KGirl - new life, new stuff

[KGirl]

It's hard for me to recognize the dating things like you described. I thought I was enthusiastic about XBF at the time.. but I think it's in my nature to want to give people a lot of benefit of the doubt.. and it's also what my job is based on ("OK, you have a 2.9 GPA and want to go to medical school.. that's OK! let's talk about how we might achieve that" is not an uncommon conversation I have with people.)

I don't really have enthusiasm for much of anything right now which is why I'm thinking depression or actual mental health issues (as opposed to just situational stuff) may be a real issue. I really have to make myself do anything like hang out with friends, do things I used to find fun, etc. I don't have a valid passport right now, sadly! I actually went and got my picture taken and started the application, thinking XBF and I might want to go somewhere (he was a dual Canadian/American citizen so he traveled to Canada periodically) so now it's hard to even finish filling out the application without thinking about that.

The conference had pros and cons. I did wear "real clothes." The keynote speaker talked about self-authenticity in the face of change. She asked us to do an exercise at our table where we wrote down a change we were recently facing in our lives, pick a postcard from the table that visualized that change, and talk about that with our tablemates. I knew I couldn't do that w/out crying so I opted out. Then she asked us to write a six word memoir about how we saw ourselves in the future.. which I also was not able to think about without getting upset. People at my table wrote things like "happy, hopeful, and always working hard" or "she did the best she could"... sigh. Then the first session I went to was about "compassion fatigue" - how do you take care of yourself when you spend your day listening to other people's trauma and issues? Which, while helpful, was also emotionally stressful. It was good, but difficult. Happy hour afterwards with a number of my colleagues was better but I realize now that 3 beers pre-dinner does not do much for my coping skills and just makes me more sad ultimately.