myself. After a long search, I think I may have found someone suitable. We spoke on the phone and she seemed nice enough, but not TOO nice (I unintentionally am very good at beating around the bush and manipulating therapists into thinking everything is fine and i'm making progress, all the while keeping them away from the core issues). I need someone who is compassionate, but can still call me out on my bull. Unfortunately (but as could be expected), there is a waiting list. She's likely to have time for me around the end of january. I'm not in a rush, though. My situation isn't acute, it's more like, something that can simmer for years and years, but I just don't want to live my life like this. It seems like a waste, since I know that I can feel and do better than this.

I ticked another big thing off my list this week. I've been in training to become a TRE provider (Trauma & Tension Releasing Exercises) for almost three years now. The pandemic got in the way, as did my personal life, and for a while there I was seriously considering giving it up. The training is just so much work, and the criteria are so arbitrary that I got really frustrated and anxious about the whole thing. One minute they'd be telling me I was doing great and that "if this was your exam, you would have passed". The next minute they'd be saying "you need to film another session asap, otherwise you will have to re-do module 2". Or i'd take their feedback and incorporate it into a session, and then during my next evaluation, i'd be told to do the exact opposite (ironically, the thing I was already doing before). I just felt like I never knew where I stood, and the amount of time, money and stress it was taking, took a massive toll on my mental health.
I didn't want to give it up too easily though, considering I only needed to do one more certification session. So I did it, filmed it, and it took weeks to finally get an appointment for the exam.
This due to the fact that the trainer only responds to her email once a week or so, and her agenda doesn't match mine at all.
On sunday, she emailed me (after many failed attempts to plan something) that she had time on monday night. It was a bit of a short timespan to work with, since I had to work that day, so I'd have no time to prepare. But I decided that I just wanted to get it over with, and that i'd be fine with either outcome. If I'd pass, i'd leave with a diploma. If i'd fail, i'd quit because it was no longer worth the stress of continuing with the training. Telling myself if would be over by the end of the evening, no matter what, helped me to get through it. So after a long day at work, and after dealing with several other little crisis' (why does everything happen at once?), I took the exam. It was online over zoom, and took about 2 hours. The first half was about theory, the second half was watching my filmed session together. Thankfully, theory is my strong suit, I passed that with flying colours. The rest of the session was harder, but it went better than expected. I'm very relieved to inform you that I did, indeed, pass my exam. So I'm now a certified TRE provider, and I can finally close another "tab" in my brain that has been running in the background for the past three years. What a relief!

There are two more weeks until the christmas break. I'm struggling to make it through. Currently i'm working 7 days a week. This due to the new covid restrictions that state all non-essential stuff has to close at 17.00. I work at school during the day (four days) and at the gym in the evenings and on sunday mornings. But since we can no longer do evening classes, we had to (temporarily, but we don't know for how long) shift all of my evening classes to my free hours during my day(s) off. So now I work monday through thursday at school, and friday through sunday at the gym. I used to have fridays and saturdays off. I'm beat. I can't wait until break, because I have sleep to catch up on, I need some down time and some me time. And although i've been living in my new house since october, I still don't feel entirely at home, simply because I've hardly been at home long enough to settle in.

I'd better get to bed, tomorrow is going to be another early one.

I'm having a hard day. I feel lonely and depressed. The state of the world and they way that people are treating each other, no matter their views, makes me sad.
The thought that there's probably another lockdown coming up, causes a lot of trapped and hopeless feelings.
I feel stressed out about a course i'm taking (have been for the past three years) that I have to do an exam for. I've been under a lot of pressure, and every time I have to do something for that course, I feel overwhelmed and I just want to quit. Quite frankly, if I fail this exam, i'm quitting anyway. It isn't worth the stress anymore. The exam is a formality, they already know that I can do the thing. But the criteria are so arbitrary that I could fail anyway, and i'm done with it. I've had quite enough.
Work is good, but overwhelming and stressful just because it's all new. Sometimes i'm fine, but sometimes everything just hits me at once and I want to run away to an island somewhere and hide from everyone.

I've been looking for a therapist, but I can't find anyone in the area that specializes in what I need, and that is also covered by my insurance. That sucks. I'm fine most of the time, but i'm very aware that that's mostly because i'm in survival mode. There's a lot of stuff hidden down in there, that I should probably address...

Hello all,

It's been a while. The past two months have been INSANE.

Things at the new job have been hectic, but good. It's a lot of work, and it's really tiring, but I really do hope I get to stay after this academic year.

