I have been making a concerted effort to Prune Stuff, so I have less emails, less posts to look at, less things wasting my time that don't make me happy or help me out in any way. Yet still the numbers go up!!! Some of these things are my own fault because it's me being Social but still looking at messages/replies sometimes just...freaks me out.
Also I go back to work on Wednesday, so there is gonna be a huge pile of emails to deal with. And meetings and more messages and Things I have to do. Getting up when my alarm goes off and getting dressed and large chunks of time not being my own.
Part of what I'll Need to Do is ask my boss about the raise I'm supposed to get. I don't think I've talked about it a lot on here, but I have a lot of job-based trauma. I have been fired a number of times (mostly because I couldn't do what I needed to do from un/undermedicated depression and/or ADHD)(once though I was set up to fail by my manager and that sucked so bad) and another time I got laid off. So losing my job is something that freaked me out for the longest time and it took a lot of time and medication and working with my last therapist to get to the point where I don't read every little thing as a sign I'm going to be fired.
But I do not do a good job advocating for myself. I am severely underpaid and I just...don't do anything about it. Probably because a part of me is still afraid that any amount of rocking the boat means the end of me.
But this is a thing that I, bird, have to do myself. Aelita takes over if I have a panic attack, and Aether fronting at work has always...gone poorly. No one else has any experience in getting me out of these situations. Or maybe they do? I feel like I've disassociated through a lot of job interviews (I am sure that has also hurt me), but I have no idea who would have fronted. And I know that no one has experience asking for raises/promotions, because that's never happened in my career.
I know that I have to Be Brave and suck it up and do it but...I really do not want to. My boss moved to another state right before the pandemic hit, and neither of us have our cameras on when we do our 1 on 1 meetings, so I don't have to worry about sitting still or how my face is showing what I actually feel...but, man. This just sucks. And I have to do it.
-bird