Rejection

I am feeling very rejected today. Not dejected, rejected. A website that I visit daily and in whose forums I regularly participate, posted a request for articles to be published on its site. They said that they were “desperate” and that they would accept “anything”. Wanting to be helpful, and also wanting to get something that I'd written published on a “real” website. I edited and revised a couple of things that I'd posted on another blog that I had just started which dealt with issues relevant to their site, and sent them in.

I felt happy and confident, because for most of my life, I've been told that I'm a good writer. I'm not a very entertaining writer, but I can write clearly and efficiently. And the articles they wanted weren't just for entertainment, they wanted informative articles. Explaining things in written form is something that I thought I was good at. In my past, I've actually worked professionally as a technical writer and editor.  I thought that they would like my articles. I was looking forward to seeing them published.

And then I got the rejection notice.

Despite all their pleas about how they were “desperate” and would accept “anything”. They rejected me.

That really hurt.

They did give a very brief explanation of why they couldn't use my articles. But that didn't make it any easier. I know that I am overly sensitive to rejection. But it doesn't matter if I know that I shouldn't take it personally, it still hurts.

I hate feeling this way.

Damn you for rejecting me and making me feel worthless.

Midnight Panic Attack

I woke in the middle of the night last night having a panic attack so bad that I was literally shaking. I crawled out of bed and downed a valium as quickly as I could, then crawled back into bed and lay there hoping the valium would kick in soon.

I don't know why my anxiety attacks are so much worse lately. My mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, but it didn't seem to affect me that much. At least not consciously. I was more worried about providing emotional support for my husband than I was about my mother-in-law's illness. It sounds heartless to not be worried about someone with cancer. But I grew up knowing that both of my parents and my brother had terminal diseases. (Turns out my brother's wasn't terminal after all, he's still alive and kicking, but one of my cousins did die from the same thing.) I think my parents' long term illnesses and eventual deaths wore out all the circuits in my brain that are programmed to worry about parental illness. Or maybe somewhere deep deep inside I am worried, but it's just not making it to the surface of my thoughts. Who knows.

Or maybe the anxiety is simply about my husband. He is emotionally torn up about his mother's illness. He is also stressed about being emotionally torn up. I've tried to tell him that it's normal to be upset, but he keeps beating himself up about over-reacting. Personally, I think that he's handling it extremely well, but it's what he thinks that matters. I just try to be there for him. Which means I'm back to hiding how badly I feel so as not to put any more stress on him.

Someday I'd like to run around screaming at everybody, telling them in graphic detail exactly how miserable I am. I suppose this blog is my more subtle way of doing that. I may not be telling the people in my life, but I am telling someone. Even if they are complete strangers.

Bad UMPA's, Broken Sleep and Suicidal Thoughts

My Usual Morning Panic Attacks have been worse than usual lately.  Instead of waking up with a somewhat elevated heart rate and a vague sense of dread.  I've been waking up with a pounding heart, shortness of breath and the absolute conviction that I would be much better off if I could just go back to sleep, preferably for the entire rest of the day.  I don't know what's caused my UMPA's to become worse.  There is nothing particularly stressful going on in my life right now.  I was under a lot of stress during the jousting tournament, but it's been almost a month since that event.  It's more likely that the bad UMPA's are related to me not sleeping well for the past several weeks.

I've always had sleep issues because of my non-24.  But ever since I gave up trying to keep to a regular 24 hour sleep schedule a couple of years ago, I've actually been sleeping pretty well.  I'm completely out of sync with the rest of the world, but I've been falling asleep when I go to bed and sleeping through the "night".  Lately however, even though I've still been falling asleep pretty quickly, I haven't been staying asleep.  I'll wake up after three or four hours and have problems getting back to sleep.  And even when I do manage to get back to sleep, I only sleep for another  three hours or so.  Even combining the two sleep sections doesn't get me up to my usual nine hours of sleep.  This has been going on for several weeks, and I'm getting really, really tired.

I just want to sleep.  A nice, solid, restful, nine or ten hours of deep peaceful sleep.

But lately, even when I get  eight or nine hours of broken sleep, I still don't feel rested.  I wake up tired as well as terrified.  It's exhausting.


And, of course, my depression is acting up as well.  It's not the worst it's ever been, but I have been having fairly regular thoughts of suicide.  I've been calmly trying to figure out what method of suicide would be the least traumatic to those left behind.  Debating who I should write letters to and what I should say in them.  Even thinking about what kind of memorial service would be nice.  That last one's new.  I've never really thought much about what would go on at my memorial service.  I've always made it clear that I would prefer to be cremated, but that I didn't really care what happened after that.  I'd be dead.  The memorial service is for the survivors, not for me.

But lately, I've been creating song lists in my head, and wondering if it would be completely inappropriate for me to leave a letter telling my husband and friends that I would really prefer it if they danced and ate good food and told funny stories and tried not to be all mournful and depressed.  There was enough depression in my life.  I'd like to think that in my death, I could finally escape it.