Anxiety, amusing things, and fuck overtime.

[spritechan]

I have been incredibly gassy the last couple days. It's almost constant. Here in my island of the office it's no problem, but amongst living folks that are not the cats, I keep these things to myself to the best of my ability. I don't know why - I come from a fart-friendly family, and lord knows those 5 years I was with Dan I swear he was letting them go nearly every 10 minutes - but I have always been like "No. Impolite. Stinky. Unladylike. Stop it." I suppose my biological dad has always been the "D: TAKE IT IN THE BATHROOM" type, and my stepmom has admitted to blaming the animals any time he's questioned her on it, even though she'd joke about it with us kids all the time. So I dunno, I'm weird. But I've been living in a cloud of Ew all night. I probably look exactly like Pigpen from Peanuts if you squint just right. Be happy you're not present. I wish I wasn't!

I finished my training yesterday, woooo! Now I have 6 hours down, and almost 10 more months to get the last 8, not to mention that it'll be cut even shorter if my class counts for hours too. I did a lot better in not getting incredibly anxious during the practice exerciese (how to escape from stirkes or grabs), and I talked a lot during the rest. I was singled out because I looked the youngest, and probably was the youngest, but Russ (the director) said he thought I looked 18 and used that in a de-escalation/empathy exercise. While I've miraculously never had my age negatively used in a mental health setting (same with my whiteness, don't know why), it came up a LOT when working in Nursing homes/assisted living.

Steve and I are going to try to start donating plasma. Pat is unemployed (and receives unemployment) and supplements his income with donating a couple times a week. Steve and I would be getting almost $200/week if we were each able to go twice a week. That would be amazingly helpful in paying off credit cards/loans/saving. When Dan and I desperately needed money in Grand Forks, I developed a complex and failed out because my heart rate kept speeding up. It didn't help that the machine only measure your pulse for 15 seconds and then multiplied it by 4, which is inaccurate. And they wouldn't manually measure my pulse. I start off faster when measuring my pulse than I end with. I promise you that my heart rate is not 120bpms. Promise. It's usually around 80-90. I just took it with my company's 15 second monitor and I came up with 122/81 with a pulse of 94. Bleh. Writing about it made me nervous again. As long as the pulse comes up under 100. Usually my blood pressure is about 110/70. I know because I've been to the doctor a lot >_< And I've NEVER been turned away when donating blood. My issue was always iron (interestingly, it's been both almost too low and almost too high), not my pulse. Q~! Wish me luck! Let's hope I don't freak out, because I'm terrified that I will. Which doesn't help. Never-ending cycle! (after a couple minutes I just retested and came up with 114/78, pulse 91. I can physically feel my body reacting when I get the cuff on. URGH. F U BODY). I'll probably request that I be sitting if they're testing while standing like the other place did, because first of all, that's the medically appropriate way to be taking it, and for two, it allows me to feel a little more relaxed.

All right, I really should get going on stuff I need to be doing!

Ending with a clip about responsibility from Hyperbole and a Half that completely and accurately describes me:

"What usually ends up happening is that I completely wear myself out. Thinking that I've earned it, I give myself permission to slack off for a while and recover. Since I've exceeded my capacity for responsibility in such a dramatic fashion, I end up needing to take more recovery time than usual. This is when the guilt-spiral starts.  

The longer I procrastinate on returning phone calls and emails, the more guilty I feel about it.  The guilt I feel causes me to avoid the issue further, which only leads to more guilt and more procrastination.  It gets to the point where I don't email someone for fear of reminding them that they emailed me and thus giving them a reason to be disappointed in me.  

Then the guilt from my ignored responsibilities grows so large that merely carrying it around with me feels like a huge responsibility.  It takes up a sizable portion of my capacity, leaving me almost completely useless for anything other than consuming nachos and surfing the internet like an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP."

Comments

[silver-tiamat.livejournal.com]

My step-dad ruined our happy days of farting/burping/etc freely in our own home. D= We were, naturally, instructed that this was inappropriate behavior in public/presence of outsiders in the home, but c'mon! It was our home! Keeping it in is bad for you~. But, alas. Thankfully I am now in my home where I don't have to be ashamed of my body just doing its job! \(^o^)/

Though that does suck. D=

I wish I could donate plasma! =D I wonder where I could do that. Even if I just made a little money, that'd be more than I'm making now! Heck, even just $200 a month would be good! ...$100 a month! EVEN $50 A MONTH! That's it! I'm researching this!

Haha, the one and only time my heart rate was ever important in numbers was when I was going under for my wisdom teeth surgery, and they asked if I could please lower my heart rate (I'd looked over and saw the needle they were going to stick in my arm and my heart had jumped from hanging around ~80 to ~115 XD). So, I looked away and started singing "Bye Bye Ms. American Pie, Drove my Chevy..." in my head. It's just such a relaxing song. And my heart rate went whooshing down to ~65. XD

[miss-ljv.livejournal.com]

I don't -keep it in- but I try to 1. Make it as silent as possible (Steve is the same) and 2. Just in case there's stinky, hopefully out of smelling range of people. Steve and I have an understanding where it's like, "Whatevs," but we are both so used to trying to be polite and therefore not be all BRRRAAAAP all the time that we're just... quiet. We don't shame for it, thank god, but we do tease. But one time, omg. I was trying to take a nap and I was on my back with my legs slung over him, and JUST as I was dozing off I went "BRRRBABSJRBEBSRRRRRGGGHHHH!" SO FUCKIN' LOUDLY. I didn't know what to do. So while I tried to figure out how to handle this situation, I pretended to be asleep. And Steve I guess looked at me for a minute in shock, and then burst out laughing. I pretended to wake up and ask "What?!" as if I didn't know I just let loose one of the loudest farts of my life, and he didn't immediately tell me, just laughed and laughed and told me to go back to sleep. A little while later he confessed what I did (as if I didn't know) and I re-died and we laughed and it was great.

It reminded me of the time my sister and her boyfriend were napping together and she let a loud one rip, and she peeked one of her eyes open to see if he noticed, which he did, so she loudly exclaimed, "WAS THAT YOU?!!!" XDDDD

We didn't end up getting to donate yesterday, because when we got there they told us we had a 4-hour wait. At 9am! It would have been fine had I not had that STUPID meeting with a group member for my class in 2 hours, and had we brought our DSs. But jeez!!! And it sucks because I can't come any earlier because of work. But Steve can go alone - they said it's less busy right away (they open between 6 and 7:30am every day).

P.S. my group member was a total twat and texted me at 11:29 to see if I "was there yet" and we were supposed to meet at 11:30. BACK THE SHIT OFF I AM PARKING.