Incoherent whine.

[swestrup]

I don't often kvetch in my LJ, usually because I'm a pretty mellow and laid-back kind of person, but its now 6:30 am again and I'm unhappy. Anyone paying close attention to my LJ lately will note that I've been saying goodbye at some time of night (or early morning) and then posting 2 or 3 hours later. Thats because I'll get tired and sleepy and get ready for bed (which usually involves doing something to slow down my mind, Solitaire is good) and then get into bed, only to have all of my troubles and worries suddenly come crashing down upon me. So, I toss, and I turn, and I just can't sleep, regardless of how tired I am and how much I need some rest.

My main problem is that I don't have a job, and thus no real income, and my EI benefits are steadily running out. Come March 27, they cease, and then, unless I find paying work before that, I'm going to find myself without any means of support. This is a situation I've never been in before. I've ALWAYS had a backup plan, something I could do if all else went wrong. Now I don't. Every other time I've been out of work (and this is only the 3rd time in my carreer), I've had the knowledge that I had a standing offer of employment with the head of a software company I know. I don't LIKE working for him, but the option was always there. Last time I was unemployed I had to take him up on that standing offer, and roughly a year ago HE ran into financial hardship and was forced to lay off everyone in the company. So, this time I don't have a safety net.

What is all the more galling is that my work is one of the few things that I'm unabashedly GOOD at. Its a source of pride for me, and no small measure of self-esteem that I have worked hard to become good at what I do (and I'm now pretty damn good by my own estimate). So, when I can't find a job, it makes me feel like I've been overestimating myself and that I'm not really so good. In short, it makes me feel like a loser. Considering I've never had huge measures of pride, confidence or self-assurance, this is NOT something I need a reduction in.

Now I want to be clear here: I don't have any real fears of losing my house or my life's savings or going on welfare. I know that I have family and friends that will be there for me if things become dire, and that if need be taxlady and I can both get jobs at McDonalds flipping burgers to make ends meet. The problem is that taking ANY one of those routes is emotionally (if not intellectually) tantamout to me admitting that I can't cut the mustard and that I'm not worth anyone's effort to hire.

So I lay awake at night unable to sleep due to the bombarding images of myself as a complete failure, and then I spend the day in a semi-comotose state when I finally drag myself out of bed, unable to accomplish anything at all due to lack of sleep. So, at the end of the day when I finally crawl back into bed all I can see is that I've accomplished nothing that day and I'm that much closer to total failure, and the cycle feeds back on itself.

The worst part. The WORST part of it all is that I KNOW its all an illusion. I KNOW an economic downturn doesn't make me a lesser person, and I KNOW that having self-esteem rooted in one's employability is asking for trouble. What I DON'T KNOW is how to feel emotionally what I know intellectually. I don't know HOW to make my emotions more realistically mirror my situation. I can SEE where I'm hurting myself, but I CAN'T see any way to stop myself from doing it. That much self knowledge I don't have.

And on that note, I'm going to play some solitaire, and then see if I can finally get some sleep.