Thank-you all for the advice you have given me. I read it and have been thinking about it all week, even though I got swamped again and I'm just now getting around to writing back.

On Monday I was at the RTC and there was a new girl and it was her birthday and we were doing the cake and ice cream and singing routine, and all the girls just started singing happy birthday, and the assistant director came down and glared at everybody and gave all the girls essays for singing too loud, and that was it for a party for this girl who had just gotten there and was upset about spending her birthday in this place and everything. Another staff and I failed to keep our opinions to ourselves that what happened was not right, and we both got chewed out. The other staff ageed to always support the assistant director, but I just stood there. I had had it with the way they run that place and the way they treat people. I mentioned that I was thinking about walking out, and the director told me twice that maybe that would be best, but I stayed the rest of the shift, and then they kept me until past midnight to grill me some more.

I had no car, and rode my bike home - got home after 1:30 a.m. and was disappointed that I made it. Cried all night and all morning. I actually tried calling the employee assistance program for my other job three times and they hung up on me. The connection was bad and I couldn't hear them.

I did come here and read your responses, and I appreciate them although I wasn't able to reply at the time.

Tuesday it rained hard all day, and I couldn't even stay out of bed when I tried to get up. I couldn't deal with going back to that job, and I tried to call in but they never answered the phone or called me back so I was just AWOL.

I had a job interview for another job, and had a ride to that, and I don't know how I pulled it off but I got the new job. Tuesday coming up will be my first day for that. I'll be a T.A. for speech therapy for the school district. I still have my job that I like at Head Start too, so that's two part-time day jobs, and I'll have evenings and weekends off. The new job is only up to 19 hours per week but pays more per hour, so I'll have less time at work and almost the same pay as before. And I'd still like to do filling in at the RTC maybe during school breaks but I doubt that they want me there. I miss the girls so much though and hate leaving the way I did.

Hubby came home from out of town on Wednesday night and informed me that the car wasn't worth fixing - transmission had a catastrophic failure. He wanted to go find a new car from a dealer. It will cost more to fix the transmission than we paid for the car, but we'll have a warranty on the new transmission, so I said to go ahead and fix it. The car is supposed to get finished tomorrow.

I was upset about the car and the money and having to cancel my therapy appointment due to no transportation, and Wednesday night I took three Tylenol PM before I went to bed. Two of them is too many for me. It made me all wired and my heart was beating too fast, and hubby told me in the morning that I was as hot as a furnace. It was kind-of scay and no way I could sleep and I really needed to. I didn't tell T (or anyone) about the overdose. That's the third time this year that I took just a little bit too much of something, and every time it was uncomfortable and scary, and I hate myself for it because that's not the kind of thing that I do, but now I've repeated it a few times.

T got home from her vacation and I thought she would be hard on me for stuff like no-showing at work but she thought it was good for me to quit there, and has been really supportive (email as usual). The rest of the week I was just tired and sore from riding my bike to work, and swamped with trying to get my schoolwork done, and I haven't been able to keep up with much else.

I'm supposed to be noticing the split between the part of me that is competent and professional, and the part that just hurts and can't handle anything. The part that I usually show on the outside never lets any feelings show, or vulnerability. That part can handle just about anything and probably doesn't even notice how I feel about it, and just lets things build up and build up, but eventually the shell wears thin. My other part is nothing but raw emotion, and it's so embarassing when that part comes out. The two parts are opposite and they hate each other, and I'm supposed to figure out how to synthesize them but they aren't very interested in working together.

I'm afraid of letting the wrong people know what's inside. When I updated my classmates about my car and job situations, one of them wrote back "to your credit, at least you didn't let it get you down!" Somehow when I wrote to them about it the outer, professional, competent part took control, and didn't let any feelings come out at all. I also had to write about my life roles and how they change and what I learned for a paper for my class, and I wrote about this very stuff and how I just have to be willing to let go of things, and it came out just like Pollyanna. I wonder if I can keep it all contained and sound like I have a good attitude, maybe I shouldn't indulge in the whining that I tend to do. What do you think?

Rap