CG posted in my home again thread...

hits the nail dead on. i mean, get this, i signed for this contract near end June, but it was informally agreed upon before then. started July 1st. ON July 1st, i browse teaching jobs... just out of curiosity... expecting to find nothing as usual.

found 2 openings for an English teacher starting September, with a *really* reputable institute. this one is usually strict about cert, and the ad did specify that, but sometimes, despite the written rules, places will let ppl do their cert during their first year.

what really sucks is i know there was certification session over the summer i could have done...

it just seems like i am getting signs from everywhere that i need to start over... tv shows... there is some character that talks about starting over, someone says it's never too late... etc that kind of thing. i meet kindred spirits off to find themselves... and think yeah, i always just followed the "practical route." these keeps coming and coming and coming around. and these jobs in my field... i can't help wondering if my inability to really click is because well, i don't and never did.

the problem seems to be me, guts, etc. i dunno. a teacher's pay may not get me out of my parents' house in terms of able to pay rent. teaching was never an ambition, or a dream, so a little concern is justified... would i be jumping from the frying pan into the fire? but it seems a much closer fit that developing software.

i am sad. i am also deathly afraid of burning bridges. my parents are extremely concerned about me giving up this contract half way because it would do just that - with the client and with the contractor both... but again it seems all about fear.

i am in pain, physical pain. stupid physical things keep happening, too, or bipolar episodes. last contract (the one that ended this June), i had all sorts of issues .... URIs, migraines, not to mention cycling harder than i had in a while. and this is not the first time by any means.

who has read "Illusions" by Richard Bach? Remember the story about the river creatures, told by the messiah in the beginning? i am one of the clinging creatures, perpetually afraid to let go.

coming out of the psych hospital several years ago after having quit my job point blank in a mixed mania, i had ideas about trying artsy things... no clue how to go about... no formal training. A friend said, "Sometimes you just have to follow your heart."

but it seems i have

NO GUTS

to let go and let that crystal current take you where it may....

why am i so afraid?
are most people as afraid as i am?
do most of us just muddle along in jobs we fence ourselves into but are mostly allergic to, placated by drugs (incl. more meds than we might otherwise need), alcohol and/or simply reaping enough material benefits and "toys" to distract us from who we are inside?

those who wish to be
must put aside the alienation
get on with the fascination
the real relation
the underlying theme

from Limelight by Rush

Dear Waves,

Some people are fearful of change. Others (like my undx'd bipolar brother) seem to relish it. Most are on the spectrum in between of course.

When I was quitting/ getting fired from a job in my late twenties / early thirties with no plan, a friend told me to "go build roads." That's how I remember it. I think he was telling me to move on, find something different, and be good enough at that next thing.

Sometimes we want to be good at the job when all we have to be is "good enough." We can focus on the other "very good" aspects of our lives and let the job be "good enough."

I don't have suggestions. I stayed in an apt complex for 14 years that was falling around me, had a shooting across the street that ended with an injured man on the ground under my window with the cop trying to talk to him before the ambulance arrive, problem neighbors, . . . .
I prefer less change to more change.

I have learned that when my body is talking I can listen.
Tune in to your body even more. Instead of intellectualizing the discussion, try to feel it.

M

thanks Mari.

my body has been telling me hateful things about how i live for many many years ... and it only seems to be getting worse. my profession was a practical choice - intellectual not emotional - certainly not balanced. i thought i could change at some point... never did... there were always too many reasons to lie low. then i started getting sick and it being tied into work. the illness was more mental emotional. now i am having physical problems that seem to tie in.

i guess that is partly why the intellectualization of the discussion... one day i asked my pdoc if he thought i could be somatizing my discomfort with my profession, and he said he thought it possible (no real way to tell).

in my first meeting with this pdoc, he saw me in an agitated depression. he asked lots of questions about where i was at and what i wanted. he gave me a mood stabilizer right away. he also told me that from what he was hearing, at least right then, it sounded like a change in fields might be good for me.

i do know none of me (body, mind, spirit, aura, whatever) wants to go back into my current workplace on monday, least of all in my current state. oddly, even though most of the people are nice, i seem to be hating this one even more than the hard days i had at the other place. i might ascribe that simply to more time back in the trade and wearing me down....

