retrospectively shitty

[lobelia321]

Sometimes I only discover retrospectively that I have been feeling shitty. I mean, I realised that my institution of work was getting me down and that I wasn't talking to my family and obsessing about shining my sink but it was only today when, after yoga class, I re-entered my house in near-tears that it hit me: I haven't been just feeling a bit bad but really shitty. To stop myself spiralling downwards into the black dog's maws, I rang a friend and went out for lunch, and then I went and spent money on the new Gorillaz CD - to which I am currently listening with earphones. I really like it!

Gorillaz
I like it because it's so eclectic and pastichey. I have a soft spot for that post-modern moment of pastiching, and here I can recognise about three references to other songs or song styles in every number. And there must be even more because I'm not all that knowledgeable about music, after all. Some songs are Bowie/Beatles, others are punky, others are Dylan/Disco backing vocals (!), others are rappy, others funky. And duh, I only learned about two weeks ago that this 'band' is a virtual construct. But that is also kind of interesting! Thank you, thejennabides, *g*, who ages ago alerted me to the existence of the Gorillaz by citing one of their songs as the theme tune of Wrong to Love You.

Shittiness again
It's a real struggle coping with work. The place is getting worse and worse. It is deeply corrupt, it makes me sick to the soul. I am realising that I spend 80 percent of my daily energy ration on coping with the place: building an armour of zen-sayings and power-suits and carefully-packed-lunches and more self-motivating-sayings and mental-attitudes. Still, every time I open an email I have virtually to do breathing exercises. I hate that! And if the place doesn't value you, it's hard to keep on valueing yourself.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Once you realise what's bugging you, it's already a bit better.

Comments

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

I found this post therapeutic. Your description of your work environment could have been written about mine, and it,too, is making me feel shitty, 24-7. It's like having a low-grade depressive fever. Wah. Solidarity, man.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Pooh. What strategies do you use to cope? Didn't you have a sabbatical last year? I've got one coming up and it's the one thing that keeps me going. Only 12 more weeks and then I'm free for months!

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

Right now I don't feel that I'm coping very well... but generally I try to save career-destroying outbursts for my therapist's office. I also hold lengthy bitch sessions with a few good work friends. Sometimes, though, it's just overwhelming. Our union contract went down in flames last month, and a reign of terror is underway. Gah.

SABBATICALS ARE THE BEST. My last one (six months) was a stretch of glorious decompression. I had many plans, but wound up just farting around Europe and ruminating. What are you planning to do with your time off?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well, I had a year-long reseach leave two years ago, just a few months after discovering fandom and LJ, and I slumped into a deep depression for most of it. So I'm worried that free time does not agree with me. I'm making some careful plans to avoid a repeat but it's difficult for me to travel because of the children.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I'm really sorry about the shittiness. As for your work, it does sound as though it's definitely time to move on, but I realise that's easier said than done. However, not impossible! You are so very clever and resourceful, I am confident things will improve for you.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't feel very clever right now but it's sweet of you to say so. And yes, sigh, the easier said... I buy the Guardian every week and there is always precisely nothing in there for me.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Humph. Well, work is a curse, and in lieu of any helpful suggestions I can only suggest we MEET UP SOON and chew over fandom memories and gossip, and eat cake. We must, I am having withdrawal symptoms.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm shocked and in a state of disbelief about this news about Kia. Let us meet up while we still can!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Definitely.

[timberwolfoz.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* I hear you on just having to do deep breathing exercises to get to work, let alone function.

Hang in there and look after yourself.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had lunch with a friend and felt much better already.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention the yoga classes -- I've descended into my last two major slumps immediately after yoga. (I mean that's when they've really hit and left me in tears. Luckily I swim after my class. In the pool no one can see you cry. Except your face goes blotchy and red.)

I wonder if it's to do with focussing on oneself, one's body; or a side-effect of all the cleansing healthy stuff; or what. I don't think yoga's to blame for mine, but it just seems to ... trigger.

Good music cures a lot, or at worst patches it over very nicely.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I think the yoga does the self-reflection thing. It helps you to discard displacement and repression, and if there's shit to repress, you get slumped into it. This is my theory anyway. I do find it healthy to de-repress but it can be distressing! But better than bottling up. I swim, too! I swim on Saturday mornings at 9 am and it makes me feel feb! I'm always wary of the highs as well as they seem to portend a low.

[msilverstar]

*hugs you*

Any chance you could do more conferences? You loved the last couple you did. And it's fun to network there...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have a love-hate relationship with conferences. I love being at them but they cause me a huge amount of stress beforehand because I get into a state over writing my paper and about travel, in particular, when that travel involves air planes. And then, after all that gallivanting, I never follow up the contacts as much as I would like. So it all lies fallow. I'm being very negative, aren't i?? Ack.

[pecos.livejournal.com]

I've been crabby too. Let's both blame George Bush, shall we?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Now that is the best advice I've had in a long time!!

Also: *falls over at sight of your icon!!!!*

[eveline725.livejournal.com]

I haven't commented on your journal before, but I can totally relate to the shitty workplace thing - I just realised the other day that I've been sinking further and further into a mopey depressive state, without noticing it, its funny how it sneaks up like that...and I'm not normally depressed. I have a few days off soon, so that might help give some perspective and breathing space.

Also, September was not a good month in terms of news stories - we can't underestimate how draining this stuff can be. I'm seriously thinking about taking a total holiday from the news for October, see how that works out...hopefully nothing too important will happen.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You've never tigged me? But I'm sure I know you, from somewhere around the place! I've often read about the statistics of work-related stress but as is so often the case, not linked it to my own experience at all. If by news you mean the Katrina thing, that was certainly shocking. But I'm not in the States so perhaps less so than some other news have been in the past. It is a US news item that doesn't affect the rest of the world, for a change -- or not immediately, anyway. Actually, it's difficult to think of anything that involves the US and does not affect the rest of the world, *sigh*.

What does one do about shitty workplace? It's so dreadfully bound up with economic survival, too. You can't just say 'stuff you' and walk out.

[eveline725.livejournal.com]

Well, I used to lurk anonymously around the LotR/Lotrips fandom, way back in 2002/2003, and I remember you from there; I've been floating around the HP-verse for a couple of years now, but mostly as a reader, not a writer...I'd like to rec and feedback and comment more often on lj, but I have no time...!!! And as you say, its not as simple as just saying 'stuff you' and walking out, tempting as that may sometimes be...:)

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Am only unofficially here, as have stopped being on LJ altogether, due to precisely the work situation you are describing above, only I started to cry in a tai chi class, rather than yoga, and am periodically filled with a kind of amazed admiration at my ability to go on keeping it together most of the time, esp. given that work keeps me away from my partner, friends and family. Absolutely ditto on not being valued, and on the corruption side of things, and on the general hopelessness of the Guardian Education section - were it not for the Economic Reason, I would be departing in high dudgeon in a coach-and-four.

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