Today was a sh*tfest. I had horrible anxiety all day — started to have what I thought was a panic attack (haven’t had one in over a year), but it stopped before taking off fully. My biggest challenge in working isn’t the work or the schedule or the demands, it’s dealing with other people. It’s especially hard to deal with people who are angry and judgemental and CONSTANTLY COM0LANING. Nothing I do is ever right by them. Teachers don’t understand my job, so I get constant bs from them about things they don’t understand. Social workers think they know everything and overstep their boundaries about things they don’t understand. Admins don’t get that the demands of my job are very different from any other school position, and then they make ridiculous demands. I end up doing almost 20 hrs of work outside of the school day each week, and most of it is just because people are arrogant and self-righteous and don’t really know what they are talking about.

I felt like quitting today. It was one of those “tending a cash register in a rural Iowa gas station sounds nice” days. I’m sure things will get better if I just ignore what’s going on in my head— but I have such a short fuse when it comes to interpersonal problems and am so sensitive to other people’s perceptions of me (are those bipolar things, or just personality traits?). I can’t stop thinking about what other people might be thinking about me - I always assume it’s negative, and I blow up every small comment into some disasterous personal critique. I’ve tried CBT techniques, and they are helpful, but it’s happening too much and too frequently to make use of it. Buspar helped rid most of the anxiety, but it had bad side effects for me. Fluoxetine helped a lot, but my new pdoc didn’t want me on it. Benzos just put me to sleep. IDK what to try anymore. I feel like I’m going to lose it at any point.