That place I got to check out, ended up becoming mine! I moved in about three weeks ago. It was a lot of work to get it all sorted, the whole place had been stripped down and I had to do most of the painting, flooring, wallpaper, etc. by myself. I did get some help here and there, but most of the time, people were just busy. That's understandable, and i'm really grateful to the people who did take the time to help me out. I couldn't have done it without them. It was more work than i'd expected, and the timing wasn't great either, so it was very stressful and I was worried that I wouldn't make the deadline, but in the end, on the very last day that I needed to be out of my old place, at 19.30 in the evening, I finally finished hauling all my stuff over.
I don't have a proper kitchen yet; I was allowed to pick out a new one, but it's not going to be here for another two weeks.
So I made it!

It's a lovely place. It has two floors, two bedrooms and a small garden with a pond out back. I absolutely love it, I have a lot more space to move around here, both physically and mentally.
My dog loves it too, having more space to run around and a garden to play in. I used the second bedroom as an office/studio, so that I can separate work from rest. It will hopefully become a nursery one day, but for the time being, it's my own workspace.

While I was moving, I also had a trip to London planned. That was already planned way before I knew I'd be moving that week. The timing wasn't great, but the trip sure was. I only went for one night, and the only reason I was there, was to go and see the musical Wicked on the west end. It was absolutely amazing. When I arrived, and I walked by the Apollo Victoria theatre and looked up at the giant, green, sparkly Wicked billboard, I did get a little emotional. I couldn't help but get a little teary eyed, it was a feeling of "I made it!". In the broad sense of the words.
I mean, not only have I managed to survive these past two years of losing my job, losing my business, living in a pandemic, losing my income, having my family fall apart and whatnot, but i've managed to get back up and build my life back up to a point where I can afford a completely random trip like that, just because I want to. But I also have come to a point in my life where I actually have the guts to travel abroad on my own, and figure it out as I go. And seeing that show has been on my wishlist for a while, the show means a lot to me, the main character speaks to me, and being able to go and see it live, was just amazing.

In the same week that I was moving, I also got the news that my name change has officially been granted! That's a relief and absolutely amazing. At the same time, it is and was a huge bureaucratic mess. Having to get all my documents replaced (not to mention expensive), and now i'm in the process of having my information changed everywhere. It's a hassle, but it's worth it.

So although things have been on the up, it's just a lot. It's been overwhelming, and still is.
It doesn't help that the government has just decided to put us back into lockdown. The lockdown itself, the way people are treating each other, the way the government is planning to go for a 2G plan where you can basically only live your life if you've had the jab, it all feels very restrictive and controlling. It triggers me. I feel like I just came out of one abusive situation, and rolled into the next. Someone or something making decisions for me, and putting me in a position where I don't really have a choice in the matter. That's how the world feels to me right now.
And regardless what your opinion is on the matter, it hurts to see people being so horrible to one another, for their different views. I've taken to just keeping my mouth shut on my own opinions or feelings on the whole situation, just because I don't want to get caught in the crossfire. But at the same time, I feel very alone and i'm scared for the future. Mostly of being trapped in a world where I no longer have a choice in where I go, what I do, how I live, and what I do with my body. And wow, that's triggering.

You know, it dawned on my recently that I feel like over the last two years, with everything that has happened in my private life and in the world in general, I have lost that last little scrap of innocence that I had left. I feel like back in the day, even when things were f*cked up, there was always a glimmer of hope in the back of my mind. Or a little sliver of naivity, the idea that one day in the future, things would be better and i'd have a "normal" life. Easy isn't the right word, there would still be hard stuff, but it would be the "normal" hard stuff. The stuff you can expect. You know, like loved ones passing away. That sucks, but it's part of life. I suppose a few years ago, I really thought i'd worked though the worst of it. Because how much weird, f*cked up stuff can you really expect to encounter in your life? So I just always thought that somehow, i'd had my share, and when i'd worked though all that, it would be relatively smooth sailing from there.
Two years ago, I was on track. I had a good job that I loved, I had ambitions for my own business and other plans for the future, I felt like I had a better bond with my family than ever, and I had gotten through all of the depression, ed's, etc. I felt like i'd won.
And no sooner had I begun to relax, when everything came crashing down in ways that I could never have expected. Having my own father ruin my life and finding out what he really was. Finding out that my life had been a lie. Losing everything that i'd built up. And then having a pandemic take over the world on top of all that. I feel like all of that just broke me. Broke the last little bit of childlike hope, innocence, naive-ness, whatever you want to call it. I feel like I don't have that anymore. I wouldn't say i'm depressed perse, it's not that, it's more like...i'm just a lot more cynical these days. I mean, I already was quite cynical to begin with, I didn't know it could go this deep. I just feel like internally, something in me has accepted the the world, or life, is indeed f*cked up, and that i'll just have to work with it. Things can go well, or not, we'll see. But I no longer have that idea that "one day, everything will be good". That's no longer a given. It's a possibility, but it's not a given. Life now, just feels...flat. Whatever. I make do with what i've got and i'll try to make the most of it, that's all I can do. If i'm lucky, things will be good. But i'm not waiting for that anymore

