Re: Re: Incapable of dealing with work environments

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

It's funny you mention crumbs; I've spent my life being *okay* with any crumbs

I might get rather than the whole loaf.

That is a belief about myself: All I deserve are crumbs, or All I can ever hope

to expect

are crumbs.

I guess to change our thoughts about ourselves we have to root out the beliefs

we have

that were given to us. And have become habitual. I am trying to work on that,

but it's

strange how comforting the habit is.

~patricia

Re: Incapable of dealing with work environments

Dear Ann,

Thanks for the support. I hope you are right about things changing and

getting better one day. Realistically, however, when it is the book business

you are talking about, you'd better not count on it.

I imagine I haven't gone to get counseling for several reasons. One is money.

Plainly put, there isn't any extra. (Well, there is, but if you think I am

going to give up nine days off at the beach working on my novel when I have

never, never been able to afford a vacation for myself EVER since I graduated

from college--and it's a trip my husband and I can take together while we are

still able and both in good health--in order to go to therapy...um, no. Sorry.)

Second is time. Due to taking care of my bipolar 86 year old great aunt and

handicapped cousin, I don't have but a day or so every two weeks to write. If

you think I am going to give that up to go to therapy...well, ditto.

Thirdly, I guess I am ashamed of the stupid, childish stuff I thought was

going to work out in my life. I really don't want to look someone in the eye

and admit that I was ever that dumb. Especially when I was told and told and

told and told by industry professionals who should know that it was impossible.

I was living in Disneyland... " When you wish upon a star, " that sort of rot.

Anyhow, something happened yesterday that threw things into sharp relief. I

was eating lunch with a coworker and somehow the conversation came around to

where she mentioned that, with the exception of a couple of areas, she actually

thought I was very good at my job, and she said she told people so a lot. I had

no idea at all about any of this. And I said, " Well, you know, if you're in

this field, and you can't do X and Y, you never hear anything good. You never,

never, never hear *anything* good. "

And it's the truth. No matter where I've worked, and I've worked a lot of

places, good things about people in my position are seldom EVER said where the

person in question ever hears about it. But you sure will hear about X and

Y...on and on and on. Even though your time spent doing X, which is not even

the main thing I was hired for, is or may be nowhere nearly as great as the time

spent doing what I do.

And then I began to think that I really do have good reason to be depressed,

and always did. How many of us, growing up in our homes of origin with our

nadas, GREW UP HEARING ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT OURSELVES???

Chances are we didn't. Or if we did, it was because and only because

something we did happened to coincide with something that shored up nada for the

moment in her mental illness. And it came mixed in with a goodly amount of

spankings, hitting, and verbal abuse that we were assured we deserved. No

wonder we went off on crooked paths in life and don't believe anything good

about ourselves if we don't hear it said once in a while.

Now, if you subscribe to the New Age theory, you are " just supposed to believe

it " even if you don't see/hear it. HOWEVER, we as KO's grew up with people who

did just this very thing, in *error*, every day. We lived with it, and we saw

what it could do. So we...I...don't want to believe a single thing that there

isn't the evidence to prove that it really is true. Which is why such advice as

" Believe that one day you will get published and make enough money, " " Believe

that you really are good enough at what you do, " doesn't work for me. I've

believed stupid things without any evidence for years in the past, and it made

me look stupid and it made nada look stupid for years, too. And it never did

any good.

So when time goes on and on and on without any evidence that things really

aren't as bad as I think they are, how am I supposed to know differently? I'm

not going to get it by osmosis, and I'm not going to get it by ESP. I never

hear anything good, only bad, so of course I'm going to assume things are bad

(especially when they've always been bad anyway). So of course I'm going to

feel bad.

I have to say, coworker's comment made me feel a lot better. One thing for us

KO's, we do have the talent of taking one tiny crumb of something positive and

making it into a whole loaf. We missed out on the loaf that other people got in

their FOO, but when we get a crumb, we sure don't take it for granted.

Thanks for listening.

--.

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