Daily Post 183: State Survey

I survived my first state survey at work. My clinic and team had zero deficiencies. That’s huge. That’s amazingly fantastic. It’s a level of validation that I can’t put into words. It’s one thing to be told by coworkers or your boss that you do well. It’s another thing to be scrutinized by someone who is looking for you to make mistakes and to be told that, nope, you’re doing good. No mistakes.

I’ve wanted to go through a state survey for a while. I’ve wanted to see if I could do it. I did it. We, my team, did it, and that’s awesome.

It was also one of the most stressful things I’ve had to do in a while. It was a different type of stress than school or working six days in a row. It was an internal feeling of being in danger and having nowhere to go to be safe because your safe space is being invaded by an outsider. It was the stress of wanting to run away and hide but having no where to go and no one to turn to.

I’m glad I went through the experience. I’m glad it’s over for at least two years.

In other news…

School is going well. I’m making good grades. I think my lowest is a 91 or a 93. I met with my adviser for the nursing program. She thinks I’m doing fine. We talked pretty extensively.

Currently, today, I’m not as ahead as I would like to be and it’s hard to find the motivation and discipline to do the things I know I “should” be doing. I feel like I’m eeking by. I feel like I’m still on the borderline of burnout and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever not feel like that. It’s become such a constant feeling that it feels like my new norm. This is how my life will feel for the rest of forever.

It’s frustrating. It’s hard not to give myself shit. Instead of making flashcards I’m sitting here writing. Instead of washing the dishes, or sleeping, or taking a shower, or any number of things I could be doing, I’m doing nothing.

That’s what my brain is telling me and it sort of sucks but I don’t know how to not think things like that. I don’t know how to not feel overwhelmed by what feels like a mountain of things to do. I know, logically, that all I need to do is one thing. Just one thing. Then just one more thing. Then just another small one more thing.

That’s how things get done. But I can’t not see the crushing force of everything looming over me, waiting for the chance to bury me alive in feelings of defeat and hopeless pointlessness.

I haven’t envisioned myself graduating. I haven’t envisioned myself as an LPN. I don’t want to envision those things. I don’t want to think about the future or where I’ll end up in a year. I have a hard enough time thinking to the next day or the end of the week. I don’t have time to not do things. I don’t have time for the gym or myself or for not caring.

I don’t honestly know where I am inside my head but I think I don’t like it. I don’t feel like school and work should be reasons to not handle my life well. People keep telling me I have a lot going on in my life and all I can think in response to that is other people have done it. Other people are doing it. Why am I having such a hard time? What am I doing differently or wrong?

I don’t have answers for those questions.

More work-related stuff… I wrote an article for a newsletter that gets sent to all of the PCTs of our company. I wrote something… but that wasn’t what was published. Most of the words were mine, but not all of them. I wasn’t asked if it was ok to alter my writing. I wasn’t told it would be altered. I was looking forward to this newsletter and now I feel nothing. No sense of creation or ownership. No empowering sense of self.

It’s not mine. I should have known it would be like this. I feel stupid. I feel angry, too. I know it’s wrong to think thoughts like this, but how could I have been so dumb?

I know none of those thoughts are helping with my already tentative level of stability. I’m emotionally and mentally drained with very little helping me to recoup before the next day where things will be demanding of me and my limited resources.

Jon and Jason want me to fly out to Vegas for Christmas and all I want to do is stay home but that conflicts with what they want and I have to justify why “traveling doesn’t feel like the right choice for me.” It’s going to be the holidays which already suck. It’s going to be winter so travel is going to suck. It’s going to be my one chance of a break before the BS of next semester starts. It’s going to be crazy at work because everyone is going to want time off.

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to deal with airports and people and TSA and packing and making sure all of my stuff is charged for the four hour plane trip. I don’t want to deal with making sure other people are happy and enjoying themselves. I want to stay in my apartment with the kittens and not have to worry about school work. For two glorious weeks, all I would have to do is go to work. Only work. What the fuck? I don’t know if I would know what to do with myself. Most likely sleep and cry and sleep some more and stay in bed in the silence and not think or problem-solve.

I would hide away from everything and it would be amazing. I would maybe process through some things and feel stronger for it.

Arg.

I’m still alive. Everyone keeps telling me I’m doing well but it feels so hard to believe that when I’m sitting here wanting to cry. Well… sort of cry. Mostly I want to do nothing. I don’t want to be the person people turn to. I don’t want to be the top student and the example to look towards. I want to do and be nothing, but I can’t have that and that’s why I want to cry. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow things will be different.

Until them I’m a PCT2 with zero deficiencies and a straight A student in nursing school. I wish those felt like accomplishments rather than burdens.

Daily Post 182: Small Steps

It’s been a while since I’ve written. A lot has happened during the lapse in posts.

The kittens are doing well. Saber gained over half a pound by the time we saw the vet again. Switching back to wet food and adding kitten formula to it helped. Both her and Dagger were big enough to get their first round of vaccinations so that process is underway. They have another appointment in two weeks. It’s crazy to see how much they’ve grown since I first got them roughly two months ago.

