Back In Fish Scales

I have been struggling with what this post should be and the truth is that I don’t have any one single thing to tell the world about right now. I had to step away from Diary of a Flopping Fish to do some more work on myself, but also to explore more employment options. I think the reason why I am struggling to write this post is because I don’t have any real victories to come back with. I have been trying to be a light in the darkness for people who read my writings, but I am also very much lost in the dark and sometimes it still swallows me.

Many people with mental illness struggle to find gainful employment, but it is not because they are lazy. Unfortunately, symptoms of my CPTSD make me seem lazy when I just can’t function some days and instead I have to clean the house, or empty out youtube of what seems like all of their CPTSD videos. Other days I accomplish my whole schedule and seem so normal. On my worst days I think whatever normalcy I could have had has been taken from me and I’m just doomed to relive all of my trauma over and over again.

It has not been easy to have a romantic relationship either because I found myself a great guy who really cares about me, but who finds himself carrying much of the weight of our life. The hard truth is that he’s not going to be able to fix me and it’s not his fault that I’m broken. On the bright side, we really love each other so we keep showing up for the relationship and his support has been invaluable to me. I would say over the past few months we have carved out a very happy life together.

My struggle with employment has not just been with my symptoms, but also thinking that toxic is normal. I realized that I fell into the same trap that many with CPTSD have which is just accepting toxic things as being normal, and all that we can expect of life. I have always worked in retail or some form of customer service and accepted being mistreated in some way because I thought I had to put up with it. Another issues is that I would not see the red flags in a co-worker or customer because I was taught to second guess my instincts since childhood. Constant bullying from the time I was kid taught me how terrible I am and judgement over anything unique I tried to do taught me to be ashamed of standing out. So I have worked in jobs that mistreated me, bullied me, and were medeocre my entire life. I’m tired being shoved down and I’m creatively bored. I’m ready for something else.

I opened an online store (which I don’t want to promote here) and I spend my days trying to make it profitable. In the meantime I still look for some other kind of “normal” job. That is, the good days. I would say that today has been a gray day. I got this and a few other things done, but it is probably a long way from being what a “normal” person can do. There is nothing I can do about how fast or slow I heal so whoever is in it with me needs to be prepared for the long run.

I will try to get some more articles out in the future, but I don’t want to commit to a schedule at this. Keep checking back for new articles, and of course, enjoy my old ones in the meantime.