10:32 pm - Sun 10.26.2008
My Broken Brain

(For anyone interested, there's a post on my "Character Man" blog you may not have read yet.)

Well, if I didn't feel quite prepared for my first solo outing as a Weight Watcher receptionist on Thursday - and I didn't - I should by the time this coming week is over; I now have five meetings over the next five days (Two tomorrow morning, then one Tuesday night, my regular one Thursday night, and one Halloween morning).

(I don't know if I'll be the only receptionist at all of those meetings - I hope not! - but I probably will be tomorrow, and I already know I am on Thursday.)

It's kind of weird - I don't really want Weight Watchers to predominate my life, and be "the thing I do" most of the time...but in order to actually keep paying rent and buying food and shit like that, if acting isn't happening (And it sure isn't right now), I need those Weight Watchers shifts.

That's the thing I have a hard time admitting in here - When it's all said and done, I don't want to do anything.

I just want to act.

But acting isn't happening, so I have to do something.

I had an absolutely miserable time at that meeting on Thursday - I know I'm going to get past it (Like I said, by the end of this week, I imagine), but I felt so bad on Thursday, so stressed out, that I'm embarrassed to even write about it (And all for a job I don't really want to do that won't fulfill my needs anyway, financially or otherwise).

The opening "people part" of the job was all right - I never worry that much about that part of a job.

Where I started to really spazz was when the meeting was over, and I had to close things up (Count the money, do various and sundry paperwork, input things on the computer, etc.); I couldn't remember what followed what, and being the lone receptionist, there was no one else to ask (The Leader, while very nice, and helpful as she could be, was not one to ask about closing Receptionist duties).

It all worked out in the end - I made a mistake that cost WW a $39.99 fee, but somehow things balanced out anyway - and contrary to my nightmarish imaginings (I thought we'd either be there till the wee hours, or else have to leave everything unfinished to be someone else's problem), we got through it, and got out at a reasonable hour (Elaine, the Leader, while not terribly computer-savvy - less so than I am, which is saying something - did a good job of talking me down off my emotional ledge, and helping me finish things up).

But the stress and upset of that night was the subject of therapy on Friday, and I'm still trying to work through how bad I felt that night.

It was pretty traumatic for me.

It shouldn't have been as big a deal, but I've just got a huge...thing about "messing up".

You can tell me it doesn't really matter, that everyone's nervous when they get started, that the important thing is dealing with the customer...but it doesn't matter.

I was a hundred times more nervous that night than I was the week before, working with John Cleese.

Actually, they aren't comparable in any way, shape, or form - with John Cleese, I wasn't "nervous" (I was excited), while Thursday night, I was so upset and unhappy over being unsure of what to do that I wanted to cry.

Actually, I wanted to quit, and walk out the door right then.

It's an extreme response that was talked about at some length in therapy on Friday.

I think a big part of why I got so stressed out Thursday night has to do with the way I explained my early life to myself - In order for the things that happened to me to have happened, I thought to myself, I must have done something wrong.

So, that being my explanation for why people kept giving me up - my biological mother, Mrs DeHaven, then one, then two, then three more families, till I got to the Pupos (Where, for the first time in my life, I gave up on them)- it became pretty critical for me not to do anything wrong.

Some people deal with that mental malfunction by trying to do everything right; I seem, more often, to deal with that malfunction by avoidance, and doing as little as possible.

Javier also suggested it was a developmental thing - No one helped me get through this stuff when I was younger, so I've had to do the best I could.

But anyway, speaking of the frustrations of working, I've got to go to bed, so I can go to tomorrow's WW meetings, and work at putting Thursday night's unpleasantness behind me.

More on the inner workings of my broken brain at a later date.

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