2020: Year in Review

A year ago, I was 3 months fresh from leaving my job. Not desperate for a job yet, but more concerned about my back recovery. It was hard to be optimistic, nagged down by my injury, the frustrating healing process, and overall it was hard to enjoy life.

This wasn’t an easy year. Not for any one. But I felt it especially. Breaking off with friends, coming back home and reconciling with family. There were lots of pains along the way. The pain of feeling disconnected with family AND friends. The pain felt through mistreatment, changing family dynamics. The pain of being jobless for over a year.

Now, we are at the end of another year: 2020. I’ve confessed, opened up about my depression, had honest conversations, began regaining my voice, regained some strength mentally and physically. I’m ready to ring out the old year and bring in the new year with optimism and strength.

Being thankful

I had a moment today, where I thought. I’m not where I wanna be. …But on the other hand, there’s a lot that could be worse.

Health: I haven’t been diagnosed any new sicknesses. My body feels better than it did a year ago.
Relationships: I have my siblings to lean on and recently a lot of contacts reached out to send care.
Work: my part time is not ideal, lots of bumpy rides this week, but at the end of the day I have the option to leave.
NBA returning..!

VV’s continued…

VV”s continues to fail to surprise me. Since Friday, it seems things have been left uncommunicated, unsaid. That was the last time I was in. I took the day off yesterday.
It’s becoming clearer what a mess of an organization this is. How could V, the founder, leave the organization like this? It’s incredible the amount of responsibility she expects of you, and at the same time holds no accountability for herself. You know, I’m the type of worker that tries to be honest, maybe too honest. So I say what I do, and admit what I don’t, but working with a person such as her, she takes you for granted, and makes you stressed every opportunity she can. Or gets you to do something for her.
I feel its time to take a different approach. For one, care for my mental health and stress activity before anything else.

The effect of coffee

I had a coffee late in the afternoon today. But I find that days that I have a coffee, I’m filled with possibility and not worrying much. It’s a great feeling. On the other hand, some days I don’t have a coffee, they are hard to get by. During those hours I’m not working or getting through a workout when my mental isn’t feeling too great. Is my outlook solely due to the coffee?
I’m currently on a coffee schedule – once in the week and once on the weekend (personal reasons), but I’d be open to changing it depending on the answer to the question above. I should continue to monitor the effect of coffee on my attitude and general feelings.

Motivation

Nowadays I find it hard to draw motivation. I don’t know when this started to happen. Probably ever since I had that first bout of depression? I never used to have trouble with motivation. I used to have that hard mentality, nothing could stop me. At the gym, with what I wanted to achieve.
Somehow I lost focus of those motivations. I started focusing on worries rather than focusing on my goals. But surely I can turn it around? The worries need to stop, anxiety needs to stop. I need to keep a track of my mental health, that’s most important.
On the other hand, what were those sources of motivation? Can I still draw from them?

This week

It’s been a hell of a week.

I was offered a part time job this week. This was good even though the organization is unorganized, makes things more difficult, and gave me more anxiety this week.

I gave my self one free day on Wednesday. I spent it reflecting, and gosh I was surprised at how much came through out of that. Writing a message to my friends in the upcoming days. I spent some time cleaning up old items which was a great feeling too.

Then yesterday, supposedly a pretty relaxed schedule, my last day of volunteering before I start the gig. Well, lets just say my anxiety was activated. Due to what – I’m not sure. The environment of the Zoom room, the person I was working with or their vibe? Maybe that set me off but that snowballed into a very stressful afternoon and resulted in a painful back. I can recall a moment in the midst of this work, my breathing had become dysfunctional. Even my meditations were fruitless, hard to concentrate, due to unrelenting thoughts and stress I had gone through in the day. After dinner, something dawned on me. The possibility that that my back pain was caused by stress? Something I’m looking into but a provocative thought at the least.

Bringing me to this morning, where I woke up earlier than I have in last 6 months now: at 6:30. Now, a few hours later, now that I’ve got my morning routine in, let’s see what else today brings.

Receiving an offer

Yesterday, the organization that I work with offered me a part-time role. Although I didn’t show it much on the outside, I was ecstatic about it on the inside. Finally, things seemed to be looking up. Progress after a long journey since leaving my workplace last year.

I remember just months after I left my workplace, I started volunteering with Salvation Army downtown. It was just once a week and the hours weren’t much. I kept this up til the pandemic hit. Shortly after settling back home, I looked for other opportunities. Since I started this role about 2.5 months ago, I’ve been putting in about 10 hours a week. Now the next challenge is ahead of me. I’m expected to put in 20 hours a week. My hope is that I can do a good job here, meanwhile keep improving my health and posture. Hence preparing me for the roles I’ve been dreaming about the last year or so.

The Devil (and me) post#2

Okay. The last couple hours were tough on my mind. I couldn’t really stop thinking about telling Dad about his appointment. I had postponed it the whole day already, due to my perception of him being in a bad mood, and his comments earlier about my dishes.

So he came down at one point while I was making my next day sandwiches. And I just bursted it out. I guess I wanted to release it that bad. At least out of my own mind and transfer over the burden to him, in a way. So it came out. He didn’t have a bad tone surprisingly, he kinda just said “wha’?” so I repeated the appointment to him and showed him the date on the calendar. There, it was out. It was a relieving moment.

So maybe I overworried. Sometimes I know I shouldn’t be giving time to thoughts surrounding him. It’s hard to stop though. The simplest communications with him, I’m apparently traumatized from, and it sometimes keeps me thinking in circles.

When conversations fail

Ever try to have a conversation with someone and all you hear is that person stepping over your voice? Or giving you a bucket list of items to do? I should pre-face this that this person is a relative of mine, and I’m sure she’s good-intentioned. Guiding me through out my unemployment and job search, however this is where one’s communication technique sometimes fails.

I have to admit 10 minutes before we dropped the line, I had pretty much stopped listening already. There was too much information: Information Overload! I’ve experienced this with the individual before, but I need to get better at stopping the individual.

Halfway through the conversation I wondered.. do I speak this way to others? I’m not the best, most coherent speaker, I realized, but I hope I don’t not listen to others and just keep feeding them with whatever is coming around to my head. I guess I was pissed that this person could not read the situation carefully to see that I was disinterested and couldn’t absorb any more information.

Doubt

I still have feelings and thoughts of doubt. Will I be happy again? Will I be able to be able to be the best version of my self? Living with confidence and daringly?

When I compare the old version of my self vs the new me (post 2017) there’s like a distinct difference. But I don’t know how to describe it. I was more naiive then, my goals were all around maximizing fun and opportunities. Nowadays I’m much more wary. Caring for my health, physically and mentally. Is the top of my mind.

I should treat it as growth though. Whatever I’ve learned through this period, what’s made me sad, what gives me sad feelings, I should take that and move forward. I’ve been through the good and the bad. And I can say that the good wasn’t always as it seemed. There were dark moments within those periods that only I knew about, random panic and anxiety attacks. Nowadays I’m much more aware of mental or physical stresses.