Choices I made...

I wonder why I do not write.
I think about it very often, I write mentally, yet when I get to either the blog or my paper journal I get blank.
I very rarely make it to here, normally I try my journal first. But there are two posts half written that I never posted...

So, what brought me here today? I am feeling low. My self-esteem and self-confidence are going down to worrying levels.
I have been unemployed for a few months now. I left my job because I was very unhappy at the place. I didn't like the way my boss treated me, or managed the group, and I saw very little, or none, intention or possibility for the situation to change.
I was in a bad place personally as well, although things where getting better on that front. I felt the job was bringing me down. I thought I always put up with things that are not good for me. Relationships mainly, with friends, partners and family. I thought it would be good for me to think about my well being, short term, stop always trying to do the safest thing, save for the future. My decision was made on the present, what I wanted.
At the time I wanted out of the job, the place, and I wanted to consider a change in career, having realised that although I was interested in the subject maybe I had not thought much about other options.
I have a degree, a masters and a phd in physics. However there are other things I am interested in.
When I started my degree I was confused. Still living home, being told that I had a very analytical mind and should go for science. Well, that had been going on for a few years, and I was already doing sciences in high school.

While working as a researcher I felt like I was a fake, a fraud. The pressure from my boss to constantly prove myself didn't help. He was understanding at first about my depression. We agreed that I would not take the medical leave that I was entitled to and offer by my doctor, but that I would have flexible hours and try to work through it. Cutting a long story short, after a while I realised he was a doubled faced person and although he had encouraged me to take higher responsibility role within the group we were working with (collaborating with many other institutions) he had not confirmed this position officially (and neglected to tell me). There were other issues that went on behind my back, and what really made it was the insinuation that I had not being honest and forward coming with him. Not only that he would "say" it, but the time chosen and the way of twisting my words and manipulating facts.
All in all, he really made me feel quite inadequate. It is funny how knowing that the facts he was using were "wrong" I still feel as if he was right. I feel like I am not good enough.
I left convinced that this was the right thing for me, and that I could do whatever I wanted.
I suspected that I had not thought enough about what I wanted. Of course I did think about it many times over the years, but there were many pressures external and internal, and I wasn't sure about why I had made the choices I did. The whole situation made me think about other times when I have done something just to prove I could. To me or to others, or both (establishing that would require more analysis).

I wonder if this happens to other survivors. I seem to be intrinsically insecure. It doesn't matter who much I achieve. How many times I prove I can do what I set myself to do, I still feel that I am not good enough, that it was a fluke, i didn't really do it alone, and so on.

I think one of the issues i am having trouble with now is in a sense status. Before I could say what I did with some pride, people would react positively to hearing that I was a researcher, which meant I had a phd.
Ironically enough this would irritate me, I could see how they were forming and image of me before getting to know me at all. I think I felt a bit the same way as when I used to get attention, from men mainly, because I was attractive. Though the assumption that I was clever and someone being drawn to that was less annoying to me that going on looks, still there was something to it. I guess a part of me that said "I am not my profession!, that is not what a person is about".
However, now without a job, I find myself lost.
When I look at alternatives for my career, I hate myself as I realise that I would like to be able to say I was a researcher in physics.
I don't know if I would feel differently if I had another job, but right now, there is an overwhelming feeling of failure.
What is worse, I am convinced this was always going to be like this. That I kidded myself thinking that completing the phd would make a difference to the fact that I was always just going to be... a failure for lack of a better word.

The feeling is very very deep, and it is not only related to the job, but I am not sure I will be able to convey it.

When I took my previous job I moved. I was living with my boyfriend with whom I had a bad relationship.
Soon after I left we broke up.
Even now, after two years, and even though I am in another relationship now, I feel like I am not doing what I am supposed to. I spent many years with this boyfriend; we had broken up before and then got back together (more than once), even though the relationship never really improved much. I kept trying and putting up with things that were damaging for my self-esteem, self-respect, and in general made impossible for me to be confident.
Two years down the line I still feel like I am just pretending to scape my destiny.
I have had the same kind of feeling about leaving home. My family lives very closed together, almost all of them in the same city. I moved far away, and have been far away for a long time now. Yet I still feel, many times, this is just a break, and reality will come catch up with me soon.

Is as if I couldn't really change my life, I was supposed to be something different. Be home, not have control over my life, not be happy, not even try to be happy.
I guess it feels I was just suppose to be the invisible unimportant, "for use" person that I feel I was, and maybe I feel that I deserve to be.

ripples from the past

So, I haven't posted for such a long long time...
Many times I am tempted, no surprise when I feel bad, and mainly when it is related to the experiences that lead me to start the blog. Then I realise that the way I process most thing is in some way or another related to those experiences.
So what happened today... I find myself trapped by my past. Reacting to things in the present because of how things have been in the past. And I get annoyed and frustrated with myself because even when is happening I notice, but I can't stop myself.
Words come out of my mouth that I don't really mean, but I don't stop.
However much I try to stop myself, to think, calm down, breathe, just don't let the feeling take over me and make the situation worse... I can't, I set my own trap and I inevitably fall onto it.

I hate everything about it, but I think what I hate most is feeling so out of control.
Knowing that I am making thing harder for myself, knowing that I should just not act on these feelings as they will pass, and more importantly are a reaction to an internal trigger rather than the present situation; but yet not being able to, that is what really gets me.
Not being able to control and trust myself.

Besides the things said and done which will need mending, there is the erosion to my self confidence. I thought I was better, I though I could do better.
But some feeling still knock me down as a fast train running over me.
And then starts the anxiety about when will it happen again.
I found myself lying in bed not moving because... I am not sure, because all I wanted to do was break things, shout, hurt myself... . nothing that I felt could be let out.
So it all goes inwards, and I end up paralyzed, hoping that at least tears will come, because I need a non destructive outlet. But tears don't come.
I maned to get to some breathing exercises, and then move into drinking wine, more than I should of course, but I don't care today.
Today is all about manging to get through the day, without breaking anything,hurting myself, or creating more trouble with closed friends.
Tomorrow will be about figuring out what to do best next time.
I was going to leave for tomorrow the figuring out what feeling exactly triggered all this, and then it just hit me.
I felt trapped into this charade I feel my life has always been, when someone close to me knowing that I am having a very bad day (nightmares started it) tells me (or I think they do) that I have to behave normally, that they are not to put up with my erratic behavior. So, suck it up, and be the normal "happy" person we want to deal with, and don't you even think about taking time for yourself, you ought to be with us because we love you and want to spend time with you.
And I still fall for that, I am apparently still unable to see that I just can't do it, and that I shouldn't have to.
The ones who love me should let me do what is best for me and not ever ask me to put myself aside to satisfy their will (because it wasn't even a need).