Oh, dear.
Can I amuse you with horrible shiva stories? Like the time when a friend's family started a huge argument on who is more orphan: the aunt without the mother, or the aunt without the father? Or the one, in my grandfather's shiva, where I heard an hour and a half lecture about the fascinating world of fire security protocols in aviation? (after 40 minutes, I leaned towards my sister and asked "oh, and you thought the funeral was the hard part, didn't you?").
(Yes, shivas are a bit like reality shows, where you have to survive one's family).
And Aims - I'm so happy for you. That's really awesome.
Can I get some general ~ma for myself right now? As some of you know, I've been kind of up and down for a month, and right now I'm really, really down, and really feeling like a failure at everything, to the point where I'm on the verge of making it a self-fulfilling prophecy at work. I'm feeling physically removed from my closest friends, and I'm feeling like it wouldn't make any difference to anyone but my mom if I never left my house again.
Oh, Anne. I'm sorry that you are struggling. Are you able to take some time to pamper yourself?
I'm not sure pampering would help. Right now, I just want to feel competent at something.
{{{Anne}}} I'm so sorry you're going through that. Is there anything we can do to help, other than sending all the ~ma your way?
Oh, Anne. Lots of ~ma. Feeling that way is the worst. Like sj said, please let us know if there's anything else we can do.
All kinds of ~ma. Competency may be a bit subjective for you to make the call. Perhaps you can make a lst of your top 3 successes to be more objective. How we feel about our own competency is usually not accurate. Borrow some of Newt's self confidence. He has plenty to spare.
Thank you. I'll give that a try, but right now I'm trying to overcome the paralysis that comes with this drop in confidence (and I'd gladly take Newt's, especially of it would get him to shut up). I'm having trouble starting on things, and I feel like giving up altogether on things I like (writing, drawing, etc.) because I feel like I'll never be any good. I'm having trouble getting what I know is true to override what I feel is true.
The kicker is that I'm supposed to do my trimester review, complete with self-rating, this week. HA HA HA.
Sending you the ma~~~ Anne. I always find one day of wallow will allow me to do one thing and one thing more , that gets me out of this. But - I do not suffer from severe depression nor am I you, so pay no attention to me if it doesn't make sense.
