Out of the Storm

Symptoms => General Discussion => Topic started by: Blueberry on February 24, 2018, 08:29:46 AM

Title: another bad habit...
Post by: Blueberry on February 24, 2018, 08:29:46 AM
Another bad habit of mine, which maybe ties in a bit with feeling responsible for other's well-being:

When somebody 'needs' me to do work for them - for pay - there are times when I seem to shut down my brain and yell  :heythere: of course I'll do it for you! Instead of realising that it's way too hard for me and that it's the other's duty to go find somebody else. I'm not quite sure what the 'theme' is here: feeling 'needed' maybe? So I have my spot on this earth? Something like that.

Anyway, babbling about it is not going to get the work done. I'll definitely be having a couple of Difficult Days. e.g. last night I dreamed for what seemed like hours about doing a form of SH that I've actually stopped doing...
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: Rainydaze on February 24, 2018, 01:04:25 PM
This is something I've always struggled with, to the point that in my last workplace my workload became ridiculous and I would constantly be in a panic feeling like I wasn't good enough because I couldn't do it all. I was 'yes girl' and flinched if anyone seemed remotely displeased with me. Other people placed unfair demands on me, however I placed unfair demands on myself and didn't enforce boundaries.

I still do it in my workplace now but fortunately no-one senior there is taking advantage of it so it's just me being over-enthusiastic. Sometimes I'll feel like I'm on a complete roll and can do more and more and it's then that I have to check myself and have a break before I burn out. It's hard to do when you're still on the productivity high and takes practice!

I think in itself saying "yes" just feels more positive than "no", even if it's at the expense of our own wellbeing. I think a lot of us have been trained that "no" is a bad word so we've had little practice in using it and asserting ourselves. I am starting to understand that often people will have more respect for you when you do refuse things sometimes and that being compliant doesn't always mean people respect or like you any better.

:hug:
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: Blueberry on February 24, 2018, 06:34:15 PM
Thanks blues_cruise. It's a bit different in my case because I'm self-employed and do contract work. I could've said 'no' but  :Idunno: :Idunno: I didn't. I usually do say 'no' because I'm officially taking a break from this part of my profession.

Somehow my brain shut down on Friday. And/or partly FOO isn't getting back to me about money combined with I have been starting to feel ready to attempt to do other work, other than profession-related, which is good because then I would be earning a bit more of my own money. But instead of looking into the low-skilled, exceedingly part-time work I saw advertised in the paper, I go  :heythere: :heythere: I'll do this super difficult contract  :doh: :fallingbricks:  :spooked:

Maybe it was an EF that led me into this situation. How am I dealing with it? Eating. And procrastinating. I have started, yes.

This is just an analogy. I can ride a bike, so I offer to teach somebody to drive a car so they'll pass their test on Tuesday. That's the kind of mess I'm looking at. Except there's nobody else I can pass the work on to because it just doesn't work that way.
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: Blueberry on February 25, 2018, 02:32:02 PM
Now I know what the bad habit is: it's the hope that some entity outside myself will galvanise me into action when I can't do it myself. Most of last week I spent in a very depressive state, couldn't get out of the house etc. My T suggests I should be kind to myself in this state, knowing it's part of an EF, and not expect myself to move mountains.

But instead of being kind to myself and understanding of myself, I grabbed at a chance of an outside entity to pull me back up. That used to work, sort of anyway, but it doesn't anymore. As a teenager / young adult I would've liked shock therapy because, yes, I believed some outside entity could galvanise me into action. I never got shock therapy (though someone else in FOO did).

I'm not suggesting shock therapy works, in fact I bet it would just be retraumatising for me or something, but obviously there's still a part of me that doesn't believe in the slow, bit-by-bit work towards some manner of healing and towards some way of earning a bit more money.

The outside entity: I have a deadline = pressure; I could be sued if I mess up = fear; and some more that I don't even want to write down.

NTS in future: avoid at all costs. It just isn't worth it. Not a contract that is this difficult.  :fallingbricks:  :spooked:
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: PeTe on February 27, 2018, 10:48:34 AM
It's a predicament to have to perform when you feel unable to. You say you've taken on something you can't do, but perhaps what you can do is sufficient to get paid and not sued. I hope so.

I thought I'd share a technique I've used when not being able to focus on a task. It's writing non-stop for a set time, for example five minutes (not too long), about what you feel here and now. What you write is for your eyes only, so you can write about anything. After doing that it's been so much easier for me to focus on work. Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting this technique as a recovery tool.
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: Blueberry on February 27, 2018, 03:09:00 PM
Thanks for the technique! It reminds me of a technique from the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, where you write half an hour every day. Of course I only kept that up for a while, a good number of years ago. I could see it working for when I'm brain-blocked as a once-off thing.

I was lucky with the contract work. The client changed their mind but has to cough up anyway.  :thumbup: I did put a lot of work into it. And when a client has a written contract with you, they can't suddenly decide: "No, not that one. We need a different one."
Title: Re: another bad habit...
Post by: PeTe on February 27, 2018, 04:11:04 PM
Good you got out of it. So you got a reminder of what not to do, and you got a nice payoff for it too  ;D