Barefoot Bohemian

Urrrrgggh everyone at work is leaving or moving on :/. My boss is moving to Timonium, my coworker S is (probably) getting a promotion, my coworker J1 who got a promotion in March is possibly going for my boss’ position (which would be good for both him and us), and one of the people who was from Johns Hopkins moved to NC :/.

It could potentially be good for me? My boss recommended that I try for J1’s position if he gets hers, but… IDK. It would be a huge increase in responsibility, and I have no idea if I could handle it. It would, on the other hand, be a $.50 difference from what I will be making after the raise in October. And, potentially, a $1.50 difference.

But still… responsibility and stress… And this is only if he actually goes for the boss’ job. I hate decisions. S is currently stressing so much about whether she should take the offered promotion, too, and I feel bad for her because I know precisely how she feels. And, also, because we were telling her that she wasn’t allowed to leave us, and now she’s not sure if she should take this, or wait to see if she can go for J1’s position.

We had a fight today, but I was not present for it because the boss, J2, and me were out picking up lunch. It ended with a guy bloody, so I’m sorry I missed it. Especially because this was the same guy that got his ass kicked a month or so ago by another client, because he keeps threatening people, and many of the people at the program have experienced stuff like that in the past and had it actually be followed through. So, while the whole physical violence thing is Not Cool, I also have trouble blaming either of the other clients. You do have to take mental illness in on both sides, though, even though all of the people involved have the capacity to know what they did was inappropriate.

We had the weirdest day today. One of our new clients, who is an absolute pain in my ass, but whatever, got PISSED because we told her she didn't have a psychiatry appointment today (she didn't). Because she wouldn't lower her voice so that either S or I could tell her that maybe she could call the clinic or her service coordinator herself, she went on a rant about how much she hated any and all the staff here, we weren't doing our jobs, and she was leaving. She's threatened this several times before, which is surprising, actually, since she hasn't been here that long at all. But anyway, she walked away and we just shrugged it off, because she looked like she was going to sit down, and we couldn't stop her from leaving anyway.

Well, S got a call at about 10:30 from the head of this client's house, telling S that someone from our center needed to go down to the fire station a block away to pick up said client, because she was ranting to the firemen about how horrible we were. S went with our boss to get her, but when they get there, the firemen state that they called the paramedics to take her to the hospital because she reported that she fell here and broke her arm, and then proceeded to show them.

She does not have a broken arm. Or, well, she HAD a broken arm that healed badly years ago (as far as we've been able to gather, because the story keeps changing), and now it bends every way and looks like a knotted up hose. She showed this to them, and they got her sent to a local hospital.

So many things were ridiculous about that whole scenario, starting with the fact that the housing coordinator should have gone to pick her up herself rather than passing the buck. But honestly, the whole thing was absurd and something I will point to and laugh for a long while. Then I had to convince two of my coworkers that horses could swim, and the idea that I'd swam with horses and swam on while on horseback was enough to fry their brains and made them think that the entire experience was a drug trip. Everyone else backed me up, so there.

Finally, at lunch time, a client told me and two of my coworkers that black women gave birth using their colons.

Most days, I can safely say I love my job.

Going to see GotG tomorrow, then it's the pseudo-bachelorette party for a coworker, and then we leave for NC on Sunday morning and I get a week off of work :). It'll be a busy few days.

Nothing absolutely horrible happened at work, so everything's at least ok on that front.

I've been doing this squat challenge thing since last Sunday (I'm on day 9), and it's one of those things that supposed to get you up to 200 squats in 4 weeks. Today, I did 90. It's 3 days of squats and then one day of rest, so it's not one huge push. I've been running and doing other leg/butt exercises as well, and I added core exercises over the last couple days. Right now, I'm under the impression that I've never used my ab muscles ever. This might not be as wrong as it sounds, because the last time I talked to my doctor, he told me that one of the reasons I have back spasms is because I don't have abs to take over some of the work. I'm also working on building up back muscles and improving my posture, but all that's gotten me at the moment is pain. I need to find better ways to fix kyphosis, because trying to straighten it right now is killing me.

Real didn't defend their stupid title and I'm mad at them, though they definitely weren't at their best against Man United. Bring me the regular season, I need distractions from getting fit and working.

I need to calm down. At this point I feel ready to burn everything to the ground

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On the bright side, the trailer for The Hobbit: BoFA came out, and I don't feel like death after exercising yesterday.

I am, sadly, at the point where going on an anti-anxiety med seems inevitable. I have been kept up the last two nights with anxiety attacks, and almost started crying today when I talked about getting on a plane. Thankfully (for me), Air France has suspended all flights to Tel Aviv indefinitely, so I'm contacting the travel agent to return my ticket. I think this was the universe yelling at me to wake up and see the signs. One of the two friends I was going with wanted to hold out since the ban could conceivably be lifted soon, but since my other friend AND the person we were going to see were both like 'ok, it looks like enough's enough', I didn't have a problem saying no. Hell no, in fact. Even if I have to pay a fine to change my ticket somewhere else, or not get a full refund since the tickets are for a week from today, I'm not doing this anymore, I'm not putting myself through this. I didn't want to be the one person who pulled out, but now at least two of the three understand and agree (though they weren't as reluctant as me in the first place).

