I must say: I do not like working in a job where I periodically get yelled at for things that are out of my control. First of all, I will not be volunteering to show properties again. Ever. Yesterday, I was put in the awkward and difficult position of taking phone calls to schedule showings on the properties. My boss, with the knowledge that this week is Spring Break for CU, decided not to schedule showings as we have been doing, but instead show by appointment only. It was my job yesterday to take the phone calls of the people calling to set up showing appointments, and make sure that Anna was okay with the appointments I was setting up.
In my fluster of taking phone calls and setting appointments yesterday(which included receiving forwarded emails from my boss and forwarded voicemails, and returning the calls and emails), on top of my normal job duties of answering phones, sorting mail, putting postage on every single piece of mail that leaves our building, and keeping tabs on where, exactly, everyone I answer phones for was located throughout the day, I forgot to alert one of our existing tenants to the fact that we would be showing their unit today. This particular tenant has twin baby girls, and only lives in the apartment during the week, and on weekends they live in some mountain mansion.
Then, today, I called a tenant to tell her we would be stopping by to show her apartment tomorrow and she yelled at me because she just moved in and doesn't want her schedule all screwed up. It's not my fault in any way. She's signed a lease that ends in August and my job is to get someone to sign a lease that starts in August and goes for a year. Blerg!
I don't understand whatever quality it is that seems to be present in the majority of people that allows them to take their anger and frustration and direct it towards whomever they are dealing with instead of using it in a more meaningful manner. I think that it is a sign of great weakness to yell at someone when they are not actually the target of your anger. I am talking about this in almost a purely customer-service oriented fashion. How hard is it to swallow your rage long enough to be cordial to the person who is trying to help you? I think a whole lot of people would be surprised with how far a smile goes, even if it is fake.
It occurred to me that this is about the time of year that my mood usually plummets and I struggle to regain ground all the way through like October. That's 6-8 months of feeling generally crappy. Which sucks! Tiffany suggested that I may need a change in my medications, and she's probably right. It's something I hadn't thought of (ironically, since that's often my first thought when my mood alters), but I'll either add or subtract half an effexor to my normal regimen for the next few months. I'm not trying to predict the future, but I am definitely worried because I have been having a really hard time correcting my moods lately. I should point out, to you and to me, that I am able to correct my miserable moods, it just takes a lot more work than I would like it to take.
What it comes down to are the choices I make. I can choose to stay in a crappy mood, or I can choose to focus on something different. I mostly have a hard time getting my mind off of something it is stuck on, for example, lately (and this morning) all I could think about was Brian. I dreamed about him last night and my mind seemed to be intent upon processing the dream and reliving all the really good memories I have of him, random ones. I can make the choice to let my brain run away with the memories and the feelings, or I can choose to put a stop to it, and today I had to forcibly stop myself from thinking about him. I literally had to say "stop" out loud in order to make it happen, but I was able to switch gears and focus on other things. It is really, really difficult sometimes.
I think a lot about having Borderline Personality Disorder. From what I've read, and to break it down to it's most empirical form, it means not really having an identity of one's own. Like, instead of having my own identity, I would identify with the people in my life who are important: my parents, my sisters, Tiffany, Kara, Former Bestie, theoretical Boyfriend, etc. As it is, I tend to pick certain qualities I like in certain people and emulate them. When I was younger, I picked qualities from characters from TV - Phoebe from Friends, for example. Now that I'm older and I have a better grasp of reality, I guess I pick and choose characteristics of people I like or want to be like to give myself a sense of identity. I think that perhaps I am not so bad, though, because when I try to capture my sense of identity, I think: funny, smart, really smart, scary smart, compassionate, generous, and caring. But there are also characteristics of me that I don't like: insecure, uncertain, immature, and mundane. The characteristics that I don't like are all me, and the characteristics I do like are me, but they're characteristics I have grown from tiny seedlings of characteristics in others that I admire into characteristics that are mine simply because I have weeded out the aspects of them that I don't like.
I worry a lot. I worry that I don't have control of any part of my life, and that the decisions I make are decisions that will inevitably hold me back in some way from whatever future I am destined to have. More than anything, I want to be noticed, and held in esteem by more than just my family. I was thinking about it the other day, and I remember how when I was with Brian, he refused to put me in his "Top Friends" on myspace. Obviously, that is a really stupid and petty thing, but it hurt my feelings to no extent because I felt that he saw me as a person of lesser importance than the other 8 people he proudly displayed on his page. When I was with Aaron, I tried and tried to get him to advertise his relationship with me via myspace or facebook, and he blatantly refused, and it was like reliving how unimportant I was to Brian all over again.
