A Need to Read

The truth is I have this need to read books. I'm floundering pretty hard here with looking for a job, and filling my days in ways that don't take money and also make me feel like I'm living a meaningful life and being productive. One of those ways would be reading. The problem is that reading is something I do when I'm content. When life is going well I read voraciously. New book every other day at work or school. Getting stuff done while also having time to devour new ideas, new worlds, new characters or simply revisiting old ones.

But instead of reading the hundreds of books I own, tens of which I've never read, or tracking down any number of others on my "to read" list, I find myself in a Netflix spiral. I'm watching The X-files and playing Candy Crush or Sudoku on my phone. Never devoting my full attention to either, perhaps with a crappy magazine open as well. Anything to avoid thinking about what I should really be doing. The mattress pad is falling off my bed (it's a queen sized pad living on a twin sized bed so it slides off periodically) but do I fix it? No. My hair is a mess from the last time I washed it but do I fix it? No. There's infinite ways to spend my time that would be more productive than what I'm doing. But it's so hard to do anything.

It sounds dire, I know. I'm depressed. I'm anxious. I'm not at risk.

It's unpleasant. It's demoralizing. It's frustrating. It's not the end of my world. I just know that the longer I remain un-useful, un-contributory, un-living, the worse this is going to press on me. Already I'm feeling aches and pains that remind me of how motionless I am. My sciatica or psuedo-sciatica (I don't really care, both suck) is here. It makes it hard to sit, hard to stand, hard to recline, hard to move. I want to stretch, doesn't help. I want to sleep, doesn't help.

"Give me an occupation, Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad."

Truer words were never spoken.

But back to my original point. I feel like maybe if I can pull myself into reading something I can draw myself out of this funk. Do I read because I'm happy? Or am I happy because I read? I've got book club in a week and a half and I haven't finished the book from last month. I did read Ella Enchanted last month. That's something.

I don't know if I should even publish this.

While I have every reason to be feeling this way with where I am in my life, I'm also exploring the possibility that my thyroid may be out of whack and could be a major contributing factor. It feels weird to say that I hope I have hypothyroidism. But it would explain so much of my life. I don't know which to hope for. Normal? Low? Preferably not Hashimoto's, that much I know.

What it feels like to have anxiety

Basically, having anxiety is like you go to work like normal and you know your job really well and some days it goes smoothly and other times things are a little weird, like you can't find your stapler and you really need to staple some stuff. That's normal anxiety that everyone has sometimes. But then there are days when you walk into your office and instead of your desk and computer and phone all being where you left them you've somehow walked into an operating room. You're not a flipping surgeon so you turn around to leave and the door is gone. Everyone else is there acting like this is no big deal, this is just life and apparently it's normal. Maybe you even have a vague feeling like it should be normal but really you are just frustrated that people are putting you in scrubs and an apron and handing you a scalpel as if you are a person that should ever be given a scalpel for any reason whatsoever because you can't even use an exacto knife to cut paper properly let alone use a scalpel to cut people. And everyone is very insistent that you need to operate on this person now. No one else understands why you are getting so upset because this isn't a big deal. What you really want to do is sit down and cry, but you've also somehow convinced yourself that you are in fact a surgeon and this person needs your help and you feel guilty for not wanting to operate. Everyone else knows you are a surgeon and this is normal. On a "good" bad day you feel sick or angry/annoyed but you operate and maybe it's fine and you finally get out of the operating room but you're still irritable for the rest of the day. Or week. On a really bad day you look down at the person you are supposed to operate on and it's you.

Why people are difficult for me

Something I've thought a lot about lately is why people and relationships/friendships/working relationships are so frustrating to me. And the conclusion I've come to is that I don't know what I think or how I feel about people or stuff probably about 95% of the time. Especially new people.

Basically if I don't outright hate you then there's probably going to be a period of time in which I'm trying to sort out exactly which box(es) in my brain you belong in. For this reason I think other people have a hard time figuring out me as well. People like to know where they stand and I'm sure it's difficult when I'm cycling through warmth and indifference (hopefully I'm never outright cold unless I hate you and that's probably not going to change).

I'm very much a typical introvert in that I loathe small talk so I dread situations where that's the expectation. Like on break at work when I coworker tells me, "I don't bite" and all I want to say is "I know, but I do." Maybe I don't like people at all today. Maybe I'm hating that everyone took their break at the same time as me and I wish I had gone to the other breakroom because I really wanted to be alone. Maybe I'm having some really complex feelings and thoughts about you in particular and being in close proximity is very much not helping me decide what it means. Maybe I'm relieved I don't work with you on a regular basis anymore because my stress levels have dropped significantly since you switched shifts.  Maybe I think you're too cool to be my friend. Maybe I forgot your name *again* and I'm super crazy embarrassed that you've never forgotten mine and you can remember the name of my cat and where I went to school and how long I lived in Oregon.