Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... January 2015

January 2015

January 31, 2015

Amazing. The drama gets even more extreme and ridiculous. Even I, cynic of cynics, would never have anticipated the sheer idiocy and ridiculousness of people. Why do I keep going back to this insane, distressing, stressing, pointless, unappreciative place?

Posted at 7:18 AM

January 30, 2015

This is just going to get worse and worse ...

Posted at 6:38 AM

January 29, 2015

Tired and busy. These things together have pluses and minuses ... and I might possibly survive them ... (darn!)

Posted at 6:26 AM

January 28, 2015

Already sick of the tax season ...

Posted at 7:33 AM

January 27, 2015

... and still more drama from the divas. Who would have believed there was any further things could go?

Posted at 7:52 AM

January 26, 2015

Who would have thought there was a weekend in there? The past couple days passed with all of the work, stress, and pain of any weekday. Great.

Posted at 7:54 AM

January 25, 2015

Another stressful day at work. The new theme seems to be: "What new stress can we add each day, and how can we make this place more fucked up, less hospitable (to employees and clients alike), and equally as bad as it was in years past despite the efforts of the past year to address, correct, and avoid those problems (efforts which have now been subverted or ignored across the board).

All that's missing is the iron maiden and the rack.

Posted at 7:56 AM

January 24, 2015

Even with appointments with clients today dragged on forever. I never thought the afternoon would pass. Sadly, this is only the beginning.

Posted at 6:43 AM

January 23, 2015

I survived yesterday somehow. Now I have to face another shit-full extravaganza. Joy.

Posted at 6:58 AM

January 22, 2015

Who'd have thought the stress and anxiety from being poor and homeless would become preferable to the stress and anxiety from any place of work, no matter how bad? I know I've had decent employers for the most part in my life compared to some, but just as it drops to new lows that I could never have anticipated or believed we keep diving further into the darkest depths - of constant lies and deception, insensitivity, idiocy, unscrupulousness, outright criminality, and gross displays of inhumanity, selfishness, and ... hell, words will never be able to encompass it all ...

Posted at 6:46 AM

January 21, 2015

Meanwhile, as the migraine not only reaches day five but grows to previously- unheard-of proportions, i wish more than ever that I'd be allowed to die. Now.

Posted at 7:53 AM

January 20, 2015

I want out.

Posted at 7:56 AM

January 19, 2015

More crap surely awaits. Why do I head back into it?

Posted at 7:42 AM

January 18, 2015

Missed the anniversary of this site by a few days during the shit week I've had. Now entering year fifteen.

Posted at 7:27 AM

January 17, 2015

So tired ... tired of everything and tired to the bone - exhausted and exsanguine; over-worn and overwrought.

Make it end.

Posted at 6:46 AM

January 16, 2015

This shit, the horror of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, is the largest part of why I simply want out. The quiet stillness of death is vastly preferable to the tortured suffering of every day of life. Why should I - or anyone - be expected to endure this, and not just once or twice but daily, hourly, constantly, repeatedly, over and over and over again without end. If there is a hell it would surely be peaceful by comparison.

Posted at 7:01 AM

January 15, 2015

... and now, solid work twelve hours a day every day for three months ...

Wheeeeee!!!!

Posted at 7:38 AM

January 14, 2015

Oh the places you'll go! The people you'll hate!

Posted at 7:51 AM

January 13, 2015

I hate my life.

Posted at 7:12 AM

January 12, 2015

Still no cleaning of the apartment, even though I got a lot of other things accomplished that needed to be finished, and it now looks like the cleaning won't happen at all.

Posted at 6:21 AM

January 11, 2015

Still no cleaning done, so hopefully today will see it done. I have laundry processing, though, and I got a number of small tasks done yesterday that I wanted finished this weekend, so it's not a total wash.

Still, it would be nice to have a cleaning service so I wouldn't have to do this.

Posted at 6:39 AM

January 10, 2015

This is my last chance to clean the apartment. I certainly don't want to - I had planned to do a few final SMALL tasks and just relax during this last chance before the long days without break that come from the tax season. But if I don't clean the apartment now it will be disgusting and unhealthy by April 15th.

