I have been keeping myself on roughly the same sleep schedule that I’d need for going back to Hell work, but I guess today is the point when I feel like, ‘Fuck it, this doesn’t matter, just paint at 9PM.’
My anxiety disorder has certainly been making all this A Time. I kind of really resent it every time my supervisor updates us on how long we will be away and says, “Enjoy!” at the end, like this is a fun treat. Like this is just one more funny trash fire in the long tradition of flaming garbage that is our agency. I am enjoying not being at work and not having to see people I can’t trust who anger and frustrate me, yeah, and I’m enjoying not doing worthless office work for broken and racist system. Totally. But I’m not enjoying the part where I am weighing every single decision I make against ‘but what if someone dies.’ I almost cancelled the appointment to make sure I’m not still bleeding into my retina. I debated pulling my stitches out myself. I’ve put off grocery buying several times, because I keep thinking it isn’t fair for me to go out unless I’m absolutely desperate, and I can’t ask a delivery person to go out into the fray for anything less than Absolutely Necessity either, because no one should be in jeopardy because I really want to eat something with cheese on it but I have none. I’m not enjoying this sick feeling that has been pressurizing under my ribs where I don’t want everyday numbers to be worse because people are suffering because I’m not a monster, but I also want it to be bad enough that I never have to go back to that office again because I am a monster.
I fantasize about quitting before they have us come back. I think sometimes my anxiety is more about having to go back to a place where I was rapidly breaking down immediately before stitches in my knee and a pandemic got me out than it is about getting or causing sickness.
But then I think about getting groceries again and I just trade one sick stomach feeling for another.