I just really needed affirmation that this wasn't my anxiety blowing the danger out of proportion. Though, now that I'm over the relief of the decision being made for me, I'm stressing about whether I'm going to have to eat the cost of a flight I'm not taking. I hate my brain so much sometimes.

Also, I think my coworkers thought I brought this topic up randomly with clients, but I legitimately didn't start the conversations, lol. I mentioned it once when I was explaining the situation, and since then, I've had people asking me about it almost every day. I literally had a client walk up to me and say, completely straight faced and serious: "Don't go. You're gonna die!" I swear, I almost called the travel agent that moment. Talk about a way to freak me out.

I am supposed to be flying to Israel and the West Bank at the end of this month. Minutes ago, Israel started a ground invasion into Gaza.

I'm being told by people close to the situation that the West Bank is not experiencing any of the turmoil, and the fighting is several hours away. This is all fine, but, since I live in Baltimore, it's like saying that there's a war in Richmond. Not a situation I'd really want to get anyone involved in. Now I have to talk with the two people coming with me, and try to figure out if we want to postpone the visit or not. I really want to, but I also don't want to feel like I'm giving in to my anxiety, since I know I'm having problems controlling that.

Ugh.

Had a heating pad on my back since I got home at 4. My lower back has been spasming since 10:30 or so this morning.

I have a training tomorrow, so I won't have any groups, which means no paperwork for me to do until Monday. I'm so happy :). Paperwork (and all the bureaucracy and redundancies that go with it) is easily the worst thing about this job.

Still over the moon that Madrid did not let in any goals for the month of January!!!

Ok, maybe slight exaggeration, but I absolutely hate that feeling. I refuse to get sick again, so this better just be because of cat hair.

Work's been pretty spiffy recently. No huge accidents or anything (knock on wood), no one behaving horribly, and no one has hit on me recently. Real Madrid has not lost or conceded a goal in 2014, and Varane might make his comeback in the weekend match.

Oh, and last Tuesday when I was at the house, a client from another day program introduced himself to me, and then promptly said that I might as well call him a penguin. He was a really fun dude in general, just really nice, even if he did talk about penguins the entire time I was helping him with his lunch.

Apparently MD was not prepared for the snow today. Work was closed, but whenever that happens, the rehab counselors get assigned to go to different group houses to work during the day. Getting there was fine because it hadn't started snowing yet, but at the end of my shift, I took two of the clients out to the CVS to get cigarettes and coffee and such. Off and on the entire way there and back, there was this horrible grinding and a light kept blinking on my dash. I seemed to lose all traction at those points. When going around a corner at something like 5mph, I fishtailed and thought I would either hit the car waiting for the light or end up in someone's front yard. As it is, one of the cars in that line honked at me, like I couldn't figure out for myself that this wasn't what the car was supposed to be doing.

I told my dad what happened, and he first thought we needed to get it to the shop, but after he read the manual and tried it himself, he thinks that it was the anti-lock brake system and the traction control coming on and making it sound like the engine was dying. Apparently a normal sound. I'm still kind of queasy and shaky from the drive, despite the fact that it was close to six hours ago. I just remember it and all the anxiety comes rushing back. Ugh.

On the plus side, Real Madrid has not conceded a goal this year and we keep winning! And Chelsea won, but Torres got hurt and now I'm sad again.

Slightly amusing that after I post on LJ about how well work has been going, I then experience one of the craziest days. On Monday, four of us (one was out on holiday) were cleaning up various bodily expulsions from around 9 AM to 1 PM. I have a deal with another coworker (H) that I don't clean up poop and she doesn't clean up vomit, so I was off the hook for the morning anyway, but then the guy of the group (J1) stepped up and took care of downstairs. It was three people shitting themselves in a 20 minute period, with one of them also peeing on themselves and the second also vomiting. An hour before, one of those people had also had an accident on the first floor that H cleaned up. I was on call at 1 when the second person who had had an accident and thrown up on herself in the basement then threw up again on the first floor. To her credit, she tried to clean it up herself, but only succeeded in widening the area I had to clean. After dealing with the scheduling mishaps that came from at least one person having to clean most of the day, I was ready to jump in the shower and not come out.

So naturally we (the three ladies: H, S, and me) went out drinking to try and forget everything, and the person next to us at the bar said (very loudly) that she had been raped by the ocean.

I don't know what my life is anymore, but I'm pretty sure someone must be filming everything somewhere.