~ waves ~

waves, I'm afraid I can be of little use to you with regards to career choices. I can, tho offer my support, and encourage you to follow your gut, your instincts, so to speak, and see what happens. You are fortunate that you are currently living with your parents, and that should take some of the financial worries away and make things easier for you, financially, that is. I hope you can figure out the best road for you. Think on it awhile, and follow your heart and instincts.

I'm still relatively young (59), but due to the tragic events of January, both my husband and I retired. He had worked in his job for nearly 32 years, while I, on the other hand, had several different 'career paths' in my working life. I worked with children as a teacher's aide, and then a pre-school teacher, for ten years, then kind of switched gears and started working in the medical field, in medical records, and then working in a doctor's office. Sadly, the best job, the one I enjoyed the most, and the pay was great, but it was a hard, stressful job due to quotas, etc. It took me most of my life to get a job eith the state, but then I finally did, working for the State, but also considered a 'federal' employee, working for the Social Security Administration. The jobs I've had were different from each other, but I'm glad that I finally worked for the State. I really enjoyed helping disabled people obtain disability, if they qualified. I do have chronic pain, tho, which made getting up for work each day, working, and then having anything left at the end of the day was very difficult. I'm happy to be retired, but am anxious for DH to come home and join me; I didn't think I'd be going this road alone .

Oops, off topic again. I wish you all the best, and I believe that you'll be successful in whichever path you decide on. Keep us in the loop, and try not to worry about 'making a mistake or the wrong choice. You seem like a very strong, intelligent person.

Dear Jacquie

thank you so much. your words give me hope, that maybe i can unfence myself. i think my fences are psychological.

i am sorry you suffer with chronic pain. that must really suck. i don't know how you do it.

i know there is a true resistance to my current field, which predated physical difficulties. the physical stuff might be helped, independently, or it may be a "new" symptom of an old pattern. a dig in the ribs where the earlier kicks in the shins didn't work.

i will keep trying. i guess i also need to try and be somewhat sensible and time things half-decently. my staying with my parents is less "financially secure" than you might think. i sleep on their fold out couch. they are retired and and not wealthy by any means. they just share what they have, for which i am grateful.

thank you again for sharing all your experiences.

i do hope your hubby can join you home very soon!!!

~ waves ~

Waves,

You know that I really like your pdoc. He knows things.
I try to choose my body over my brain -- if that makes sense.

See my new thread for a risk taking test. Do it for fun. I did not check out the web site to see if there is science behind it.

You can have several plans. You could take steps that

1. put you in a place for an immediate change
2 put you in a place for a change in the near term
2. put you in a place for change sometime in the future.

You don't actually have to follow through on any of the plans. You could however start taking steps towards seeing these plans to fruition.

M.

53 - "sensation-seeking"

i had a few problems with this test, as indeed i encounter with similar tests. there wasn't a good "fit" for many of the questions. some questions i couldn't relate to one way or another. a big problem however, is that my answers to certain of the questions would have to be polar opposites depending on my "state" at a given time.

most (all?) of my "risk-taking" behavior has been in manic episodes, esp. as a consequence of prolonged ones, combined with weird/stressful work environment and/or idealizing something and/or someone to the point of chasing it across a continent (and no, that's not how i got here)... to no avail.

i have a LOT more "apparent" guts when i'm manic, and might do "exciting" things but there is only impulse and idealism in the risks... no calculations. Truth is, I DO DUMB THINGS AND SCREW MY LIFE UP.

then ppl go, wow, how brave... but that is false because i lack insight and the appropriate fear - courage means taking a chance in the face of fear. this was another issue with the test... questions on others seeing my life as exciting... simple answer: moderate yes, but if they had the full picture they'd admire/envy the "excitement" about as much as pathological gambling.

when i am euthymic, i barely seem to take risks. i lie low. try not to make waves - LOL. i might wish i could, but i don't. i am easily swayed by the cautions of others against my own feelings. i might resent it, but that is all. the resentment remains inside as melancholy and bitterness. but i can't seem to rechannel it into something positive, a way to move into a better place. let alone when i am anxious or depressed!!!!! RISK??? WHAAA???? all i want to do is hide. i don't even want to change my clothes let alone a job. i don't want to move from the couch to the bed, let alone transplant myself from coast to coast!!!!

so, there are vastly different types of behavior there. the test can't differentiate between states... the "have you ever" questions average things out longitudinally, producing, in my case, a skewed picture.

