Monday morning. Another week has passed with little-to-nothing to report. Currently trying to overcome my workplace social anxiety and make a phone call that could potentially change my career path in a favourable way. Seems like exactly what I was hoping for, right? So why am I sitting here staring at the phone trying not to have a meltdown? Seriously, WTF is wrong with me? Why don’t I have any self-confidence until I’m at least three drinks in? Why can’t I just be awesome without any booze involved? Ugh.

So yeah, that’s my ONE thing I have to work my way up to doing today. Ridiculous. Maybe I’m having anxiety because it’s writing related and the last 17 times I’ve tried to move my writing career onto a paid, professional track, it’s blown up in my face or I get horribly rejected and then promptly insulted to my face, usually by super conservative old men. People always say to me, “Why aren’t you doing this or this or this?” Because every time I try, I get rejected! That’s why! So, yeah, please stop judging me because I’m having some trouble with that. But I will make this phone call today. And I can’t work up the nerve to make the call, I am sending an email. Midnight deadline. It will happen today. I am determined.

Naturally, I was awake half the night last night exploring this question of why I’m still going out to the bars even though I hate the bars. Well, it’s not because I actually want the alcohol. For a long time it seemed like the main reason for my problematic levels of alcohol consumption was the fact that there were very, very dark things inside of me I was trying to kill. Eventually I realized that’s not how it works and the only way to actually move forward and recover from my trauma is to address all of those painful memories head-on. Now I’m at the point where I’ve done so much of that I can clearly see that having a drink at the end of a bad day isn’t actually going to make me feel better. It’s just going to set me up to feel worse tomorrow. Okay, got it, let’s not self-medicate with alcohol anymore. We don’t need it.

So why is this still a thing?

It’s because of two things: boredom and serious lack of healthy human connection on every level. I currently have no close friends, my family is all very distant (and prefer it that way, TBH), I still don’t have a job, I’m alone in my house all day and have been for years other than my job at Starbucks, which was horrible and filled with people who reminded me why I was spending so much time hiding alone in my house (to get away from garbage like them). What’s the one guaranteed way I can go out and meet new people in this tiny little town in the middle of fucking nowhere? That’s right! Bars! It’s all bars, all the time. I know it’s an environmental thing because, with the obvious exception of New Orleans, I usually do not like to go to bars when I travel because there’s so much other shit to do. And when I have drank alone while traveling, all I do is ruin all the fun plans I made for the next day because of the hangover. So, again, not loving this lifestyle or habit. Desperately want to get away from it, but I am not finding any kind of positive social/professional situations where I can use my ability to meet new people and converse with literally anyone to keep me out of it. That’s a real issue I am having.

So again, people love to lecture me about shit, but they’re not living my life. That’s why now when someone tries to @ me over the job thing, I literally just say, “Okay, then you find one for me. I’m obviously too lazy and incompetent according to you, and you’re just like, clearly the expert, so here’s my LinkedIn password and 17 drafts of my resume for you to revise into one perfect shining CV that will get me a million offers! Good luck!” And then I just walk away. Like, fuck that. I’m so over it. Yep, I got it. Heard you a thousand times. There is something wrong with me that can never be fixed and I’m not worthy of anything and blah blah blah blah blah. I’m 35 years old. I’ve been hearing this shit constantly since I was 8 years old. I get it. I don’t want to listen to you judge me anymore. I’ve suffered enough being held down by the weight of everyone’s judgments for years. I can’t do it anymore.

End rant. Very determined not to cave in to the voices of negatively constantly chattering in my brain. It’s bad enough without interacting with people. Then I always, always end up in some situation where the only people I get to interact with are just louder, real life versions of those voices. Always scrolling social media on their phones, always taking screenshots, always looking for things to use against other people to ruin their lives, as they have done to me so many times before. So when someone like me has only had negative interactions like this, where they are so desperate to make everyone happy and get along and just be friends and keep the peace, and everyone around them decides “No, we don’t want peace. We want to be cruel for no real reason other than the fact that we can be,” it makes the Peacekeeping person just want to give up on the entire fucking world. That’s how I feel right now. It doesn’t matter how much time I invest into alternative therapies, or how many pages I had to write to put all the broken pieces of my brain back together after a decade of non-stop trauma destroyed it, or how many classes I’ve taken to help me become a better writer, or whatever. I have no control over the words and actions of others. I can’t stop them from hurting me. It’s not because I’m “playing the victim” (whatever that dumb shit even means), it’s because those people wake up in the morning and actively choose to hurt others. I am not responsible for it. I am not to blame for it. You wanna be a dick? You be a dick. Just keep your tiny, shriveled, weirdly misshapen dick away from me because I’m too old to give a fuck what walking dumpster fires like you think.

So knowing all of this and being at peace with it, I’m focusing on finding new alternatives for social interaction. The main problem here is that I have to drive 45 minutes to 2 hours to do literally anything interesting. It’s time and money I don’t have. I don’t want to go to these unknown places alone, but I also can’t find anyone who wants to do anything besides sit in a bar and talk shit about every single person they know, so I’m stuck. Plus, even if I did find someone to hang out with, they would just blow me off in a month anyway. Or I will find out they’re talking about me behind my back, or are compiling screenshots to try to ruin my life, or taking things I’ve written out of context so they can create drama instead of just communicating properly when they have an issue. So, like, I’ve basically given up on any kind of real, meaningful human connections and now just trade numbers with randoms when we’re drunk as if we will actually hang out later. We all know we won’t. I just need to go through the motions because statistically speaking, it’s all a numbers game. The more numbers I get, the closer I am to hitting the lottery. I guess.

So clearly now I have a number that could be a potentially good work situation, but I am not using it. Instead I am sitting here trying to talk me way through an anxiety-driven meltdown and lots of unpleasant flashbacks from bad work situations. So much rejection. SO MUCH rejection. Too much. But I have to keep going, because again, it’s a numbers game. Every rejection I get, whether it’s in writing, or at work, or socially, or romantically, adds to my number. The higher that number is, the closer I’m getting to an acceptance of some kind. You can only flip the coin so many times before it stops landing on heads and you finally get a tail. You see what I’m saying? This is the only thing that gives me hope these days. Just stack that number of rejections however I can so I can statistically get closer to acceptance.

Well, it’s about 12:30pm now my time and I’m still in my PJ’s because I was up half the night stressing out and woke up late, so I am going to go hit the reset button and make every attempt I can to turn this day around. I know in my heart I am destined to become a writer. I know that. And knowing that is the first step, because sooner or later, someone else will see that too. It’s not going to be constant rejection forever. Just gotta bide my time. Be patient. Be positive. Be the change I wish to see…

May your Monday be less stressful than mine!