Yesterday I got an actual litter box for them. At first, they were so small they wouldn’t have been able to get in and out of a normal litter box. I had gotten an aluminum turkey baking tray; one of the disposable ones you can get from Walmart. I cut one of the edges down and wrapped the corners in duct tape. It worked really well as a litter box. The only downside was the kittens would track litter all over the hardwood floors in the bedroom.

The new litter box is a hooded litter box, so even if they go to town trying to find buried treasure in their litter, they can’t make as much of a mess. They seem to be doing well with it. I haven’t seen any messes to clean up in the 24 hours that they’ve had the new box.

So yeah. They’re still super adorable and lovable. They don’t run around as much at 2 am which I’m grateful for.

The spare money I had from my school refund ended up mainly going to new tires on the car. I wasn’t expecting that expense. But when the guy changing my oil came out and told me that my tires sucked and needed to be replaced I didn’t feel like I had many options. Winter is going to be bad this year. It didn’t seem smart to go through another icy, snowy season with shit tires. As logically sound and responsible of a decision it was, I really didn’t want to spend that $500, though. At least I had the money to do it rather than knowing something needed to be done and being unable to afford it.

Because of the unforeseen tire expense, the credit card is still where it was. No massive dent made in that area. Blah…

It’s getting darker earlier and days are already pretty chilly. I’ve been taking vitamin D gummies for about a week now. I haven’t had the AC running. Instead, I’ve been leaving the windows open. I’m hoping that makes rent significantly cheaper for the next few months. Maybe I can use the money I save on electricity to make a little more progress on the card.

I’m still plucking away at the apartment. The things I ordered from Amazon came in. The cubical isn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be, but it works and I don’t mind it. I love my coat rack. A new store opened in Lincoln; At Home. They have an amazing selection of stuff. Ox and I went to check it out last week after having our “date lunch” together before grocery shopping. I actually saw one of my patients there, which led to a really warm and connective conversation during his treatment the next day. I got spatulas last week while Ox and I were at the store since I didn’t have any for the apartment. They are light teal-ish blue and silicon which I love. This week I got a set of three glassware containers for my lunches along with a can opener that matches the spatulas.

I want that to sort of be my reward for doing well with school. Each week I do well I can get one kitchen thing. I feel like that’s a good reward system that also gives capacity and efficiency to my life.

On the subject of the kitchen, not sure if it wrote about it before, but Ox got me a Ninja Foodi a little while ago. I’ve been trying to use it once a week. This week I converted my Chicken Taco Soup recipe into a pressure cooker recipe and it turned out great. The Ninja saved me so much time. I love it.

I also recently got another portable filing box. It’s where I keep all my important paper stuff. My “box of important things”. The one I had was getting really full; mostly with tax stuff since you’re supposed to hold on to them for so many years. When it had been just lonely me, it wasn’t bad. But holding on to Ox’s stuff too and all the information for the three cars… it was making things a bit cramped in the original box. So I got a second one to spread things about a bit more. I feel better about it. I went through all of my papers and threw out what wasn’t needed anymore, rearranged things, updated others. It felt nice to go through and touch all of those papers again, to really know what I have and where it’s at.

Cleaning the apartment should be on my list today but I haven’t really figured out how I want today to go, not yet at least, so that’s up in the air.

School is going well. I think my lowest grade is a 93 or a 91. I met with my nursing advisor this past Tuesday. She’s super nice. We got along really well. She, like my current instructor, used to work in dialysis, so we’re able to share in those experiences. She feels I’m in a good spot. I have a lot of support in my life to help me get through school. She feels I have a high level of self-awareness and that I am already addressing issues or at least aware of what potential issues will be in the future and have mitigated them as much as possible for the time being.

I started going to counseling again. That’s something that is provided by the school. I like my counselor so far. She’s also extremely nice. The first session went really well. I basically explained everything about the past three and a half years. Mom’s death, switching careers, leaving Orlando and living with Ox, getting my own apartment and starting school, work and all of the accomplishments and stress that I’ve had with it. The session yesterday wasn’t as productive as I would have liked. I had a lot of paperwork to fill out so that was roughly half the session. I’m hoping the next session goes a bit better and we can start to focus on my grief and stressors in my life.

On the topic of stressors, I’m through the rough patch with work. I did my four days in a row and then my final three in a row last week. This week I’m doing what will now be my “normal” schedule of Monday, Friday, and Saturday. My FA and I talked pretty extensively about it and eventually, she agreed to try it out. It’s going to take time to recover from the burnout and then more time to adjust to the weirdness of having a consistent schedule. It’s something we talked about in counseling yesterday. It will most likely take me about a month to really find a groove and a routine that works for me.

So far I’m finding that I do better with school work earlier in the day. I like having evenings to myself or to go over to the house and cook dinner for the family. Making flashcards isn’t bad at night, but night time isn’t the best time for doing heavy reading and such.

I made egg roll bowls last night for dinner. It was fairly well-received which is good because I really like that recipe. Super quick and easy and also tasty.

Anywho… yeah… a lot of talking, a lot of studying, and a lot of “just let me get through this last stint of BS.”

Fortunately, I made it through. I’m still doing well in school and, in general, I’m pretty ok with how life is going. I’m taking small steps in several areas to make things better. Since the sun is finally starting to come up, I guess I’ll go for now and figure out what it is I want to get done with the day.