Investing in Us: Holidays, Health, and the Road to £150k

debtfreewannabe321

I had my phone call with ENT, MRI was fine for inner ear damage and the hearing test I failed on certain frequencies but passed on others. He said do you have a problem with it day to day? 😑😑😑😑😑😑 Whyyyy else would I go through this bloody year long process to get it checked? Yes of course I said I can't hear what any of my quieter students say ....oh well we'll refer for hearing aid but you might be refused. 😑 Seriously irritated.

I somehow have a twenty minutes window to finish work, swing by home, collect DP and have him drive me to the hospital so he can wait in one of the waiting bays, drop the ECG monitor off, and have him drive me to counselling later. I've had quite a stressy morning with people trying to have six conversations with me (6 different people and 6 different conversations all at once) and I couldn't hear most of them because of background noise 😑😭 made me feel really stressed. Came home for lunch and waited for appointment which was also late and now need to go back to work and do some work for a few hours before that stressy run around later on to try and make it to all these different places on time. Hopefully I'll report back having been able to do it all!

slm6002

Wow you are super busy. I hope you get some down time later today. Push back at them if they say no to hearing aid. If you are not hearing people or relying on lip reading as well as listening then you need them. Not sure it will help with the 6 conversations at once lol but I cant get over how much I was missing without mine. Fingers crossed

debtfreewannabe321

I made it to everywhere I needed to be but I honestly didn't have five minutes to myself all day. I was tired when I got home and thankfully DP had got a shepherd-less pies out the freezer and was reheating that. Thank you past me for making it and thank you DP for getting it out and doing it. I've showered and also sat around on the sofa not doing much. Feel ready for bed already.

Counselling is a bit meh, I don't have much direction in there. Although we've figured out some triggers and why they're happening and making plans to try to avoid my triggers on my worst day- Wednesday. Which is tomorrow. My plan is to turn up just before the meeting so I'm not dragged into ranting from an unhappy member of staff (whichever one I come across first usually does this- I should be a counsellor the amount people use me as a sounding board). I will do what I can in my own time. Not at 100% pace all day which is what I usually do in my people pleasing trying not to offend anyone way. I will leave college at lunch. For one hour of peace (so need to make and bring lunch rather than hot food that needs reheating)- oh actually scrap this tomorrow I am meeting a friend to talk about wedding cakes so that's fine a good excuse to leave the classroom! I will leave on time at the end of the day. And I will not stress over job applications when I'm given one hour left at the end of the day to do them. If they don't get done that's tough I'm not having what happened last week and me feeling so run off my feet I could cry.

The six people talking at me at once thing is a real trigger too. I react to it in the same way I react to terms and conditions on the radio. I internally feel overwhelmed and like I am about to have a complete meltdown. It's the fast talking and my brain unable to comprehend and make sense (esp with my hearing issues) ...unsure how to navigate that particular trigger but counsellor did recommend using common sense as to whether the person talking at me even requires/ wants a conversation or is just talking at me. If talking at me then just switch off. I feel rude doing this but to save my sanity I might have to try this. Because when I do try to engage with some of them they do look at me gone out and like, ummm, why are YOU speaking I haven't finished. So perhaps this is the answer.... perhaps she is helping me make sense of things.

Basically I need to stop being a people pleaser. And set boundaries. Therapy done.

KajiKita

The one thing about having such a crazy day whilst wearing the ECG, is if there is an issue that the system could pick up, it would have had plenty of data to look at! 😉

I found therapy started slow and gradually gets going. You and I are used to modalities (shamanic healing, reiki etc.) that works in a very different and much quicker way, but we are trying to work to achieve a different result here - retraining our brains. That takes time.

It sounds like you have some good coping mechanisms for today. Try and stay outwith / above yourself a little and be the observer as well as the participant today - watch how people are reacting to you (talking at you for example) and how you are reacting. That bit of mental distance will help as well. Good luck and sending hugs x

KK

debtfreewannabe321

So much for getting in to work later 🤣. This morning I arrived at 6:58 to the car park. Good news being I had an empty car park to choose a space right near the door. DP needed dropping at the train station and I figured by the time I'd driven round the one way system and dropped him and then driven back home it would be around 7:40 and well, I needed to be at work for 8 today...so we decided I'd get a decent space in the car park and he'd walk the rest of the journey on foot (only five minutes from work) and I'd go in and have a cuppa in work and not start till 8. I sort of managed this in the fact I didn't really start work but I was chatting about work for around twenty minutes before work started because I was being fired tasks after tasks to do all morning 😐. Then we went straight into our meeting.

Anyway morning is over. I did feel stress. Quite a bit at one point. I had a chatterbox who likes to argue. I, in a nice way, and then a firmer way, and then eventually not so nice way told him to shut up and get in with it. This is why he's so far behind everyone else because he talks and argues with people helping him. So every time he went off target...NO. back to this. I was much firmer than I usually am and it worked we got it done. Phew. I also have to spend tomorrow morning with him 😑. I find him to be quite stressful and when you ask him to listen he doesn't and fidgets until he gets to speak and honestly he never ever has run out of words in the whole two years I've known him. He's like the walking breathing version of terms and conditions to my stress.

Not so busy this afternoon thankfully although still a list of jobs to do. And I don't have to attend the meeting later - Whoop - so I will do admin till approx 4:40 then take a slow walk over to where I'm getting my massage later.

I'm also sat in my car for lunch 🙌🏻 felt bad about saying, no I can't help you over lunch, I'm sorry but I'm popping out. I probably won't take an hour and will go back to help students who wanted me for something or other. One of them is hardly in because of a brain injury so I really don't/ can't put him off like my therapist has told me to do when overwhelmed. I need to do things with him when he makes it in because he may not be here next week - he's often off sick (plus by then I will have a hundred more jobs to do). We had no TA whom we usually palm jobs off to (in the nicest way possible- I will give the easier tasks from my list to them and I'll take the challenging chatterboxes. )

Basically, Is it Friday yet ... 😩...

daisy_1571

Could you adapt something like this for your situation and pop it behind your sun visor. Then you can look at it every lunchtime and remind yourself you are not being rude, you aren't being awkward, you are simply doing the job you get paid x number of hours to do and you want to do your best during that time

Lots of offices use flags or other notices on desks which means I'm concentrating just now do not disturb

Well done for keeping bringing the chatty chap back. Keeping bringing it back every single time is boring but means he'll either get the message to shut the f up when he works with you, begin to feel aggrieved he isn't getting away with it so will ask to work with someone else or keep going but you will be aware how to shut it down quickly in a way that will never get you in trouble as you are trying to teach him what he needs to know

Dxx

daisy_1571

Ps I saw the above on another thread but your post reminded me of it

debtfreewannabe321

Love that thanks @daisy_1571 🙏🏻 thank you

@Humdinger1 I forgot to post a link to the dress. It's a phase 8 one called lovette ❤️ it was one of the only ones that fitted properly on the day 🙈 it's sweet though and my sort of style so I'll wear it again.

dawnybabes

ooh I love the dress, forgiving sleeves to cover the arms and a nice open back 😃

in_need_of_direction

that dress is delightful