Mood: 3, much better than the past couple of days, but not manic--just happier
Meds: 11 am-ish
Sleep: 6 1/2 hours; this is starting to worry me, as the normal amount of sleep I need is around 9 hours, but I'm going to attribute it to outside circumstances for now
Other: Last night, I discovered that when I paid my phone bill yesterday, they mistakenly charged me twice. (The first time, I think I entered the zip code incorrectly, and both attempts at running the card were pending on my account, thus overdrawing it.) I woke up around 10:30 this morning and called the bank and was given the run-around. My phone company bills cards through a third-party biller, so I had to call them to get the number for their biller. I was annoyed at the bank, but the folks with the third-party biller were SO helpful.
After 45 minutes, 3 calls to the completely unhelpful bank, and 3 calls to the biller who bent over backwards to help me, I got my damn money back. By that time, I was so awake, I figured I might as well stay up. I just sent off an email to the biller's customer service department, thanking them for going above and beyond to help me get my money back when my own bank pulled the "I don't know what to tell you" shit on me. I hope it's forwarded to the right people because I know from experience that working in call centers, you usually get nothing but hateful, bitchy people, and I hope my compliment will make their day a little better.
I asked for it to be forwarded to their supervisor, too. I doubt they'll get raises for being helpful to one customer, but maybe it'll make them look good, at any rate. That part should help when it comes raise time, at least.
I'm getting more writing/marketing contract work now. Apparently, I'm in great demand nowadays, which makes me happy. I hope I can have the call-taking part phased out within the next 2-3 years, or at least can cut it down significantly. I'd love for the majority of my income to come from writing/marketing. Search engine optimization is pretty much my one true love at this point.
Speaking of work, my boss at one of the companies I contract with, taking calls, has started transferring a lot of her marketing over to me, which is FANTASTIC. In fact, she asked me to write up a "how to blog" thing for the rest of her contractors, so they can all learn the methods to my madness. I typed up this whole long manifesto for her and sent it over, expecting to be paid $20 or so. She told me she was going to give me $100! (Not a typo.) I told her I couldn't take that much for it, but she basically ordered me to take it, LOL. I can't believe someone would want to pay that much for my knowledge, especially considering how basic it is.
Kitty seems better now. Maybe she was just stressed and not angry at me at all. I hope so, anyway. Nothing from him, but that's unsurprising. I'm trying not to think about it. My friends were really great yesterday, what with it being Valentine's Day and all. I think I ended up being, like, 4 people's Valentine! L. (sorority sister/friend), A. (roommate/friend), K. (old roomie/friend), and B. (ex/friend). Well, 5 if you count Kitty. It was really nice of them. Sometimes, just knowing you're important enough to people that they'll do that for you when you're feeling low is enough to make you feel good and special, you know?
Last night ended up being a rather confusing night, which consisted of dinner at the Mexican restaurant with my friend/roommate (as the anti-Valentine), trips to the ATM to get cash to give to my roomie because her bank account was overdrawn, a trip to Wal-Mart for some stuff she needed, me freaking out that I only had $5 in the bank, and the internet finally going out. So suffice it to say, I didn't get to post an exercise from my workbook amidst all that crap. I'm going to try to get one tonight, though. Or maybe an intro to DBT. Something. But for now, something else.
Ok, since yesterday I talked about one vice of mine, I think I'll cover another one today--sex. I know that, like alcohol, sex isn't a vice in and of itself. It's the way that I use it that makes it unhealthy.
Let me see if I can figure out how to explain it. I have serious ISSUES concerning sex. It's not guilt. It's something else. I don't really know when it started, but I assume it was probably when I first started having sex when I was 17.
I'm not going to get into the entire story because it's neither relevant nor interesting. The short version is, I feel like I've been used my entire sexually active life. Even when I was in actual relationships with people, I felt like I was there for my (considerable) sex drive and, let's be real, my considerable abilities in that department. Then, when it happened (as it almost always does) that my desire for sex was higher than that of the dude(s) I was with, they immediately started disparaging me as 'ho who was only using them for sex, etc., etc.
Nice bit of transference and/or projection there, eh? *Eyeroll* This is not helped by the fact that I have what we could call a problem with monogamy. In my defense, I've matured enough to at least be honest about this now.
Add that to the fact that I've never had what I consider a "real" relationship with anyone. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. And despite the fact that I'm kind of a free spirit who would be stifled by the whole house in the suburbs with the dogs and the SUVs and the 2.5 kids and all the quiet desperation that goes along with it, I kind of am a romantic at heart. Something different than what I've had to settle for my whole life would be nice.
But despite the fact that I have ALL THESE DAMN ISSUES with sex, I also know I use it to validate myself as a person. I'm not one of those people who has to be the center of attention all the time, or even most of the time, but I do need time where another person's focus is on me and nothing else on a regular basis. Consider it a product of spending my entire life in an invalidating environment, I guess.
But, you see, most people are not capable of giving me this. It's an unfortunate reflection on our society that most people can't carry on a conversation. A *real* conversation, I mean. Something that both people are equally interested in, something that's not gossip or small talk or banal pop culture. Most people would rather do anything--drink, do drugs, immerse themselves in technology, any damn thing--than to have to actually sit down and spend time together and TALK.
So in order for me to get that me-focused attention, I've always had to fuck. It's pretty much the only time you can get people to remove themselves from all other distractions. I do it even when I don't want to have sex, or even when I don't want to have sex with that particular person or people. It's just that I crave human contact and interaction, and it's the only way I've found that I can consistently get it.
It works...for a little while. While the act is going on, I'm fine. Once it's done, I'm wracked with self-hatred. I hate myself for having so little respect for myself that I'll stoop to being treated as a sex object for a shred of attention. I hate myself for thinking that maybe this time, it'll be different. I hate myself for believing that this is the way get what I need out of people and/or relationships. Sometimes, I cry.
But I still do it. Over and over and over again, it's what I go back to. If it's not alcohol, it's fucking. And I know it's unhealthy, and I'm trying to stop.
Honestly, I'm sort of dying of sexual frustration. Not even in the "I want attention" way, but in the legitimately sexually frustrated kind of way. I haven't had sex in...3 months? Add that to the fact that I've had sex with only one man in the past 2 years--which is completely against my nature, by the way, but I had my reasons. So I'm a little stir-crazy in the sex department.
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 3 people who'd coming running if I called them for a booty call. But I'm trying incredibly hard to resist the urge, just like I'm going to resist the urge to drink. I know it's only going to make me feel worse instead of better in the long run, but damn...it's hard.
Anyway, the upshot of the whole thing is that I'm trying desperately to correct some of my maladaptive coping behaviors. This isn't to say I'll never have another drink (I don't have the disposition to be a tee-totaler) or never have sex again (don't have the disposition for that, either). I'm just trying to learn to separate genuine desire for alcohol or sex from attempts to sublimate my problems. I want to be able to enjoy the things I enjoy in a healthy way.
In the meantime, I'm glad I have a lot of sex toys. >.<
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