You know....I really want kids. I'm on the waiting list for a donor. But at the moment, i'm so unsure of my own future, or of the future of the world in general, that the thought scares me.
Not only do I wonder if I want to raise a child in this world, but it also scares me that once I have a child, i'll have no way out. You see, I tend to use thoughts of suicide to keep me sane.
Knowing there's a way out, helps me stay on track. But when I have a kid, I can't leave anymore. That's no longer an option. And the way things are now, that thought scares me.

Life is weird. I wonder if i'm just feeling this way because of the state of the world & my life, and i'll feel differently in a while when I've had the time to process and heal. But sometimes I worry that i've now really been irreparably broken.

Aloha!

It's been a while since i've updated, simply because i've been swamped.
Two weeks ago, I started at my new job. It's been going well, i'd say. The atmosphere is great, the people are very welcoming and really go out of their way to help you along. I was pretty nervous (opposed even...until I had no other choice) to start over somewhere new. And yes, I do feel frustrated about the sheer amount of work it is to start over...at times I feel myself longing back to my days at the previous school I worked at, simply because back there, I knew everything and everyone, I had all my material sorted, I could do everything on auto-pilot. And now i'm in this new situation, having to learn the ropes all over again. I will say, it's by far not as stressful as the last time I started somewhere new. That's partly because I'm more experienced now than I was back then, and I've grown a lot personally. And it's partly because this is such a small school with nice and helpful people, which helps me to settle in and get the hang of it all much faster. I knew it was going to be rough, and I know i'll be fine in the end. Sometimes it's just frustrating, knowing that you have to go through that awkward, hard phase.

Over the past two weeks, i've probably asked more questions and been more proactive than I have been in my entire career at my previous school. Simply because I dare to do that know.
Because of this, i'm less stressed, as i'm taking care of issues as they arise instead of waiting and hoping that someone or something will fix it without me having to ask. So that's a big difference I've noticed. Also, I just seem less scared and less bothered by futilities in general, compared to what I was like in my last teaching job. I guess I have made more progress than I thought over those past two years that i've been out of the system. The things I've been through over the past two years have hurt me, but also forced me to grow and learn some important things in a really fast pace. I'm noticing the benefits of that now. At the same time, I do still get triggered easily. I'll be feeling fine, and the next moment I will have done something that makes me feel stupid and scared that my colleagues will find out, and judge me for it. Which has me tumbling back into the emotional EF's. I know when it's happening and I feel like I split into two, where one part of me is rationally talking me through the reality of the situation, and the other part of me is purely emotional, feeling like the world is falling apart. It's...weird. It's not something I can really explain to anyone either; most people just tell me that i'll be fine, i'm strong, there's nothing wrong, or whatever. Which I KNOW. And knowing it doesn't take the feeling away.

Anyway, i've been ticking many things off my 2021 goal- & wishlist. The big ones on the list were changing my surname (pending, still awaiting the official green light), getting a new job (got it!), buying a new car (did that!) and getting a new house. Well, I just recieved a message that i've been invited to check out a place that I had applied for a few weeks ago. It had taken so long for them to respond, that I had given up hope. But as it turns out, i'm the first one on the waiting list for the place. So i've been invited to check it out on monday 20th, and I have the first choice.
Unfortunately, I can't be there myself. So i'm sending a friend in my place. I have already walked by the place and checked it out through the windows. It's bigger than my current one bedroom apartment; it has two bedrooms, two floors, and even a little garden. So i'm really exited! If all goes well, it looks like i'll be moving soon. A big stressor, but worth it!

It's good to be finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, after two years of...well...*, pretty much.

That's a really important realization, Dante.

I think many people forget that a hobby is basically the more grown-up version of play. It's by nature not really supposed to have a "point" other than the enjoyment of the activity itself.

I get what you're saying though, I have (had) the same struggles with it. I have gotten a lot better at it though, through practice. Which sounds ironic😅

Man, that sounds really stressfull Armee.

I hope you're taking care of yourself, too!
Take care

That sounds like quite a relief!
Finding the right help can be so tedious, i'm glad this went well for you!