EHPRA Journal

[apollolux]

I've been taught to frame introversion and extroversion as "deriving psychic energy from being alone/around a group of people socially" (respectively). With this mindset it became easier for me to feel comfortable with being around groups of people again after all the social ridiculousness I went through when I was younger. I already had the mindset but ASC and EHPRA 1.0 allowed it to become the more dominant programming, and I'm pretty sure they played a huge part in the reduction of the anxiety of being around dense groups like on the train (a major contributing factor to the claustrophobia I have/had).

[mat422]

So my last post was just a huge purge of negative stuff. Interestingly enough half way through writing that post I got a call for an interview at another job that same day. Still cashiering, but when I interviewed I felt like they were actually a good place to work for. Actually valuing their employees instead of treating them with lack of respect and such.

So as it stands now I landed a job which is huge step for me. But I have a second interview tomorrow at the first place and I'm going to see if I can change my availability to only mornings. So if that works I'll have two part time jobs. Which will be a first for me. I figure I can at least try it and if I can't hack it I'll just drop the second job.

I'm nervous about working again. And I realize it's because I do still struggle a bit with anxiety and depression. It kind of puts me in a place where tasks get more difficult than they should be. I used to get angry about employers not understanding me, but in all honesty I'm just a poor candidate objectively speaking. They have their pick of thousands of potential employees so it makes sense they wouldn't pick the one with issues. I know legally speaking they aren't allowed to discriminate, but when you're employed at will it doesn't matter.

I've realized I have a tendency to just think people are going to screw me over or treat me badly. It puts me on the defensive and it really puts a negative slant on everything. I'd like to get rid of that and stop applying a lot of past experiences to future ones that I haven't experienced yet. It just leaves me with a lack of room for growth because I'm so caught up in believing things are a certain way when they might be the complete opposite. I'd just be too blinded to see it.

[Shannon]

Cashiering is about smiling, being polite, and scanning and bagging items. That's it. Even when I was morbidly socially anxious, I was a top cashier at the store I worked for in high school because I was polite and efficient. That's all you need. "Extroverted" is a BS requirement. Just be polite, speak when necessary, and do the scan and bag thing. The rest is just a matter of not getting bored.

[mat422]

Something I've noticed but haven't really posted about is how when I'm in between that state of sleep and being fully awake I find that there's a lot more emotional pain that comes up. It's like my guard is down more and I'm not as self conscious about the things I've been struggling with. I don't know if anybody else can relate here, but I often have trouble not only opening up to people but when I do I can't really describe the depth of what it is I'm having a hard time with. It's like I want to tell other people but there's nothing to tell. Just a whole bunch of jumbled up feelings all at once.

The other thing I'm having trouble with is understanding the difference between needing to change to benefit myself vs needing to change to fit into a certain environment more. It's like I'm not confident enough in who I am, so every time I feel like something doesn't fit for me it just feels like there is something wrong with me and I doubt everything I know about myself. This leads to a cycle of over analysis about myself which puts me in my head too much and causes excessive rumination about not being good enough. At some point I have to learn where I need improvement vs where I'm comparing myself excessively to other people who I'm fundamentally different from.

That's it for the more emotionally heavy stuff. The weather has been getting really nice here so the past few days I went to the skatepark. Been a while since I stepped on a board so I've just been working on feeling comfortable again. I was playing the sub while skating to see if maybe the overcome fear script improved my skating a bit. I definitely felt more confident when trying new stuff. Among my friends I've always progressed slower with new stuff because I was always afraid to try new things. And because I was afraid I'd bail on tricks or screw up which would ironically hurt me more than if I just commit to the trick. But anyway the physical exercise has been doing me good and it's been fun just picking up a hobby again.

[mat422]

Had orientation at my new job today. A ton of anxiety came up. Honestly thought I'd be past it by now but I guess not. Not gonna lie it bummed me out a lot. I tried deep breathing, thinking positive, telling myself if I got fired it didn't even matter, etc. But the anxiety just didn't budge.

I've said this before but the situation itself doesn't bother me as much. It's just the after effects of anxiety. I just feel run down and worn out. And I didn't even do any actual work or interact with customers today, so it just shows how much energy I expend just dealing with anxiety. It's a viscous cycle sometimes. I'll get so tired that I just want to rest, but I don't want to rest because I don't want to waste any valuable time. Most of my time has been dedicated to my music lately and I'm just worried I won't have as much energy to pursue that. I don't know why but my concept of time is terrible. I have a lot of time based anxiety.

I really should be praising myself for even managing to get a job because a couple of months ago I couldn't even bring myself to search for one without massive anxiety. But I guess I'm still not content until I can take on these situations without being so burned out by them.

[Shannon]

Progress comes best in small steps. When one has the expectation of instant perfection, they are always sure to be let down.

One of the biggest things I have done in my life to be happy is to understand that. Break every issue into small enough chunks that each one becomes easy to deal with, and let go of expectations that could damage my success. Be grateful and appreciative of the growth you've encountered and achieved, my friend. Growing too fast is as bad as not growing at all.

