Struggling

Clearly, it's been a difficult month.

Other than the time that I've taken off for my grandmother's funeral and then time for Thanksgiving--I haven't missed work. Even when I was out of town for the visitation and funeral, and even surrounding Thanksgiving, I was working. I'm constantly thinking about work and I'm constantly worried about work--what am I worried about, work related, you ask?

I'm worried that I'm going to lose my job. I'm worried that the fact that I'm struggling right now and that I've made mistakes, that I will be looked at as incompetent and I'll get that call into the office and "the talk."

Anxiety has consumed me, as of late. Will I keep my job? Will I be able to sleep tonight? If I don't start getting any sleep, I'm going to get sick again. I have another appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow--do I tell her that I think I need to be put on an anti-depressant, instead of just something for my anxiety and deal with the consequences from my family? Or do I just bite the bullet and hope it gets better? Can I deal with this any longer without the medicine? Does that make me weak? Do I actually run to drug therapy like someone says I do?

I can tell you what I do know.

I'm tired. All I want to do is sleep, but I can't. If I don't take some sort of sleep aid, I will not sleep. The ambien isn't helping anymore--so that medicine is going to have to be changed. Every step I take feels like a million pounds--I feel a lot heavier, and I have no willpower to do anything. Taking a shower is exhausting. Going to work and sitting at my desk and working my eight hour shift is exhausting (and I'm just SITTING and looking at a computer!). The thought of going to the grocery store and cooking dinner just feels unrealistic in the sense that I just have no desire to do it--I just want to sit. I want to sit and do nothing. I love my coworkers and (most days) I love my job--they keep me going most of the time--but going out with them on a Friday after work is socially terrifying to me--and that's not me. I was always called the "social butterfly" growing up, and now I don't even want to go out with some of the closest people I have in Des Moines--and I can't really tell you why.

I think about going back to school to get my masters or above, and I can't do it. I talk myself out of it, even though I've always known, going into journalism, that I'd want to get my masters. But it's expensive. It's time consuming. I can't make my schedule work with it. I don't think I'd get in. I don't think I'd pass. Bottom line: I would fail and I cannot handle failure right now.

I haven't been this low in awhile, and I'm definitely going in between being high and low--and that scares me. The people in my life are only going to be so patient with me, and I feel like their patience is already running thin. I can already hear it now...

I mean, honestly, who actually suffers that much loss? 
I can't handle being around her anymore, she's suffocatingly depressing. 
What is wrong with her? Why is she so upset now?
Why can't she just get over it? 
She's not herself anymore and I just don't like to be around her anymore. 
She's being so dramatic about everything. She needs to just grow up and get over it--it's time for her to face the reality of being an adult. 
She didn't know Kelley and Mary extremely personally like she did her grandmother, she shouldn't be as upset as she is. 

I can go on...and on....and on. Why? Because I've heard it all before and it would not surprise me if I heard it all again.

I apologize for the pessimism in this post...with everything I've endured this month, it's hard for me to see optimism or a positive end result.

*sigh*

I think it's time for me to get help. If you can do it, so can I, right?