I am Freaking Out, Man.

I am dangerously close to creating nicknames for things at work and turning it all into another fairy tale ala Cinderella (the original Space Station) and Pinocchio (the second Space Station). When that happens, things are bad.

But things aren’t bad, really. I still like my job and the company and the people I work with. These days I’m incredibly stressed out, but it has nothing to do with my ACTUAL job – I’ve somehow been sucked into this enormous blob-like project that is an all-encompassing black hole of catastrophe. I’m a technical writer, yet I’m running around like a fucking headless chicken trying to fix everything that’s wrong – and I don’t know how I got into this.

I have this weird super power that allows me to not only look at the Big Picture but very quickly adapt to whatever is missing from the chains of command. Okay, managers do that – great. Unfortunately, I don’t stop there – if something is broken, I will figure out how to fix it .. and then I will do it. Oh, I try to delegate – hey Bob, this isn’t working as it’s supposed to, can you fix it? But then Bob doesn’t fix it and he’s too busy so I end up learning how to tinker with the programming myself so I don’t have to wait until Bob is free. Multiply that times many, and I am now doing the work of four separate departments and trying to manage it all at the same time because clearly that is what I should be doing as a technical writer and trainer. Clearly.

Seriously, how did I get sucked into this project?

One thing that drastically differs from the fairy tale romances of the past is at least people are realizing that I am saving the day and are thanking me for it. That is new. I enjoy it.

In the end though, I really wish the tools would work as they’re supposed to and our warehouse would do things logically and follow my damn processes and that I didn’t have to jump into things halfway through and attempt to follow the tangled yarn through to the end.

I don’t *like* being stressed out. It makes everything else in my life seem overwhelming and daunting. When I get like this, everything clenches and things bother me: I don’t want to be touched, I don’t want people to ask me things, I don’t want to make plans. Things I was looking forward to see like an insurmountable hassle – like this weekend. I volunteered to help with the registration for the Thriller Dance and have to be at Kits Beach by 9am, but OH MAN WHAT A HASSLE IT IS TO GET UP AND PUT ON PAAAANTS. We’re going to Fright Night on Friday and I have to buy tickets but it is TOO MUCH WORK TO PRESS THOSE BUTTONS AND PRINT OUT THE TICKETS. So on and so forth – these are fun things, but right now I’m all whiny about them. I’m going to a hockey game on Saturday night, but OH MAN SITTING IN THE SEATS FOR THREE HOURS IS TOO HARD not to mention GETTING TO GM PLACE and FIGHTING THROUGH THE CROWD TO SKYTRAIN HOME. It’s all very difficult, and thinking about it gives me enormous ass marbles.

I will now take some deep breaths, and think about kittens.

I suffer from depression, anxiety, and a great deal of self-doubt. I’ve mentioned this before, albeit offhandedly – I make light of the situation by speaking of my crazy pills and giving cute nicknames to my afflictions. It doesn’t really change things for me, but it’s easy to forget that I am, by textbook definition, mentally ill.

My own special brand of crazy manifests itself in a number of different ways. The self-doubt, while pretty much a constant little voice in my head, becomes louder and more insistent. This leads to paranoia, which then breeds cattiness. This rapidly becomes bitterness and a blanketing sense of unhappiness. I try very hard to work past it and can be quite successful, but it’s not always evident. No one is around me 24/7; all people see are the fleeting glimpses of the crazy and form opinions about me that, while not wholly incorrect, are skewed and not entirely accurate.

I wish it was easier to explain my brain sometimes. It isn’t quite right in here, and sometimes I don’t see that my crazy has gotten stronger until something bad happens. I need some sort of Outlook plug in that will know when things are getting worse for me and pop up a little paperclip telling me “It looks like you’ve gone off the deep end! You should get help!” As far as I know, this software isn’t even at the alpha stage, so everyone – including myself – forgets about that whole depression thing, and suddenly my irrational behaviour isn’t a chemical imbalance, it’s obviously just me being a bad person. Not even Ed really knows when things are getting bad for me again; he just sees the storm and is bewildered as to why I don’t seek shelter instead of screaming incoherently at the stop sign.

