...then Comes The Week

[Bryan]

I was feeling pretty good this weekend. I don't even know why. Is it the meds? Is it just a break in the fighting? I dunno...but it felt good. I actually sang and danced (not any girly dances or anything like that)while I did my chores.

But here it is...monday...and as I walked into work my mood almost immediately changed. I feel so inadequate here...so worthless. I watch all of these "important" people walk around here with their graduate degrees, phds, and their JDs. All of these attorneys and executives in their four piece suits and wear a sense of arrogance about them like a coat.

I want to kick them in the balls and lower them a few notches to show them just how vulnerable they really are. I don't know why these people incite such anger in me. I don't know them - they don't know me, yet their vanity brings out an untethered hatred that scares even me. I feel like everyone here thinks they are better than me, and I kick myself for letting myself feel that way.

I want a different job, but there's nothing out there. (sigh)

There goes my fleeting moment of cheerfulness.

[toonkate]

lol, sry bry, i have this image of u dancing round the house to britney spears doing the housework wearing nothing but a little frilly maids apron

[Bryan]

not Brittany spears thank you very much. I was doing air guitar to some old Kansas tunes....and I wasn't wearing an apron. just my socks ;)

[Barebones]

good that you had good weekend though!

sry your feeling the monday blues..

[Betsy]

what is your title at work and what do you do?

[toonkate]

he sits and plays online all day!!

[toonkate]

(just teasing bry)

[verbena]

I'm just the opposite. I was in bed all day Saturday, couldn't wake up enough to get up because I'm home alone. I just stayed in bed and dozed and daydreamed all day. Terry was working away from home so I was alone, my phone NEVER rings, and I have no ambition when I am alone. I just stay under the covers. As soon as he comes home I begin to feel better and start cleaning, etc. and I love Monday mornings best because I don't feel like I'm just wasting perfectly good oxygen.

[Swan]

Oh Bryan, I can promise you they don't all feel so good - lawyers above all are obliged to keep up a facade of strength and capability - you know that that is what we get paid for - but for so many it is just that and behind it is anxiety and fear and family trouble and money trouble and probably addiction.

But if you show that your clients are going to think that you won't be able to fight your case with the strength they are entitled to expect. So you hide it and feel alone rather then trusting anyone who isn't compeletely within your most private circle. Maybe you don't even admit it to yourself, and spend your life taking it out on others close to you. I've known so many miserable lawyers, and many more whose families are miserable too. No one is immune and I know that if you could see inside their heads you'd agree with me.

You really aren't alone, you only feel that you are.

[Bryan]

what is your title at work and what do you do?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm a policy analyst for the Public Utilities Commission. my primary role is to advise the Commissioners on policy, rules, and laws which affect the telecommunications industry and the consumers who pay for telephone service. But I also act as a judge (arbitrator) in many contract disputes between telephone carriers.

Funny...most of the time, these attorneys walking around like they're hot shit are calling me "your honor".

and I play on the computer all day

[Bryan]

Oh Bryan, I can promise you they don't all feel so good - lawyers above all are obliged to keep up a facade of strength and capability - you know that that is what we get paid for - but for so many it is just that and behind it is anxiety and fear and family trouble and money trouble and probably addiction.

But if you show that your clients are going to think that you won't be able to fight your case with the strength they are entitled to expect.  So you hide it and feel alone rather then trusting anyone who isn't compeletely within your most private circle.  Maybe you don't even admit it to yourself, and spend your life taking it out on others close to you.  I've known so many miserable lawyers, and many more whose families are miserable too.  No one is immune and I know that if you could see inside their heads you'd agree with me.

You really aren't alone, you only feel that you are.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

oops...sorry Swan. I didn't know you were an attorney. I didn't mean you..of course. (insert foot in mouth)

[Swan]

See? And I bet it never occurs to you when they are appearing in front of you that they may be in the middle of a family crisis, or that they've just thrown up in the loo through nerves, or that they've been practising their submissions in front of the mirror for three hours the night before, or are kicking themselves beneath the table because you've just taken a point that they hadn't prepared for and they are wishing the ground would open up and swallow them!

Happens to us all - and I know it because I've heard it direct from some of the best!

[Bryan]

See?  And I bet it never occurs to you when they are appearing in front of you that they may be in the middle of a family crisis, or that they've just thrown up in the loo through nerves, or that they've been practising their submissions in front of the mirror for three hours the night before, or are kicking themselves beneath the table because you've just taken a point that they hadn't prepared for and they are wishing the ground would open up and swallow them!

Happens to us all - and I know it because I've heard it direct from some of the best!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have to apologize. I'm usually the first one to shout when I feel offended because I feel lumped into a category (usually men), and here I am doing the same thing. I'm sorry if I've offended anybody I may have described in this thread.

[Swan]

No, you haven't offended me at all - just the reverse. But I am thinking of all the judges that I appear in front of when I'm feeling like sh** and knowing as I now do some things about some of them which are not really common knowledge I have a lot more understanding for the ones who sometimes are rude or unhelpful or have a reputation for tetchiness.

I'm sure that you are not like this, but all I'm trying to say, not very well, is that even the cleverest, richest, most apparently privileged have their tragedies, sometimes much worse than one's own. The more I live the more I realise that there just is no 'us' and 'them' - everybody struggles sometime.

[verbena]

I agree.

[Bryan]

Swan - I guess you've nailed my mentality that I haven't been able to communicate it that well. I do have an us or them mentality (part of the BPD black and white mentality?). I need to resolve that somehow. I'm sure it all relates to how I was mistreated by my rich, white, peers in school.

btw - I never let my personal feelings influence my judgement when interpretting the contracts, state, or federal law.

How's that for a disclaimer?

[Swan]

I'd love to believe it - prejudice is so insidious and usually impossible to prove - but so easy for a disatisfied litigant to blame for losing a bad case.

Without wanting to sound vilely pious I've found this time (the worst of my life) has been my opportunity to change, and learned at last to forgive, and to have compassion instead of hate and anger (and I was so full of both).