Dance, Puppets!

Well, more soul searching again. Read the following angst at your own peril. Or if you hang around with me a lot, for informative bits of self preservation, I guess. I'm at least aware enough to realize when breakdown/destructive behavior is imminent. I don't know how to stop it, but I can totally feel it coming on. Of course it starts with feeling stressed out. That's sort of a normal state of being. What really sets the stage for a problem is when the external things I can't control and the internal things I've set myself up for collide. That tends to happen approximately once every three or four months. I have no idea why there is a quarterly malfunction in my year; that just seems to be how it plays itself out.

So once a quarter, the stress I've put myself in and the stress of things I have no control over meet and create the perfect storm. Stuff I have no control over includes most of my family members, work stress, people like Stinky creating a giant quagmire at work, stuff like that. Messes I have created for myself include things like deadlines for graduate school, not having enough time to do it all, stuff like that. Sure I have no real control over that kind of stuff now. But I certainly had a choice in the beginning whether to take on a bunch of projects (which, I finally figured out part of that mystery; updates later.), and I chose to take them all on knowing there wouldn't be enough hours in the day. So even though a paper deadline isn't of my choosing, being in school was. I'm responsible for that.

This imminent breakdown is the result of the crappy work situation going on right now, the rapidly approaching deadlines of the two last papers I'll ever be forced to do in my life (and which also determine whether I get to graduate this summer or not), the fact that I'm up for two jobs, which is a bit nerve wracking, I'm still not done putting in all that paperwork, and the fact that I'm having relationship stress right now. I'm having the last bit because I don't know how to help with his personal stress and part of me is resentful for even having to deal with it, which isn't fair. I'm certainly not the only person entitled to stress. But it also creates/adds to the ethos within the house, so that home isn't even the place you can come home to anymore and try to hide from all the other stresses.

So now that stress has been established, the second step of my problem kicks in, and I ain't scared to admit it anymore. Because it seems like all the people in my life are freaking out, and as usual, I don't get a turn but am expected to keep running things as normal, I get quite resentful. I can plug along just fine for a while, but when it seems like people aren't trying but they expect me to keep doing, I get really...pissed. On top of that, when I have to start jerking people's strings to make things happen, it really ramps up that feeling of resentfulness. I am quite good at manipulating people. I don't care to admit it. Even though the connotations from that are probably immediately negative, it shouldn't necessarily be that way. I can "handle" D/B in a way that nobody else can, because I understand most of what makes her work; I know what she'll respond to. I'm very good at figuring out what makes people tick. I use that information to help smooth situations over, to make business run more efficiently, to nuance people into doing or trying things they wouldn't have thought of or considered before. Any good human resource manager is a manipulator. Anybody who is a "people-person" is a manipulator. It's just a question of whether they use their powers for good or for evil. But sometimes I get tired of dangling strings. I hate being so goddamn subtle all the time, just because it's good for everybody else. When I get resentful, my capabilities with other people make me start to feel superior to them. I start feeling like a puppet master instead of an engaged friend, or whatever.

I'm at that point now. So stage two has happened already. All that's left is stage three, which I don't talk about much, but here's the breakdown of how it happens. About this time, I start to feel like a caged animal--I can't explain it any better than that. Think of a lion prowling a cage back and forth. That's the way I feel. I need to blow off steam right about now. An opportunity usually offers itself in the form of going out for a while. I don't normally create these opportunities, they're presented to me while I'm in stage two mindsets. As in, "Hey, let's go out and have a few beers." And why not? It's usually towards the weekend. There has usually been a hell of a past two weeks going on. I need a beer and a bitch session. I don't have a lot of play buddies, so it's not like opportunities to go out and do things happen every night for me. I usually try to grab them when they're there (the opportunities, not the play buddies!). And it's not like I get a lot of choices, either, or that there's an alternative plan waiting for me. This pisses me off, too, but that's another blog for another day. Long story short, one beer turns into more beers and the bitch session doesn't blow off steam, it creates rage. So then usually manipulation starts happening again--only it's not in the best interests of all people involved. It's usually destructive. Or potentially so. And I'm very, very good at it. I could create so much drama for myself that I could win my own Tony award. Most of the time I catch myself before serious crap happens. But I'm always afraid that really serious lapse is just around the corner.

And really, it always is, because I feel entitled to my lapses. That's the real problem. I don't want to feel superior to people. I think that's a Very Bad Thing that can only breed trouble. But I can't help the way I feel sometimes. Honestly, it's just a form of running away where literal escape isn't yet possible. Dr. Ian was really pushing me to come up with alternatives so that I can have them in place and not be so susceptible to the knocking a few back and raising hell method I've come to prefer. I couldn't come up with any. This disturbed him, because he thinks I'm pretty close to having a retaliatory reaction. I agree. I just don't know what the answer is.

So I'm keeping really close tabs on me. Looks like I am my own keeper for the time being. When do I get a handler? Because I seriously fucking need one.

-- Virgil