This week I got knocked back again, due to "unexpected events".
I started the week ok, doing a challenge for Rejection Therapy, going to a bank and asking for Bitcoin from my account. I really enjoyed "just doing it" and even hammed it up a little.
However, I didn't really enjoy the challenge that much because I had a toothache and was worried about it. Finally I got to the point where I had to admit that dealing with "real stuff" was more important than these somewhat contrived learning challenges and that took up most of the week.
Likewise, I was planning to use the dating site again, but due to the toothache didn't.
Furthermore, all these issues set off my existential insecurity feelings. I was already struggling with resentment of my superiors at work and had a not helpful outburst towards the end of the week, as well as generally "going dead fish while not having any other real plan in place". This led to that sort of feeling of "same as it ever was", fear my life won't ever get better.
However, I can find some "silver linings" despite not being able to do my regularly scheduled work on this.
* When I had trouble with insurance and referrals and money, after doing the best I could, I finally just physically drove back to the referring dentist and asked them for help. Which to my surprise, they actually gave. I feel like in the past, before doing these sort of challenges, I wouldn't have dared, and actually I might have just in some sense, "given up" and accepted substandard treatment to get it over with.
* I also noticed that despite an unfortunate social explosion over confused issues with my supervisor, I didn't generalize and start acting aggressive towards everyone, finding excuses to hold them somehow complicit, as I used to. I credit that to improved maturity and social control
* Social anxiety is, basically, anxiety. I feel like this week was a seminar in fear. The most obvious moment was when I kept delaying dental treatment while ruminating about the ills of dentistry and how complicated things were until I finally sat down and wrote down my real serious fears of disfigurement and at that point felt focused enough to stop ruminating and do the obvious thing. I am really proud of the way I have been facing that fear as well as the fear of running out of money that came up. I haven't been specifically focused this week on my fear of intimacy and relationships, but I feel like "learning how to face fear" generalizes, and I will in the coming weeks.
* I didn't just give up. Even though I'm not feeling as frisky, motivated, in the flow, or any of that as I might, and am taking some time to consider my employment situation, I planned Rejection Therapy challenges for next week as well as a dating site hookup. Furthermore, I didn't let myself go down a mental rabbit hole about how I will never have friends, never have a good job, always been a melodramatic loser with SA, etc etc. I didn't feel good, but I can just acknowledge that sometimes things don't go your way and as long as I go on trying different things to improve my personal and professional life, I can count on continuously learning. The only one who can give up on me is me.
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