Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Worst Employee of the Year

This morning, my alarm didn't go off. Or, maybe it did and I was so exhausted that I turned it off without realizing it. Either way, I woke up to my manager calling me, wondering where I was. I had a managers meeting that started at 8:00am...and it was 8:09. Fuckmylife, right? And it doesn't help that I have to drive 45 minutes, in traffic, to get to work. And I work in retail, so you're supposed to look cute and fashionable every day. Thank goodness for my unhealthy and impulsive shopping issue...it makes picking out a cute outfit in ten seconds a lot easier.

And then I get to work only to find that I did a shitty job closing the night before. And the other two assistants are obviously shutting me out. I have this competitive air that girls seem to pick up on even when I'm specifically trying NOT to be competitive, and so girls tend to not like me. I pretend like I'm okay with this, but I'm not. I have to wonder what the hell is so wrong with me that makes people ALWAYS dislike me eventually. I can feel the other assistants making me an insignificant part of the team. I notice how I'm left out when they post pictures on our website. And I can feel the anxiety growing inside of me, and my sensitivity to the world around me increasing by the second. Dr. Marsha Linehan says that people with BPD are like third-degree emotional burn victims. We can't handle any external stimuli. And it's true. Just being late (yeah yeah, I know, it happens) send me into this awful downward spiral. Suddenly I feel like I can't do this job. I start to freak out, because I have no other job to run to, and I have rent. And they're going to start pushing me out, alienating me, rejecting me, and I'll get so emotional that I know I'll start to fall apart and get fired. And then I can't pay rent. Then, I'm fucked. And then, I start to hate myself. I don't actually think "I hate myself"...instead, its this awful, dark feeling that sweeps over the body. It pulls me under, and it's like drowning deep beneath those violent, raging waters. And I'm spinning so fast that I'm disoriented and can't tell which way is up and which way is down. Am I just being paranoid? Is this the borderline taking me over? Of course. But that doesn't make it stop. It only starts to make it worse, because I feel hopeless. I take all these steps to move forward, but I'm still drowning. And now, it's worse, because before I didn't really know I was drowning...I was protected by ignorance, by the ability to blame someone else and run away. Now, I know that "no matter where I run, I keep running into myself" (I can thank Breakfast at Tiffany's for helping me with this epiphany). Now that I've finally stopped and looked myself in the mirror, situations like today are excruciating. I can feel the borderline coming in and consuming me, drowning me, like the pains of ice water penetrating your lungs as you drown, and die a slow, terribly death. Except, you don't die. You just keep suffering.

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