[mat422]

Thanks Shannon. That perfectionism is a real issue I deal with. But these past few days I've really made more of an effort to break things up and take things one step at a time. I haven't been getting as much anxiety. I'm starting to see how I have a tendency to constantly overwhelm myself by putting too much on my plate.

[LionKing]

It seems I'm now hitting everything with this one hammer, but in case you don't know about it, you might want to check out the book The slight edge. Perfectionism and unrealistically high expectations of myself are very familiar to me, and imo the attitude described in the book is the perfect antidote for that. Steady growth over leaps, the act of doing the thing over looking for results.

[mat422]

It seems I'm now hitting everything with this one hammer, but in case you don't know about it, you might want to check out the book The slight edge. Perfectionism and unrealistically high expectations of myself are very familiar to me, and imo the attitude described in the book is the perfect antidote for that. Steady growth over leaps, the act of doing the thing over looking for results.

Cool I'll have to check it out. Anything I can use to help me defeat this mentality is good to have.

[mat422]

Everything always seems more serious than it actually is. This is how my life has been a lot of the time. Right now I'm still worried about being fired from my job. Like if I make a mistake or screw up somehow. I just need to stop stressing about this stuff. I need to stop taking life so serious in general. I'm still stuck in a survivor mentality and it's been wearing me out.

What really got me thinking about this is I can't relax easily. I used to think that I couldn't relax because I was unemployed, but now even after a day of work I find myself feeling bad that I rest instead of doing things. It's always gonna be something, I realize that now. As long as I set conditions for when I'm allowed to relax I'll constantly be under stress. It's not the situation I'm in, it's how I respond to it that ultimately effects me.

I feel bad when I don't want to hang out with friends and when I fall off the radar. Sometimes I'll hang out because I want to be a good friend. But it can get mentally exhausting trying to keep up when you don't feel like it. I feel bad when I don't get my dishes done or I don't clean. In general I just feel bad when I'm not as productive as I should be. I'm still focusing all my energy on healing my issues which doesn't leave a lot put aside for other tasks. I'm easily exhausted and yet I feel like I don't actually do anything. Or it could be that a lot of my energy spent is invisible because it's all going on inside my head where nobody can see it.

[mat422]

Just had an eye opening experience. After that last post I just couldn't go on doing anything so I just laid down in my bed and relaxed. I noticed as soon as I relaxed my muscles there were a ton of emotions that started flooding my body. I can only guess this is my emotional backlog from the past few weeks.

I can get stuff done, but I guess I don't do it in the healthiest manner. Instead of working with whatever emotions or problems are interfering with my ability to do something I have a tendency to just shut down everything. The result is I get stuff done, but I suffer the consequences of disconnecting from myself.

I'm going to try to always be in touch with my emotions and whats going on inside me more on a day to day basis. Basically being more mindful of what I'm feeling instead of pushing it away.

[mat422]

My heads been a mess these past few days. The new job is taking a lot of energy out of me, but the anxiety is slowly getting better. I'm slowly feeling like I'm starting to care less, but in a good way. Like even if I screw up or get fired it's alright and that's been lessening my anxiety. Also I've just been myself at work instead of the extroverted personality the company wants and it's been a huge relief. There's so much more that can be said in the way you carry yourself and your energy than what you actually say. I've realized people still find me pleasant even if I don't say much.

But one thing has still really been troubling me. I've been working on this track for a while now and I've ended up stuck and not knowing how to progress. After reading a lot about how long it takes other artists to finish their tracks I've realized I spend too much time on mine. Then I get upset when I don't have enough time to make music, but I should be getting a lot more done in an hour than I currently am. The thing I've realized is it's really just a form of procrastination because making completed songs is still a daunting task for me. I know I can do it. I just overthink it. I'm only at a certain skill level and my problem is I keep expecting my tracks to turn out like the artists I admire. So instead of just finishing and moving onto another one, I go back and endlessly tweak small things thinking that's what's going to make the difference and it's not.

One of the things that really got me though was I was reading an interview with a producer I like and the interviewer asked him what the most difficult part of making music was. And he responded that it wasn't difficult and it shouldn't be, he just has fun. And I just wanted that. I feel like everything in my life comes as a struggle. I can say with about 90% certainty that it probably is just a result of being a perfectionist. Just constantly having that bar set too high hurts me more than it helps.

[Dzemoo]

I feel the same as you man. Doesn ephra have stress relief in it because this helped me with my job.

[mat422]

I feel the same as you man. Doesn ephra have stress relief in it because this helped me with my job.

It might. I'm not entirely sure. There's so much packed into EHPRA.

But I had an interesting thing happen yesterday. I was at my job and it turns out one of my managers was a girl I went to elementary school with. Nothing really special there. But out of all the people I could have seen at the job I just found it a pretty big coincidence that going through all this emotional healing she popped up. And I'll explain why. One event sticks out in my head where her and some other girl were incredibly mean to me in elementary school. Another point in my life where I was too nice instead of standing up for myself. I blame the stupid "be nice to girls" propaganda that gets put into boys heads when they are younger.

So I'm guessing the subliminal has been touching upon past events like that lately. That's about it. Just found it really interesting.