~ waves ~

i am not good at plans. in fact i am pretty bad at plans. i don't like them.
generally i get an idea or a feeling and it stirs until it either goes away or i act on it. right now what is stirring in my head is very negative:-

i keep having thoughts about what can i do to get myself fired. if i do i will lose both the client and the contractor. i may or may not lose respect from my parents but, knowing i orchestrated it, i will surely lose self-respect.

conversely if i quit, i may lose some self-respect for not sticking things out, and will certainly lose respect from my parents - for not getting another job first.

what sucks though, is that my mother insists complete this contract before changing jobs because this contractor "helped me" when i was jobless and nobody else did. but i can see a business shark in him, and i am certain he did not "take me under his wing" out of the goodness of his heart. my low economic expectations gave him opportunity pitch me to clients for a good bit higher.

the first contract he may not have had a huge margin due to the middleman. but with this current contract, there is no-one else between him and the client. so i asked him if i could make a little more - split the difference... he said NO, that he wanted to make up (on his side) for the previous contract, where the rate was devastatingly low (really??? sorry, i don't buy it... not for the expectations placed on me there!)

meanwhile, i feel taken advantage of. they are using multiple skills - i am corresponding in English with foreign contacts... someone else was doing that before, but at this point it seems to have shifted onto me a lot. i am dragged into meetings, have to write them up etc etc etc. and i'm still supposed to meet the programming deadlines. i'm sure that he capitalized on these skills in negotiating my contract. they were discussed in the interview. i am sure the client is paying HIM for all this, but i am not seeing any of it. might care less if i were enjoying the job, but i am not.

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a personal note.... he is a good manipulator. he uses tone just right that everything is fine mostly... then will drop a line or a tone that i fear the rug being pulled out... i react - he reassures me. he keeps me on my toes emotionally. i don't like that. my reaction tells him he's in control. so far i haven't managed not to fall for it... hence "good manipulator."

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this is business. if i quit i will owe him a month's notice per contract as i see it, no more, no less. he is no good samaritan.

it would be best to get another job first. and i might be able to, but it would still be within the field, for now, i think. i've let things go too long. the teaching openings are mostly in September.

as for what my body is saying... i hate to admit. i am getting that feeling of resistance i have felt before. it is getting very strong. it can take me bad places. it has before.

~ waves ~

You need tothis feeling ahead of everything else. This is you intuition taking you by the shoulders & shaking you, saying, "What do you need?! An adrenaline splash in the face? Danger, Will Robinson, danger!"

yeah... about. except i've been running on adrenaline for too long already (mania). times i was actually flushed from it. i don't really want that back. it was starting to get annoying. not all of it was fun and woohoo.
i got meds uptuned and downtuned and had breakthrough sx that came and went and finally came on harder again and throughout all that some was mixed. mixed is baaaaaahhhhhd....

maybe just a drop or so of adrenaline though. because wherever it went, it went... it's gone... bye bye, tada, see ya in another two years maybe four... and now i'm like .

also suffering heat-frustration. no that is not a typo. if i were a dog i'd hang my tongue out. then i'd have someone stretch it and go for the Gene Simmons doggie lookalike cup.

idea . i am going to put the fan on TWO.

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But, i digress. yeah. i figure i better start lookin at these cert courses. so far only found 2 that start in a month... will have to see if there's time to register.

if there is, i may quit my job with due notice and do that. and especially if i choose the diluted one (better for me i think) i could try and cold-call some schools, say, hey, i'm CURRENTLY ENROLLED in a cert class... hint hint i'm serious this isn't a patch between jobs... and see. might not get a perm slot but might get some sub work.

~ waves ~