hurting on the inside, why not the outside? TRIGGER

OMG you guys, I had just about the worst day of my life today. I was at work till 1 a.m. Wed. morning writing post election stories. My editor was out of town and thus not there, and the person filling in didn't know any better, and I wrote that one guy got defeated when there were actually two seats, and he came in second and still won. It got into print.

The mayor, who already doesn't like me, called me and was absolutely furious. My boss, after initial disappointment, realized it wasn't totally my fault, and tried to make me feel better. She called the alderman and apologized, and said he was very nice about it. I got stuck calling back the mayor, falling all over myself apologizing. I got his voice mail, so I don't know how he took it.

I cried the rest of the day. I cried so hard in the bathroom that I literally left a puddle of tears on the floor. I am near crying just typing this. I could not possibly feel worse. My credibility is shredded. No one is ever going to take me seriously again.

I only had a few hours left to get in today, so I left for home around 12:30. My boss called about 2, and said they had just gotten a fax that people from the army reserve or whatever it is around here were going to be leaving for Iraq in the morning. She asked if I would go do the story. I think this is her way of getting me back on the horse, if you will. The last thing I wanted to do was say yes, but I did anyway, because I'm a f'ing idiot. So at 7:45 a.m. I have to show up at some military base and ask these people how they're feeling about the possibility of death. Oh yay.

I haven't gotten a lot of sleep the last couple of days because of work, and so I tried to go to bed early tonight, and while I'm tired enough, all I can think of is my f-up, and all I want to do is cut. I feel so bad I can't stand it, and I don't have a good reason why I shouldn't just slice my arm to shreds to get rid of the pain. I feel like I deserve to hurt for being such an idiot.



Candy

It will be okay. I work partime at the news office and was editing and missed the fact that one of the obituaries just ended mid sentence with half of it missing. I felt terrible. I never wanted to do it again. It ended up okay and the fact that I caught a whole bunch of other problems that people missed showed that I wasn't awful at the job. I'm sure you have written previous articles that were really good and prove your worth. I don't know if any of this helps at all but I hope it does. It is all the advice I have. Okay so not much of advice...but I hope it makes you feel better.