Yesterday I was rejected from a job because I didn't 'display enough enthusiasm for the role'.
On the surface this might seem to have little to do with World Mental Health Day. Aside of course for being rejected for yet another job not being the greatest thing for mental health of course.
But of course I was thinking if I was a happier person, with a sunnier disposition would I have got that job? If I was less prone to an anxious demeanour would I have that job? I'm still unclear how one shows enthusiasm for financial admin but that's another story. This links to my previous temp job, where I was told, in not so many words that my face was too miserable to be on a reception desk and it was buck up or basically fuck off.
Eventually they told me to fuck off.
Now I do just have one of those faces. Not so much resting bitch face, as resting miserable cow face. I can't help my face really. Also can I note I was a medical receptionist, I really didn't think it was great form to greet patients as if they were coming to Disneyland? but hey what do I know.
I say all this firstly because maybe I'm not predisposed to be a little ray of sunshine. Maybe some of us aren't. But I also say this because: both these things did a real number on some already fragile mental health. And I guess I should say what I've spent the above paragraphs trying not to say:
I'm not ok and I haven't been for a long time.
I don't have some witty anecdote for World Mental Health Day about how I overcame it all and life is sunshine and roses now. Firstly I'm not a sunshine and roses kind of girl. Secondly frankly everything has been a bit shit recently and it's no surprise with it my mental health has taken a dip (read nose dive off a fucking cliff). Thirdly, I'd love some narrative about how it's 'Good to talk' (Bob Hoskins eat your fucking heart out, oh wait he's dead). And how my wonderful support network of friends and family saved me. Now don't get me wrong I have a fucking wonderful group of friends. But here's the kicker:
Talking about mental health is really fucking hard.
And why? because half the time I don't know what's going on myself. So I can't just rock up to someone and say 'Hey dude, super bad batch of this today, let's talk about it' because usually it's a whole mess of shit on top of crap. And sometimes it's out of the blue and I can't explain it. So here's a few recent highlights.
This week. Right now as I write this in fact, I should be at a job interview in London. Not going was the right call for various reasons that again, are a story for another day. But over the weekend and into Monday the thought of going was sending me into a full blown panic attack. The thought of getting on a bus. Going to London, doing that interview. All the questions and uncertainty it threw up about life. It left me paralysed, breathless, I couldn't think I couldn't do anything. And I couldn't explain it to anyone. Every time I did I ended up feeling ten times worse. I was lazy, I was stupid for throwing away an opportunity. Yes they all judged me. Eventually one friend understood what was under all my rambling about it. Understood it wasn't about being lazy, or not wanting it enough. But that my brain had short circuited yet again and that's what I needed to address. And the next morning someone else got what had led me there, understood my mixed up brain.
Job hunting: that puts me in a perpetual state of anxiety. It's like someone turned the emergency settings up to nine and they haven't come down again. And sometimes they go up to eleven, and then everything falls apart. Job hunting is a constant game of 'what if' and that's not good for anxiety. I feel like I've been scared for a year. And I spend, because this is a fun symptom of anxiety, most of my time thinking about what other people are thinking, saying, judging because I'm job hunting. And I'm always one moment away from anger too. There's the fun anxiety symptom that doesn't get blogs and cute doodles. Anxiety isn't just introverts hiding in a corner or not wanting to leave the house. It's like being a frightened animal backed into a corner and the only way it knows to get out is to snap an bare it's teeth. I'm sorry for anyone who got the snap of my teeth recently. I usually don't know it's coming until it's too late.
In part I blame 8 months of hard customer service in a not so friendly environment. And not realising as we often do, what was creeping up on me. Customer Service and anxiety is like a permanent state of that animal while the man with the net is coming at you.
People think anxiety is just...well being anxious. It's so much more. It's anger- all too often when my anxiety reaches it's peak I'll react with anger. It's also believing that everyone hates you, everything you've said is wrong and eventually being unable to speak for fear of what it will lead to. It's hating your body, whether that's body image, feeling let down by what it does or doesn't do. It's a whole mess of things I don't even understand.
Then you add the creative work into the mix. Put aside the precarious nature of the industry and just think about the work.
I've spent this year working on two plays that frankly emotionally drain me. I've blogged about the process of one here. That sharing work that is intimately personal, in it's raw form with a person who was until recently a stranger. Integrating all kinds of things from the depths of my deep dark brain, and figuring out how to talk about them. It's hard work. And these stories, the characters the dark things you explore in them, take root in your brain.
Then alongside that the other play which in some ways creatively is the bigger joy (just because it's at a much easier stage) is hard. So hard. This week particularly. It deals with a lot of what I went through when my Father died. It's complex and not some easy sob story with tears and catharsis. But this week, on the anniversary of his death (Canadian Thanksgiving eh, there's a story) I was sat pulling apart that play with the directors. And it was fine, and we laughed at my inappropriate humour and made notes like 'keep the penis scene'. And it's fine. But it's also adding to the mass of stuff in my brain. And it's cathartic, but draining all at once.
And that's the point. It's all a mess. There's no easy sit down and say 'How are you?' and you say 'Oh I've been anxious this week' like 'Oh I've had a bit of a cold this week'. Because ask me at 10 in the morning and the answer might be different to 7 and night. Some days I don't even know anything is wrong.
But also despite typing all this out, I wouldn't know what to say anyway.
It's all very well saying we should talk more. But sometimes there aren't the words. I'm a writer I can find the words for characters, even for myself. But even I can't always articulate it all. And anyway I feel like I have to end it one happy note. We're back to that enthusiasm again right? except I have none. Not right now. Maybe tomorrow.
I'm not ok. I'm not ok because there's been a lot that's been going on to make me that way: job losses, career struggles, feeling a little lost to the world. Feeling a little left behind by the world. Feeling a little unloved.
I'm not ok because my brain will always be a little bit broken. Just like it can't add up or spell, it'll always be anxious. It'll never be sunshine and unicorns.
So maybe I'll never get the job that requires 'enthusiasm'. But fuck it faking enthusiasm is exhausting.
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