That sounds really frustrating, Katie. I'm sorry your colleague lacked tact - it sounds like you dealt with it well.
I'm short on helpful words at the moment, but I care and am listening. Sending hugs, too.
Maybe you need somewhere warmer and more comforting than a cave - just to get some respite from the world's chaos for a while! Hopefully you'll feel a little more recharged to face the upcoming week.
P.S. I'm certainly not trying to challenge your understanding of it, at all, and the work that you've done. I'm just wondering - but wasn't it sexual? An violation of your femininity and yourself as a sexual being. I sincerely apologise if that comes across as impertinent.
Thanks Laura.
Re your second post - you mean on the bus? They knew I was uncomfortable, and played on it, basically - yes, there was a sexual element to it. I guess I should have just ignored them, but due to things, I get really antsy when people lean on the back of a seat next to me. I moved, then this other guy also with the group came and sat behind me and did the same thing, grinning and it was so obviously on purpose to rile me up. No words were said, they didn't need to be. I moved right down the bus after that.
A sexual element in the boundary violations when growing up? Not so much, I don't think. But yes, in the negating my emerging femininity, very much so.
I'm sorry for my misunderstanding, Katie. I still need to do some learning on separating the two, generally speaking (sexuality and femininity). Ignore me today!
Somehow I just keep going even whilst I feel like I am nearly drowning in sadness and shame. My therapist is encouraging me to face my feelings of shame. But it's so hard to shake that debilitating of shame for who I am when vulnerable and volatile. It seems I've had to fight so much of my life to be respected, and it's so damn hard and sad and shameful and frustrating and lonely.
It sounds like (and correct me if I'm wrong) work is a bit part of why you're so stressed right now. Would it be an option to take a week or so off work, perhaps on a doctors note, so that you could have a bit of respite?
Do you know where your shame stems from?
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
I do have today off, which is something. I did talk with my manager yesterday, and I am going to put in some annual leave requests, though that wouldn't be time off until July.
The shame is because of how a split off part of me that never developed emotionally due to needs not being met growing up, behaves about trying to get care and attention from all the wrong people in all the wrong places and so getting all the wrong reactions. I have to keep an eye on this part all the time, and am getting better at doing so, and coming from *me* more. It's tough though, really tough.
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Thank you.
Things are a bit raw right now.
I to go to head office for a check for work this week, which is stressful for me. Yesterday I discovered I have to go back as I used the wrong colour pen [the person was sat next to me, but said nothing at the time...] and this is triggering all kinds of feelings, which I am doing my best to be with.
After a bit of a blip this morning, I was very much *myself* today in a very forefront kind of way. Really present to myself and others. New, in such a clear and vivid way.
But I feel in part of me weird about it, like "how could I do and be like that?" Like I've become a bit 'bigger' than the emotional skin I'm used to inhabiting.
So I'm feeling a bit lonely and sensitive and a little bit anxious about it.
Can anyone relate?
Ah, the wrong colour pen thing sucks; it's shame the person didn't say something at the time.
I'm not really sure I understand about the bigger thing, but I'm sure others here will.
How are you feeling today?
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
It feels like they're messing me around on purpose. I'm scared to go into work in case he's emailed back saying the time I can come back to sort it isn't ok, or he's not emailed me back so I don't know. It all feels too overwhelming. I just want to stay in bed.
I have my period, and I feel exhausted. I've been going all over the place all week. I just feel rather overwhelmed.
