March 2, 2010

• Retail is a full contact sport (and I don’t have the protective gear)

  I found myself thinking this morning that the only reason I don’t kill myself is because it would be such an inconvenience to everyone who survived me. Does that mean I’m not really depressed/suicidal or that I’m just not depressed/suicidal enough to ignore other people’s feelings? I wonder if other people have these thoughts. It seems to me that the suicide and depression are both rather selfish mindsets, and I pride myself on being unselfish. At the same time, there must come a point where the burden of my existence weighs more heavily on the people around me than my death would. (What lovely thoughts go through my head the day before my 36th birthday…)

  Which is not to say that I am suicidal right now… I’m certainly less suicidal than I was right before Christmas. But therein lies the rub. In November, I asked my boss to drop me down to part time and only have me come in before or after hours to work. She kind of did that, but in the same breath, she’s not giving me the hours I need. I could work 20 hours a week this way, and believe me the store needs the work, but lately I’ve gotten less than half of that. I know it’s not entirely her fault since they keep cutting back on payroll, but on the other hand, the more she “plays ball,” the more hours they’ll take away because they think it’s okay. Well it’s not. One need only come into the store and see the sty that it’s become to know that we need more hours.

  But I digress. I had her cut me back because I am an agoraphobic and the stress of working retail, especially with the way retail has degenerated to sycophantic brown-nosing of both the customer and corporate, was taking its toll. I can count the number of back injuries I’ve had to seven that I recall over the years, and whenever I am stressed, the muscles of my lower back begin to contract until it feels as though a vise is crushing my tail bone. This is how it was at Christmas and had been for much of last year. I just couldn’t do it any more. More than that, I felt myself unable to even interact with strangers in a polite manner. It’s unbearable to even be on a busy highway more often than a few times a week… another reason I asked my boss to drop me down to work before or after hours… less traffic. More than two lanes? Forget it. It seems the longer I’ve been on the road, the crazier people drive. I want no part of it. It terrifies me, especially after my last accident at the end of 2008. I honestly don’t know how people pass their driving test any more.

  But again, I’ve gone off on a tangent. I need more money, and I can’t find any home-based jobs. I’ve tried. Most of them are scams and the rest are misleading. I’ve been working on my novel (over 65000 words now), but there’s still the act of getting it published when it’s done. What’s really ironic is that as an agoraphobic, it’s going to be next to impossible for me to do signings unless they put me in a box. :/

  Really… don’t worry too much about my talk of suicide above. It’s just a reflection of the frustration I’m feeling in regards to my job and money in general. I’ve been off and on suicidal my whole life. I’ve just never done anything about it aside from thinking of it. Like I said, I can’t imagine being that inconsiderate of other people’s feelings. Even beyond them missing me and feeling abandoned by me, there’s the fact that someone would have to find my body and someone would have to clean up after me and the financial burden of dealing with my burial. I wouldn’t do that to someone.

  I hate money. I really do. I don’t need a lot. Just enough to pay my bills. I hate worrying about it. I hate having to use it in order to live. I wish we lived in a Star Trek universe where money was a thing of the past, like the dinosaurs. I don’t want to work any more. But that’s a lie. I don’t mind working. I want to work. I am a conscientious person. I just don’t want to work in retail any more. I don’t want to work with people. I want to do what I’m good at without being supervised or having new instructions come down on a weekly basis that contradict or micromanage the instructions of the previous week. I basically want to be left alone to do my job (whatever it may be), and get paid for it (of course). I really think I must be borderline Asperger’s. It would explain a lot, and my brother is, and my siblings are both manic, so… yeah, I’m messed up. Thanks mom.

  I am not an unscrupulous or lazy person, but I’ve been thinking about applying for disability. My agoraphobia and anxiety issues are getting worse, as is my back. They exacerbate one another. I thought I was getting it under control over the years, but it’s to the point where I feel like lashing out at people again, like when I was still in high school. I want to smash things. I want to hit walls. I’m not a violent person, but I’m feeling crowded. I need to be free and by myself. The one clear benefit of suicide would be that at least I’d be turning the violence on myself.

  I really need to find something to do where I don’t have to deal with people except through an intermediary, like the internet. People make me sick, and usually not even because they’re being bothersome. I just need to get away from them. I suppose I could go work on an oil rig, but – I don’t approve of oil harvesting and I’d just be stuck for months with a smaller crowd of people. I can deal with people on my own terms, in bite sized portions, but I need to be able to walk away when it becomes too much.

  I just can’t deal with society’s social and monetary pressures any more. I could live on 20 hours a week, $10 an hour. I am a very frugal person, and I don’t mind work, as inconvenient as it is to my personal life. lol I just… I can’t live in this society. It’s not healthy. I said as much months ago when I pretty much gave notice by asking to be made part time, but I’m still not healthy. The pressure’s building again, and I just don’t know what to do. That’s the worst part, I think. I just have no idea what to do… how to make it better. The only things I can come up with are finish my novel and apply for disability. And neither one of them are quick fixes. In other words, they’re long term fixes for a problem that is becoming increasingly immediate.
  

  • 12:42 pm
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