Anxiety Stream

Apologies that this blog isn't going to be one of my more structured and meaningful offerings. At the moment I've got so much on my mind this is going to be more of a babbling stream of consciousness and anxiety.

So to begin, and probably the least important of my current issues has been my bloody MP3 player. The last few years I've used a 160gb iPod Classic which clapped out at the start of last month. Since all the young 'uns seem to stream everything nowadays it results in no' large' MP3 players being on the market anymore (curse you youngsters with your ability to work Spotify!).

This lead to me trying two different MP3 players with the same result that they didn't want to play my amount of music despite having large memory cards in them. Thankfully a work colleague, Sami, has come to the rescue and is selling me her old iPod Classic. I hate still being part of the Apple sheep 🐑 flock but beggers really can't be choosers!

Esme has just turned 10 which is absolutely amazing, in that she hasn't killed me/run off to live with Helen. She's started to become incontinent unfortunately which means she has to be dried each morning. Part of the problem is that it's raining all the time, making it harder to nab her to dry her butt whilst simultaneously getting her soaked!

Speaking of the weather. What in the actually fuckety fuck is going on at the moment? IT HASN'T STOPPED FUCKING RAINING. I'm sick of it. People laugh at me when I say how much I hate winter but at the moment I'm feeling pretty vindicated. I'm not getting hardly excercise as it's raining too much to walk home so I'm just waiting for the weight to pile back on. It's dark and raining when I get up and dark and raining when I get home, I'm getting no time to hang out with or check on Esme and make sure she's dry and comfortable.

I guess my biggest worry at the moment is work. As you all know I work 'on the bank' which is kind of like temping within the hospital. Lately to save money all bank shifts across the hospital, be it admin like me or nursing etc, have to go before a panel to be approved. The result of this is that bank staff can be dropped from one week to the next. This has of course always been the risk and one that every person signing up to the bank is clearly made aware of. At the moment we're still getting admin shifts, I have work up until Christmas. Post-Christmas I've arranged to try my hand at Ward Clerking for the month of January (yes this will involve getting over my ickiness around hospital wards 🤣).

The thing that's stressing me most, and this is going to seem utterly ridiculous to all you sane people which I appreciate, is a conversation I had with my manager last week. She's told me that there is potentially funding for a part time (3 days a week) job on a year's contract in my favourite department and she wants to know if I'm interested. Obviously this is all speaking in potentials at the moment, if the advert did go up there's no guarantee I'd get an interview, let alone the job.

So why then have my panic barriers shot up, alarm bells started ringing and my gut instinct telling me "no, no, no"? On the face of it it seems ideal, guaranteed days, a consistent wage, paid holiday and better contributions towards my NHS pension. On the flip side it'll mean less opportunity to step up to the Band 3 work (secretarial level - I'm an admin band 2) as I'm able to do that on the bank. It's one less day that I'll work (I currently do 4) so I'll lose out on a day's wage. I'll also need to fit in holiday-wise with other people in the office, so that could mean I may not be able to go to gigs, holidays, airshows etc. Things that I rely on to keep my emotional wellbeing above water.

I have a real fear of being trapped and that's how I feel. I was trapped in school for 5 years going through hell, been stuck in other horrible jobs that made me ill and of course been forced to the brink of a genuine breakdown. At the back of my mind at the moment is the knowledge I could just walk away, to what I have no idea but I just know I can.

I really hope that this Ward Clerking I'm doing in January will go really well and I'll be able to do that. Whilst that is of course still on the bank it does mean that I'm working for myself so to speak. The other concern is how the hell I'm going to 'fess up to my manager that I won't be available in January since I'll be working on the ward, will I just be dropped like a stone?

I really wish I knew what to do. My gut really isn't feeling it. I've been told different things by different people, some tell me I'm foolish and to bite the hand off for the job, others have told me to go with my gut instinct. It's messing with my head and keeping me up at night (along with the stupid cold that I have 🤧).

And bloody Christmas is coming, I feel the warm glow of humbug-ing already.

Love Jen
XxxxX