Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
randomling) wrote2013-09-09 03:35 pm
randomling) wrote2013-09-09 03:35 pm
Entry tags:
More brain stuff.
This post carries a trigger warning for suicidal thoughts.
So all the stuff I've been doing over the weekend, about general organisation and getting shit done and dealing with the massive to-do list, was really useful. And at the same it didn't tackle one of the current major causes of stress in my life.
That's jobhunting.
So one major problem is that I'm hugely angry and resentful that I even have to be looking for a job. I'm still not over having been declared "fit for work" in April, which is probably ridiculous. But part of the problem is probably that I haven't really dealt with my anger and resentment, because let's be honest, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with feelings, especially negative ones. So I'm trying to bury them and just get on with it, and they keep popping up in unwanted places.
What this ends up with is me suffering from increasingly unpleasant depression symptoms, and every time I have to deal with an application form, the anger and resentment comes welling up, and because it's been buried, it's mixed with enormous amounts of shame and self-loathing. This isn't exactly unfamiliar, but what it means that an application form right now is a quick route to suicidal thoughts.
This is pretty bad, given that roughly 50% of the jobs I want to apply for require me to fill in an application form of some kind.
So I'm wondering about how I can tackle this problem.
azurelunatic was talking in IRC recently about how they keep a spreadsheet of job-related stuff for forms and CVs, so that they don't get anxious about data loss when updating their CV. This seems eminently sensible, given that many forms have similar fields, and copy-pasting from a spreadsheet would be less stressful than digging the relevant information from my CV (in fact, at this stage, from two CVs, as the most recent one has no descriptions on it).
So that might be one thing I could implement which would make a difference. It doesn't exactly eliminate the emotional problems of Dealing With Application Forms, but it does make one practical element easier.
I contacted a therapy service today, and they're calling me for a phone assessment next week. I already have a private therapist, which might disqualify, but then I might just not tell them about that. They do something called stress control classes, and I have a feeling they might help me. In the meantime, I could probably usefully figure out what bits of CBT I can use. Like - I find it really hard to do the exercises when it asks you to recall the last time you were really upset, 'cause I find it hard to recall things like that. Just one bonus of having the Master Represser badge, I guess. :/
However, I should totally find a way to use CBT to process my Feeeeeeeeeelings. Because this is fucking ridiculous, and it's almost impossible to apply for jobs while I'm dealing with all this emotional baggage. Certainly to do the applying for jobs with application forms. (And of course I get all the guilt, because it should not be this hard.)
So two things have come out of this, which I will add to my list:
1. Job history spreadsheet
2. Online CBT stuff
These are health and job stuff, so they both get on to List One. I think I need to work on re-working my lists at some point, but first I have one more thing on the "must do today" list.
Wish me luck?
So all the stuff I've been doing over the weekend, about general organisation and getting shit done and dealing with the massive to-do list, was really useful. And at the same it didn't tackle one of the current major causes of stress in my life.
That's jobhunting.
So one major problem is that I'm hugely angry and resentful that I even have to be looking for a job. I'm still not over having been declared "fit for work" in April, which is probably ridiculous. But part of the problem is probably that I haven't really dealt with my anger and resentment, because let's be honest, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with feelings, especially negative ones. So I'm trying to bury them and just get on with it, and they keep popping up in unwanted places.
What this ends up with is me suffering from increasingly unpleasant depression symptoms, and every time I have to deal with an application form, the anger and resentment comes welling up, and because it's been buried, it's mixed with enormous amounts of shame and self-loathing. This isn't exactly unfamiliar, but what it means that an application form right now is a quick route to suicidal thoughts.
This is pretty bad, given that roughly 50% of the jobs I want to apply for require me to fill in an application form of some kind.
So I'm wondering about how I can tackle this problem.
azurelunatic was talking in IRC recently about how they keep a spreadsheet of job-related stuff for forms and CVs, so that they don't get anxious about data loss when updating their CV. This seems eminently sensible, given that many forms have similar fields, and copy-pasting from a spreadsheet would be less stressful than digging the relevant information from my CV (in fact, at this stage, from two CVs, as the most recent one has no descriptions on it).So that might be one thing I could implement which would make a difference. It doesn't exactly eliminate the emotional problems of Dealing With Application Forms, but it does make one practical element easier.
I contacted a therapy service today, and they're calling me for a phone assessment next week. I already have a private therapist, which might disqualify, but then I might just not tell them about that. They do something called stress control classes, and I have a feeling they might help me. In the meantime, I could probably usefully figure out what bits of CBT I can use. Like - I find it really hard to do the exercises when it asks you to recall the last time you were really upset, 'cause I find it hard to recall things like that. Just one bonus of having the Master Represser badge, I guess. :/
However, I should totally find a way to use CBT to process my Feeeeeeeeeelings. Because this is fucking ridiculous, and it's almost impossible to apply for jobs while I'm dealing with all this emotional baggage. Certainly to do the applying for jobs with application forms. (And of course I get all the guilt, because it should not be this hard.)
So two things have come out of this, which I will add to my list:
1. Job history spreadsheet
2. Online CBT stuff
These are health and job stuff, so they both get on to List One. I think I need to work on re-working my lists at some point, but first I have one more thing on the "must do today" list.
Wish me luck?
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When I am having Guilt About Not Doing Whatever, all the other little things make it *so much worse*, so here's hoping that in the presence of it being easier to just kinda bull through, that the Petrifying Guilt just sort of whimpers and gives up.