I'm tearing up just remembering these things and it's almost time for me to leave work, so I need to get my shit together so I can get out of here. If I really budgeted for it, I could go back and see my therapist again, and I think that I need to because whatever feeling of negligence or unimportance I feel I think I have found the root of and I want to get it worked out as soon as humanly possible so that I never have to feel that way again. Since my sister got a job, maybe I can talk my parents into allotting me $100 a month so that I can be in regular therapy sessions again. I definitely need it.
In my fluster of taking phone calls and setting appointments yesterday(which included receiving forwarded emails from my boss and forwarded voicemails, and returning the calls and emails), on top of my normal job duties of answering phones, sorting mail, putting postage on every single piece of mail that leaves our building, and keeping tabs on where, exactly, everyone I answer phones for was located throughout the day, I forgot to alert one of our existing tenants to the fact that we would be showing their unit today. This particular tenant has twin baby girls, and only lives in the apartment during the week, and on weekends they live in some mountain mansion.
Then, today, I called a tenant to tell her we would be stopping by to show her apartment tomorrow and she yelled at me because she just moved in and doesn't want her schedule all screwed up. It's not my fault in any way. She's signed a lease that ends in August and my job is to get someone to sign a lease that starts in August and goes for a year. Blerg!
I don't understand whatever quality it is that seems to be present in the majority of people that allows them to take their anger and frustration and direct it towards whomever they are dealing with instead of using it in a more meaningful manner. I think that it is a sign of great weakness to yell at someone when they are not actually the target of your anger. I am talking about this in almost a purely customer-service oriented fashion. How hard is it to swallow your rage long enough to be cordial to the person who is trying to help you? I think a whole lot of people would be surprised with how far a smile goes, even if it is fake.
It occurred to me that this is about the time of year that my mood usually plummets and I struggle to regain ground all the way through like October. That's 6-8 months of feeling generally crappy. Which sucks! Tiffany suggested that I may need a change in my medications, and she's probably right. It's something I hadn't thought of (ironically, since that's often my first thought when my mood alters), but I'll either add or subtract half an effexor to my normal regimen for the next few months. I'm not trying to predict the future, but I am definitely worried because I have been having a really hard time correcting my moods lately. I should point out, to you and to me, that I am able to correct my miserable moods, it just takes a lot more work than I would like it to take.
What it comes down to are the choices I make. I can choose to stay in a crappy mood, or I can choose to focus on something different. I mostly have a hard time getting my mind off of something it is stuck on, for example, lately (and this morning) all I could think about was Brian. I dreamed about him last night and my mind seemed to be intent upon processing the dream and reliving all the really good memories I have of him, random ones. I can make the choice to let my brain run away with the memories and the feelings, or I can choose to put a stop to it, and today I had to forcibly stop myself from thinking about him. I literally had to say "stop" out loud in order to make it happen, but I was able to switch gears and focus on other things. It is really, really difficult sometimes.
I think a lot about having Borderline Personality Disorder. From what I've read, and to break it down to it's most empirical form, it means not really having an identity of one's own. Like, instead of having my own identity, I would identify with the people in my life who are important: my parents, my sisters, Tiffany, Kara, Former Bestie, theoretical Boyfriend, etc. As it is, I tend to pick certain qualities I like in certain people and emulate them. When I was younger, I picked qualities from characters from TV - Phoebe from Friends, for example. Now that I'm older and I have a better grasp of reality, I guess I pick and choose characteristics of people I like or want to be like to give myself a sense of identity. I think that perhaps I am not so bad, though, because when I try to capture my sense of identity, I think: funny, smart, really smart, scary smart, compassionate, generous, and caring. But there are also characteristics of me that I don't like: insecure, uncertain, immature, and mundane. The characteristics that I don't like are all me, and the characteristics I do like are me, but they're characteristics I have grown from tiny seedlings of characteristics in others that I admire into characteristics that are mine simply because I have weeded out the aspects of them that I don't like.
I worry a lot. I worry that I don't have control of any part of my life, and that the decisions I make are decisions that will inevitably hold me back in some way from whatever future I am destined to have. More than anything, I want to be noticed, and held in esteem by more than just my family. I was thinking about it the other day, and I remember how when I was with Brian, he refused to put me in his "Top Friends" on myspace. Obviously, that is a really stupid and petty thing, but it hurt my feelings to no extent because I felt that he saw me as a person of lesser importance than the other 8 people he proudly displayed on his page. When I was with Aaron, I tried and tried to get him to advertise his relationship with me via myspace or facebook, and he blatantly refused, and it was like reliving how unimportant I was to Brian all over again.
I'm tearing up just remembering these things and it's almost time for me to leave work, so I need to get my shit together so I can get out of here. If I really budgeted for it, I could go back and see my therapist again, and I think that I need to because whatever feeling of negligence or unimportance I feel I think I have found the root of and I want to get it worked out as soon as humanly possible so that I never have to feel that way again. Since my sister got a job, maybe I can talk my parents into allotting me $100 a month so that I can be in regular therapy sessions again. I definitely need it.
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