Wah.

Posted at 7:14 AM

January 9, 2015

More work today and then more work this weekend as this will be my last weekend off until late April, and there is much to do in the little free time that remains ...

Posted at 6:52 AM

January 8, 2015

Progress is a subjective thing ...

Posted at 7:46 AM

January 7, 2015

The new employees at the office are lucky I'm not their supervisor or manager because I'm fed up. I'm actually getting upset with Steve that he isn't doing anything despite these people repeatedly being late, taking outrageously long breaks, wasting tons of time on Facebook and YouTube, and not doing the work they are asked - and needed! - to do.

I'm about ready to explode, and something had better happen soon. I'm sick of busting my ass while the new people are getting a free paycheck.

Posted at 7:22 AM

January 6, 2015

Can we match yesterday's disjointed crazy house at work today? Even if we do it's far less likely to be inside a freezer.

Ah, the memories ... if only I could forget.

Posted at 7:54 AM

January 5, 2015

Apparently there are people who don't believe that victims of abuse would be better and stronger if they just 'got over it," despite the vast number of people I've encountered that seem to completely blow off any kind of child abuse, bullying, or full-out PTSD as if they were far overblown and just a sign of weakness. Victims of such things are anything but weak, and the people who don't get that are simply assholes who have no fucking idea how nice, simple, safe, and pleasant their lives are and have been. For anyone to decry the potentially-life-long suffering of victims of any kind of abuse shows either someone who has never seen such things themselves or a complete sociopath who dreams of inflicting such things on others (and may even do so in their day-to-day lives). Those kinds of people - the deniers, the sociopath - are anything but strong. They are weak-minded, weak willed, and weak of morals, inflicting pain on others and acting careless of any consequences. They are monsters.

What Doesn’t Kill You Doesn’t Necessarily Make You Stronger
By Virgie Townsend

When I was 15, I attended a writing workshop with a girl who had been sexually abused by a family member, trauma that she explored in her poetry. She said she was offended when people told her: “I’m really sorry that happened to you.” She felt like they were saying they wanted to change her, so she’d reply: “Don’t be. It made me who I am today.”

I also grew up with violence, terrified of a parent who was verbally and physically abusive, and drove drunk with me and my siblings in the backseat. Sometimes this parent would threaten to choke me with a dog collar or would fire off shotgun rounds overhead for the fun of seeing the rest of the family cower. I am glad my classmate found a way to cope with her past, but I can’t be grateful for mine.

I would have been better off without that dog collar, without those years of fear. After such episodes, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t concentrate on my homework. I repeatedly failed state math exams. My immune system was weak. As a child, I had frequent, unexplained fevers, which baffled my pediatrician and led him to test me for cancer.

It was difficult for me to make friends because of the pressure I felt to keep my home life a secret. Between the abuse and my innate shyness, I mostly avoided other kids, which was easy because I was home-schooled until ninth grade. I tried to stay quiet around my peers; I didn’t want to draw attention. And I constantly second-guessed how I acted around them, afraid that I might disgust or anger others, too.

It’s human nature to believe that our difficulties carry extra meaning, that they are not in vain. Although suffering is undesirable, it’s supposed to help us grow. We want our pain to make sense, to somehow be edifying. In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kelly Clarkson: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

This sentiment goes back to our country’s founding, with Pilgrims arriving on these shores only to struggle against disease, hunger, rough weather and difficult terrain. In school we’re taught that they were tenacious, learned to live off the land and became our forebearers. We hear less about the Native Americans and colonists who died to make that victory possible. History is written by those who survive to tell it.

This road from suffering to strength appears in our tales of redemption, from the mistreated Cinderella to the sickly young Teddy Roosevelt and Helen Keller to current celebrities such as Drew Barrymore and Oprah. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet,” Keller wrote in her 1936-1937 journal. “Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

It’s true that we benefit from life’s normal and healthy challenges: We may learn how to resolve disagreements with loved ones or be inspired by teachers who push us to do our best. However, I cringe when I hear the same idea applied to deeper suffering: the emotional or physical experience of being harmed or threatened.

