Affirmations

I am responsible and in control of my own life. This means that it's not the mailman, waiter at the restaurant, my family, friends, people at work, lovers, etc., who are in control. I may not feel like I have control, but that's because I'm unable at the time to get control. I have to start truly believing that I have control. Right now I don’t feel like I have any control over my life, namely my career. But if anyone has control, it’s me.

I am the author of my own life. No one else is writing my story, I'm the author of my own story. Yes, things happen, but I can control my reactions and attitudes toward them. I can rewrite my own story. I can decide to react or not react and how to react. Today, for instance I could get really upset about not having anything to do, or I could just enjoy the day writing and reading. If I was feeling bad however, I’d be having an anxiety attack now. So I’m taking advantage of my good mood!

I can fully recover. The more I say this, the more real it sounds. A more realistic thing to say would be that I can get control over my illness. I am never going to be fully stable.

My life is good. My life is good. My life is good. Just keep repeating this one. If I said "my life is shit" over and over again, I'd start to believe that too. Although saying that my life is good really isn’t penetrating my brain too much.

I love myself unconditionally. Say this over and over again even though right now you don't feel it.

I can conquer my demons. Again, over and over again. Print these out as sentence strips and put them on the wall. Think about if I said the opposite. If I say over and over again, "there's no way I can conquer my demons", that would start to feel true after a very short while. So why shouldn't the opposite also be true?

Circumstances are what they are, but I can choose my attitude toward them. I could have chosen to look at the potential job at Beacon the way Rob and Rob eventually convinced me to look at it. If I'd been willing to look at it that way before, I might have felt differently. Next time, I should skip the drama part and use logical reason. Also, remember how I felt without a job. Is having a boring job so much worse? I’m at least getting paid to be non-productive. And it gives me a reason to get dressed in the morning. It will also allow me to pay bills and buy things. I can choose to look at this more positively.

I am not alone. There are people who understand me. Aside from family and friends, there are people in the support groups. If I go regularly, I'll have more people who understand me.

I’ve been reading back over all my entries, and they are very negative. I had to write about how I was feeling, but reading back over it over and over again isn’t good for me. I need to start writing about positive things. Perseverating over the negative isn’t going to help me. I have to make some decisions now with a clear head. Feeling useless is a terrible feeling. I feel like George Costanza.

The hardest part will be to see if this job picks up anytime soon. I don’t know if I can do this for three months. I think I should start putting out feelers in a couple of weeks. There’s no way I’ll be here long term if I’m not utilized. For them to say they’ll try to find things for me to do doesn’t give me great confidence. It’s demoralizing.

At least when I was a teacher, I made some contribution to people’s lives. Teaching someone to read or to multiply gives you a real feeling of accomplishment. Now I’m here and it really doesn’t matter. I’d be okay with that if they actually needed me. But they don’t, and I’m here 3 weeks now.

Bob assured me this would change. I remember how I felt at Lucent. I felt so useless. I was useless. The asshole I worked for knew I was sitting around all day doing nothing. He didn’t care. Why is it that when I arrive at a job after an admin has been there and been busy, is there nothing to do?

So what can I do about this? I can play the game. I can write positive things in my journal, walk around with a pad and pen, surf the net, and very discreetly read. If I’m caught, let them fucking say something to me. I will ask them if they actually expect me to sit and stare at the walls for eight hours.

I don’t like this Sheila person from Kelly. She’s a little abrupt and abrasive. She thought I was here a week, when it was actually almost three weeks.

I think I can be an admin, but I must be busy and needed. It’s never really happened for me at J&J. Is this a sign from up above? I’ve only been consistently utilized at permanent jobs. At Bizteque I was bored a lot, but read and surfed the net. And there was a real point to my being there. The position was necessary to run the company. So boredom didn’t bother me. I didn’t feel useless like I do now.

How the hell am I going to do this? I was tortured the same way at GPSG. Only my boss was always around there. Here, people leave me alone.

Given my instability, this type of job is not good for me. My mood is starting to go south. By the same token, I need to stabilize more before seeking out something permanent. It’s going to have to be a balance between stabilizing so I can look for something else and not allowing myself to lose it because I’m in an unsatisfying position.

