Happy #420day: Today in Tweets

Sorry, David, I had to install add blocker on my phone, too. Whoever designed those adds should be forced to eat lego.

I wrote a long venting post, but I think it disappeared? If I’m wrong about this and post the same thing twice, I apologize in advance, but here goes again…

I have so much job anxiety. Next week I’m gonna hear back about an interview I did for a tenured job, and I have another interview for a tenured job next Friday. I also heard a rumour about that second job according to which I have a good shot at it, and a rumour about the rumour (a meta-rumour?) according to which the first rumour came from a reliable source! So I should stay positive but I’m so anxious. So much hinges on this.

For the last 2,5 years I’ve had a fixed term job in a different city in another part of the country, so I’ve been commuting back and forth, staying for days at a time where my job is, and it’s been super stressful. I’m so scared that I won’t get one of these jobs and I’ll just have to continue doing fixed terms (in Sweden, we don’t have tenure-track job, you either have tenure or you’re hired for a fixed term, nothing in between), or maybe get unemployed, which I totally dread, because unemployed people are treated so badly by the job centers and the authorities and unemployment increases your risk for more unemployment.

I have this mental illness and I’m on anti-psychotic medication, but in addition I’ve developed a real job-related anxiety problem. I’ve sometimes been so nauseous because of anxiety that I can’t eat (at one point I lost 7 kilos because of this – and I’m slim to start with, I got so terribly skinny), I sometimes have breathing problems, I sometimes I have a seriously racing heart. I have beta blockers for the latter problems, but they don’t always help, even if I take as much as you can without OD-ing.

Also, Husband is in a hard spot. He works shifts, and has done so for ten years. That’s always hard, but his job used to be all-things-considered okay. However, a new corporation bought them and management changed in 2016, and since then it’s taken a serious turn for the worse. His schedule is completely fucked up now, and his bosses are morons, so he’s constantly exhausted and stressed out. We currently need his salary to pay for me having an extra place to stay in the city where my job is, a dog sitter to care for the dogs when I’m away and Husband works his long shifts, etc. But if I get one of these tenured jobs, we’ll move where my job is, and he can quit his job.

So much hinges on this… I don’t know how we’ll make it if I don’t get one of these jobs so we can get out of this situation.

End of vent.

Thanks! I’m cheering on you too! If I remember correctly you also had job interviews coming up.

Good luck, Dvärghundspossen (and Mish if applicable)!!!! My fingers and toes are crossed too.

Thanks EJ, Opposablethumbs and Shadowplay!

EJ, you can call me Dvarg or DP if you like, people have done so before.

“Dvärghundspossen” is a nym I’ve used on the internet for a long while, originally on Swedish sites. It means “the toy dog posse”. It comes from when me and Husband lived in a neighbourhood where most people with dogs had some kind of pitbull type dogs, but we had three toy dogs. When we walked the dogs there were some girls who always greeted us with “hi there, toy dog posse!”. 🙂

Shadowplay: I’ve tried a few mindfulness things at my therapist, but they didn’t really work out for me… And you have to be careful with this stuff when you have a tendency to go psychotic, since meditation and mindfulness can sometimes trigger this.
The best trick I have for relaxing for a while is actually to work out really hard. Didn’t work when I had the nausea and couldn’t eat properly because then I had no energy, but if it’s “only” heart and breath than those things actually relax when I start working out, and then I stay relaxed for some time afterwards… Before shit comes back. But yeah that’s my best trick.

Yeah I’ve had my heart checked out and it’s confirmed that it’s purely psychological, like there’s nothing physically wrong with it (and that’s probably why I can “force” my heart to behave for a while by going on a long run for instance), but yeah, it’s really not a nice problem to have.

When my nausea was really bad my mum made me try out one of her diet drinks, you know the kind of drinks you’re supposed to replace food with in order to do a crash diet… And weirdly I kept that down. Anything else I’d throw up. I have no idea why, but maybe those diet drinks are really mild on your stomach or something compared to real food. So I lived on those for like ten days before my stomach settled down again and I could go back to eating. I felt much better on diet drinks than on nothing, but still way shittier than I do on real food, and despite trying to stay as still as possible I lost so much weight.
That was towards the end of my dissertation writing… Fortunately, I haven’t had that particular problem, at least not as bad, since. I’ve had bouts where I felt really sick in the morning and couldn’t eat breakfast (and every time people are like “are you sure you’re not pregnant?”), but that’s not too bad as long as the nausea eases up later in the day, so I can compensate for lack of breakfast by eating more later on.

Thanks for the job wishes, all – I don’t actually have anything coming up; anything new, that is. Just the usual semester-to-semester negotiation for contracts at the two universities I work for. I’ll take the good wishes, and redirect them to Dvärghundspossen so she has extra 🙂

I had a similar issue with the heart a couple of years ago; they did all the tests, including wearing the monitor thingie for 24 hours. All was fine, physically speaking, so stress was the diagnosis. Aside from work stuff, the parole board were teetering on sending my brother back to jail (he’s on parole for the rest of his life), so no surprises at the stress.

What I actually wanted to note was that exercise, like Dvärghundspossen said, has been a life-saver for both stress and depression (and my psych keeps reminding me that there’s now a lot of solid evidence for exercise as an effective strategy, especially in combination with the right meds). My other life-saver has been yoga; meditation and mindfulness help a little, but yoga for me is better for (1) bridging mind and body and (2) breathing properly (very overlooked!). The extra flexibility doesn’t hurt, either.