Things are bad again. I realize this now, and suddenly a lot of things are making more sense. My reactions to perceived slights, my paranoia, my frustrations and twisted logic – I know why, now. It’s time to re-evaluate.

Unfortunately, this realization – as it always does – came a heavy cost. I lost two friends tonight. I am not blameless, but I wish it wasn’t easier to simply label someone as “not worth the effort” and “without quality” rather than taking the time to realize that this isn’t the same person you were talking to a month ago and maybe saying “hey, is everything okay? You aren’t yourself. Are your brain pills placebos or something?”

It’s a strange thing, having someone confirm that all the horrible things you tell yourself late at night are actually true. I’m glad I caught the edge of this vicious circle before it spiralled me into a much worse place. It’s just easier to hate on people, I guess. I just need to remind myself that suffering from worsening depression and mental illness does not equate a lack of quality.

This morning I woke up sad.

I do not know why I am sad; I just am. I want to go home and crawl back into bed and mope about whatever it is that is bothering me.

Truthfully, I have nothing to be sad about. Irrational sadness is the worst – I know full well how stupid it is to be sad about nothing, but instead of snapping out of it, I just get sadder.

Perhaps I will watch this again, because even in my morning sadness it made me laugh loudly.

OOOOOH wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle YEAH

I always thought “mental health day” was just a clever way of saying “I don’t wanna go to work today”, but here I am taking an honest-to-Stan mental health day because my mentals are just plain not healthy.

Last night, Josh, Shan, Ed and I went to the Vancouver General Hospital to visit Miranda, who is broken in several places. I was excited to see her, but the moment I stepped out of the elevator and onto her floor, I was hit with a massive, horrible case of the wiggins. I was completely freaking out, and spent the majority of our visit hunched on the corner of Miranda’s bed, tense and wide-eyed, saying maybe 4 words in total.

It was the first time I had been in a hospital since my dad died.

I don’t count that time I was in the ER because of my disco shoulder – that “visit” was a haze of floppy arms, missing socks, and pain. No, this trip to see Miranda – which eerily mimicked a lot of the details of the last time I saw my dad, minus the death (thankfully) – was my first trip to a hospital ward since 2005. Luckily (and in my case, surprisingly), we are all fairly resilient people, and as such we never go to hospitals (except for Josh, who works in one). Since all our friends are healthy and we are not such noble citizens that we spend our spare time visiting the ill or elderly, we just don’t have a need to hang out in hospitals – until last night.

I feel really badly for reacting the way I did – I wanted to see Miranda and cheer her up (not that she needed it; she was very cheerful!), not have a complete mental breakdown. I owe Shan a beer or three – she kept up a steady stream of chatter, so it wasn’t immediately obvious that I was trapped in my own private Idaho of painful memories and gay male bonding. It wasn’t until Ed maneuvered Miranda’s wheelchair (everyone was going for a ride) over to my side of the bed and saw my face that he realized something was seriously wrong. I think people assumed I just plain didn’t like hospitals, until I found my voice again and managed to squeak out what was wrong. I have nothing against hospitals – it’s the only place I know where you can wear those awesome gowns – but last night was just horrible.

I’m sorry, Miranda – unbeknownst to me until last night, I am a terrible hospital visitor. I will visit you when you are at home, and I promise I will not have any sad flashbacks!

I drank all the Diet Coke in the house, so after watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle I decided it would be an excellent idea to go to 7-11 and get some ice cold refreshing delicious Diet Coke.

Except .. they were FUCKING OUT OF DIET COKE.

The irony was not at all lost on me.

Sadly, Neil Patrick Harris did not appear to save the day. I had to make do with some chocolate Skittles. I am a sad, thirsty monkey.