Anxiety Again

I struggled to sleep again last night. I guess it’s my fault for napping for over two hours in the afternoon and then being up late on screens, messaging PIMOJ and watching Doctor Who before bed. The result was that I slept later than I wanted, which might also be post-Yom Tov burnout (not that I was doing much).

***

This morning brought a mysterious text message telling me that I have an appointment next Monday and I should call the team if I can not attend, but that I should “NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE” (in capitals). Unfortunately, there was no indication of who the message was from or how I should contact the team, whoever they are, or even whether the appointment is by phone, Skype, Zoom or whatever. This seemed to me like NHS incompetence, probably connected with my mother’s appointment about my autism assessment on Monday. She phoned the hospital and, yes, it was for her. They didn’t have her mobile number, so they messaged me instead, which I guess makes a sort of sense, even if it could have been handled better. It did make me worried for while though.

***

I felt somewhat depressed and anxious on and off all afternoon and evening. I’m not sure how much was anxiety about the job interview and date tomorrow and how much was getting annoyed with “performative virtue” online, including from the professional body I belong to. The job interview worries me as I have never worked in the primary school sector before and have limited experience with children (for all that my Mum insists I have a natural ability with them) and I worry that my experiences in further education won’t be transferable. I’m not sure what I’ll say if they ask me specific questions about what I would do in certain situations. I suppose I should just tell myself I’m pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

I guess the date could also be called pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. PIMOJ today encouraged me to share my negative feelings with her, but I worry that she’s so positive, she won’t put up with my depression and anxiety for long. I guess the only way to tell is to try, just as the only way to see if I’m capable of being a primary school librarian is to put myself up for the interview. I want to open up more to her, I’m just scared. Maybe it will be easier once we’ve actually met in the real world.

As for performative virtue, I wrote 400 words about politics, not fitting in and being anxious about antisemitism, but I don’t have the courage to post, not the first time this has happened (although I was quite proud of writing the phrase, “dialectical ping-pong”). I suppose one day I’ll post something before I think better of it and have to live with the consequences.

***

I thought going for a walk would help with my mood. It started raining heavily while I was walking, but I carried on as I thought the walk would do me good; I had hardly been out the house since Thursday. I did get soaked and lapsed back into depression on returning.

***

On to fear and anxiety of a different kind: I think I mentioned here a while back about wanting to watch the TV series Twin Peaks, but being worried about how gory and violent it might be. In the end I took the plunge and bought the DVDs having heard it wasn’t so gory, but when they arrived the other day, the packaging warned of “Very strong language, strong bloody violence, gore, sex, drug misuse”. I don’t care much about swearing or drugs and find sex on TV embarrassing more than anything, but I am nervous about violence and gore, which make me feel queasy. The most gory DVD in my collection up until now has been Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which is an excellent film, but one I have to fast-forward or look away from at a couple of points to avoid blood or other disturbing things. That said, I think the most disturbing thing I’ve seen on TV in recent years is Ken Burns’ excellent, but brutal documentary series on The Vietnam War; malevolent extra-dimensional beings are nothing compared to man’s inhumanity to man in the real world.

I think I probably will watch Twin Peaks (once I’ve finished Star Trek Voyager – I’ve got about half a dozen episodes of that left) – I’ve wanted to watch it for long enough and it now feels like some bizarre kind of endurance test I have to make myself go through with, but I probably will watch it with the lights on and the volume not too high, to stop it from being an overly-immersive experience, the opposite of how I usually like to watch TV.

***

Achievements: interview preparation (although I still feel unprepared, not really knowing what to expect regarding an interview from this sector); a half-hour walk; half an hour of Torah study (I would have liked to have done more, but as I averaged an hour for the last few days, maybe I shouldn’t beat myself up too much). It doesn’t feel like much, but I guess anxiety and depression eat up a huge amount of time. I did manage to eat both lunch and dinner in the sukkah, which ate up some more time, as it takes time to unlock the door into the garden, remove the sukkah‘s roof, wipe the table, carry food out the house and so on – I find meals in the sukkah take noticeably longer than meals inside.

I’m probably going to get an earlyish night, trying to sleep and not worry about the job interview or the date or whether PIMOJ will drop me as soon as she sees how fragile my mental health can really be. At any rate, by the time I post again, I should have a better idea about some of these things.