Enough about what’s wrong. I have to find ways to make it right.
If after a month (because who are we kidding, there’s no way I’ll last three months like this) I’m not being utilized, I will contact the agencies again for temp to hire positions. Or even direct hire if it seems like a good fit. So on September 6th, I should start this process. It shouldn’t take months for a position to be utilized after a person starts. It shouldn’t even take a month.

I should take control of this situation now. J&J is clearly not the place I should take up residency at. I have the flexibility here to go on interviews. I should look at this as a very positive thing. It’s so easy to go into negative mode. I’m so used to going into negative mode.

I just drank 32 ounces of water and feel no urge to urinate. I’m majorly retaining. No bowel movement for the 4th morning in a row. I forgot to take the laxative last night. I felt stirrings this morning, but so far nothing’s happening.

I think I should guzzle all my water in the am. This way I’m sure to get 64 ounces per day. I’ve really been neglecting my hydration needs. I haven’t wanted to drink water. So I’m drinking it today, hopefully I’ll continue with drinking it tomorrow.

Realizing that I’m framing everything so negatively on a day when I’m in a pretty decent mood is helping. I can start using proactive statements.

Just to reiterate, if I am caught reading or surfing and they actually have a problem with it, I will raise the roof. How dare they say anything when they know I’ve been practically pleading with them for work? I will throw it in their face about their expectation of me sitting and staring into space for 8 hours. And I will tell Sheila off if I have to.

It’s 11am and I just got back from a 20 minute conversation with Rob. I’m starting to feel the ability to just be his friend. I have to. I can’t go to his house and I have to keep him at a certain distance. I’m going to go to social events and not let my life be dictated by what’s going on with him. Even if he improves, it probably won’t be for long, given his history. I can’t invest my emotions in him. I don’t like that he said I love you when we ended the conversation. I felt obligated to say it back.

Today is a pretty good day for some reason. I don’t mean that in a pessimistic way. I just mean that my mood is pretty good, considering how bad it’s been. I did call Rob compulsively, not even giving the feelings a chance to escalate. So it didn’t feel as compulsive as it has in the past, but was compulsive nonetheless.

I just had lunch and feel a little bad. Everyone sees me sitting all by myself, yet no one asks me to join them. I guess that’s a really unrealistic expectation. But I’d feel bad if I saw the same lone person day after day all by herself. I don’t think I look so unapproachable today. I guess that’s just the way people are. I don’t even know if I would introduce myself to someone I didn’t know, I’m not that outgoing.

So I don’t think I really want to go to the group tonight. I just feel like staying home and chilling. I’ll see if Rob wants to go. I don’t want him to not go because I’m not going.

Lunch was pretty successful today. I really could have used another burger and fries but I told myself to see how I felt after the salad. I had salad with egg whites, a roll, and the black and white cookie. I’m pretty satisfied. The cookie is junk, but at least I didn’t also have a hamburger and fries like I did yesterday.

It’s been 4 mornings in a row now that I haven’t crapped. I’m getting tired of this. I wish Ken wasn’t here so I could read my book. But at least I’m drinking my water.

I am starting to really accept the fact that Rob is not going to get better (of course, barring a miracle). He’s not going to get better anytime soon, and it’s destructive to pursue anything with him. I told him I have to keep some distance to keep it on a strictly friendship level. I accept that it’s never going to happen for us. I accept that. Maybe I don’t have to cut off all contact with him. But I can only be in his life from a respectable distance. I can’t go to his house or see him, because that’s how we segue back into romance.

I want to get out and meet people and expand the circle of people that are in m life. I must start going to NJYP events again. This weekend I’m going to go on the website this weekend and schedule some events for myself.

I really need to be romantically done with Rob. He’s going downhill again, so there’s no reason for me to think this is going to change.

I noticed today that I smiled at men today. I don’t have the stay away from me horrifying look on my face. I think I look pretty receptive today. I think if I just smile more, romance might come to me. It’s when I’m so miserable that it feels unattainable.

I kind of like Kevin, my student. He’s 25! He’s so cute though. I think I had a dream that he kissed me. I’m going to have to find a way to find out if he’s single. Last night I was thinking he would never be attracted to me. But that’s the negativity and low self esteem talking. If I project confidence, people will be attracted to me. It’s not just about my weight, although losing more weight will help.