Researchers have found that, far from being empowering, traumatic incidents often have long-term negative consequences. Adverse childhood experiences — which health professionals define as poverty, abuse, neglect and other traumas — can result in toxic stress, which wreaks havoc on the body. In work published in 2012, Harvard researchers found that people who had been mistreated as children had, on average, a 6 percent loss in volume in their hippocampi, a part of the brain involved with learning and memory. Toxic stress also damages the prefrontal cortex, which is linked to social behavior and decision-making, and the cardiovascular and immune systems.

The result is that childhood traumas increase risks for cancer, heart disease, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, sexually transmitted diseases, poor school performance, substance abuse, fetal death and teen pregnancy, among other problems. According to the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health, more than 22 percent of U.S. children have dealt with two or more adverse experiences. In 2014, the Center for Youth Wellness released a report finding that more than 61 percent of California adults had at least one adverse childhood experience — and that those with four or more were five times as likely to suffer from depression, three times as likely to binge drink or engage in risky sexual behavior, and almost two times as likely to get cancer. And a 2009 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported that people who had six or more adverse childhood experiences died, on average, 20 years sooner than those who had none.

These findings cut against the belief that good things must come from bad. Not only do terrible things happen to people, but those terrible things trigger biological responses that often set people up for more problems.

I’m fortunate to have survived my childhood, and that my parent sought help and eventually apologized. Additionally, I was fortunate that my parents could afford to send me to therapy, SAT tutoring, and a private school where a thoughtful teacher offered me guidance and encouragement.

Some of my friends were not so privileged and, therefore, not so lucky. One grew up poor and suffered repeated sexual abuse. She developed an eating disorder, which resulted in the beginning stages of heart failure when she was in her early 20s.

By perpetuating the belief that pain is edifying, we place the onus on survivors to heal themselves — and we deemphasize the value of prevention and support services. Suffering is not what fortifies the soul or clears our vision. What makes people stronger is working with others to overcome trauma. Giving and receiving help gives suffering meaning, not the suffering alone.

Psychologists have found that crafting stories of redemption and triumph out of negative experiences can help people become happier, healthier and more interested in helping others. We tell ourselves that we have overcome adversity, and in the telling, we begin to believe it. In the believing, we begin to make it true.

But this is not a process that happens naturally: Researchers say children build these skills through conversations with parents and other trusted adults, such as teachers and mental health professionals. Our communities need better strategies to prevent the effects of violence and counter poverty. Increasing access to affordable child care, quality parenting programs, and mental health and substance-abuse services would be a good place to start. As individuals, we can push for those changes.

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if my siblings and I had grown up feeling loved and safe. I’ll never know, but I’m deeply grateful to the people who helped me begin to heal. So I tell myself the following story: I was once a kid who both loved and feared a parent. I could have been killed, but I wasn’t. Instead, enough people helped me that I grew up to have a happy life. Maybe one day I’ll have to fight a serious disease that stems in part from my childhood terror; perhaps it’s brewing inside me now. Until then, maybe I can do something that helps someone else. Maybe that will give that dog collar a new meaning.

Posted at 6:44 AM

January 4, 2015

I feel achy-breaky, but not at all like what the song tells about - just sore and tired and down.

Posted at 6:58 AM

January 3, 2015

“We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain, sharing one another’s blessings—reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation,” Cuomo declared. “We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another.” This, he said, was the Democratic credo: “We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.”

Rest in peace, Mario Cuomo. You will be sorely missed by an America that needed you now more than ever.

Posted at 7:16 AM

January 2, 2015

Back to work again. This repetitive pointlessness i crushing. Why can't I just die now and be done with it all?

Posted at 6:32 AM

January 1, 2015

... and another year passes with me still alive for no good reason at all ...

When will it end?

Posted at 7:34 AM