I know I shouldn't get frustrated. And I know that looking at failed job opportunities as a failure to myself is Not a good way to go about this search. But the discouragement is there anyway, and I don't know how to get past it.

Today I find myself wanting to go seek out a corner and cry after filling out two job applications. Just filling them out is enough to make my emotions go crazy.

This is not right. And I know it. And I'm trying to get this under control and face down these things that are scaring me- and maybe I can do it. But I wish it didn't feel so hopeless.

See, the problem with job searching, is that all the Nos start to get discouraging. And that leads to a lack of self confidence, overwhelmingly down emotions, hopelessness, and general avoidance of all things job related. And all these things are not conducive to job searching, which makes it even harder to find said evasive job.

And while I can think about this rationally, it doesn't change the fact that all these negative influences are pushing down on my soul.

So, today I'm not going to cry. I'm going to sit here and reason with myself and breathe until I get past this... because it doesn't get easier- it gets Harder-, and obviously going to cry in a corner isn't going to find me a job.

But at least this reasoning is leaving me feeling slightly better about the situation.

I can get through this.

But can I find a job?

Little changes scare me. So much that it's 3:30 in the morning and I haven't been able to sleep for the last 1/2 hour.

What will happen if I deviate from this schedule I have planned out in my head? Can I handle doing this alone? Will there be very many people there? Will I make it through the morning?

Maybe I should change my plans completely, or maybe I should just let it all go. But it's not that simple, because for some reason I don't know how to drop this... it wells up inside of me and becomes more of a problem then it is, and I hate that.

I know that people have their own lives to live. And I don't want to be a nag. I just don't know how to deal with these changes...

I don't know what scares me more- trying to overcome the anxiety I have that seems to be taking over my life, or knowing that it might not be something I can handle on my own and some sort of medication might actually make things easier for me.

I feel like I should be able to handle this. I've been through so much in my life already, and it's taken me a long time but I believe in myself now and if I think I can do something I should be capable of doing this. But maybe this is out of my hands- because try as I might I still find myself in the same place...

In a corner, on the floor, crying till I have a headache that will last all week, and all because of the stress of every day life.

This morning was no different... and sadly I had my breakdown right before my husband left go go sailing. He didn't want to leave because he suspected nothing was wrong but came in to tell me something before he left and found me sitting on the bed, crying, and shaking hard enough that it really worried him.

I tried to explain to him after enough emotion passed that I could breathe again that I'm stressed out by all the changes... but apparently they are changes that are not obvious to him.....

So here I am back at the beginning. I am trying to consider after being coaxed into seeking outside help weather this is something I can handle changing on my own or if there should be medication involved. And it scares me. Just as much as walking up to someone in a store and asking for an application, or just as much as talking to that person in the plot next to me at the community garden.

I can't simplify it. I'm trying so hard, and it just isn't going away. And maybe if I'm patient and keep trying really hard it will.... but I don't know if I have that in me.

I guess there's a lot I don't know right now. But I'm tired of being stressed out all the time. And I want to feel like I am living again.

After Jeremy died, I found myself wishing quite often that God would take me too. I couldn't understand why I was still here, or for that matter why God keeps any of us on earth when there is something so much better waiting for us.

I don't wish for that so much these days, but sometimes I still find it really hard to understand why we are here. I guess most of the time I just don't think about it too much.

Except, right now, something about my life situation makes me think maybe it would be easier if I just knew why.

:/

I dunno. I think I was going somewhere with this line of thought, but it's lost in me now.

One of the best tips I walked away with from my job counseling meeting was that I needed to find a book called What Color Is Your Parachute , by Richard N. Bolles.

I've been trying to read a little glob of pages every day since I picked up the book, since I haven't been job searching in the last week or two- I am just so burnt out. But today I found something interesting.

Apparently at least partly what has been causing much of the stress in my life is called Rejection Shock. >.> Sadly, knowing this doesn't help me figure out how to fight it, even though the book suggests looking at statistics (Even seeing the statistics, I can't seem to ignore all the things that are causing most of the stress to begin with).

Maybe getting through the book further will help even more.

Typically, job hunters fight 'rejection shock' by lowering their expectations, sinking into depression, feeling a real desperation and despair. Rejection shock can assume all the proportions of a major crisis in your life, your personal relations and your family, leading to withdrawal (often) or or estrangement (frequently).... -Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute

I think I am running out of tears... and the stress is still there, but feels like it is ebbing.

Yesterday was one of the hardest I've had in a long time. I started out in the morning with a job counseling appointment, where I learned the success rate for people with my search strategy finding a job is really low. And, of course, if I want to up my chances of finding a job I have to find a new strategy (or preferably several) to add to the one I am using already, and they all involve reaching out to people.

Halfway through the appointment I was afraid I would burst out in tears. By the end I had calmed down again, and was even starting to think maybe it was possible.

But then I got home.

There is a certain online game I've been playing a lot lately. Like, more than any sane person should. And sadly enough it has been partly an excuse for me to be social with the outside world.

Except the last week or so I have been realizing little by little that even in my game life I'm too shy to really reach out to people I don't already know, and I'm so afraid of bothering people that I'm actually ending up just talking to them less and less. The few friends I do have I rely on heavily, and when they're not around..... I wander aimlessly feeling like I'm lost.

Last night after thinking about this all afternoon, I was ready to cry again. I wanted to just let it all out, but got to bed and realized I had nothing left to let out.

And this morning I woke up at 5, and was barely able to fall back asleep again.

I was trying to convince my husband last week that I didn't really need to go to the counseling appointment I set up a few weeks from now... but today I think maybe that was wrong, and I'm glad that all the work of setting it up is over- I don't know if I would be strong enough to reach out again on my own.

I don't want to feel like this anymore. And I feel so helpless to do anything.

It is a good thing I have a loving family, and a wonderful little child. I'm not sure there is a lot else keeping me grounded.

Ugh.