Mental health thread

[Driftwood]

The naked dream stuff is funny and chilling, too, considering what I've posted earlier.
As mentioned, we sold my mother's house and picked up the check for it Tuesday. Monday night, I dreamed that I was going to pick it up. I was naked in a vehicle (not my truck) and driving around some dream location trying to get to the title company, but there were all kinds of road blocks on every street I turned onto.

 

[WolvEagle]

Anybody got tips for overcoming five decades worth of imposter syndrome that I can speed run in a week's time?

I start the new job Monday which should be an exciting time. And it mostly is, but it is also starting to be nerve wracking to have such a bump in responsibilities and as the degree of professional presentation comes more into focus.

Word comes via email today that I need to get a professional headshot submitted, which means I need to go through and figure out what is suitable to wear and if it will need dry cleaning.

After two weeks in the saddle at home it is off to the high dollar suburbs of Nashville for an onboarding mini-retreat including a 2.5 hour dinner at a very upscale restaurant. Already I am praying I can bum a ride from someone at the hotel so that I don't have to hand the valet the keys to a 15 year-old Civic.

I grew up in a blue collar family that sometimes did OK and many other times did not. That means I am hyper-conscious about my social graces or lack thereof. I don't have a twang but I do have a Southern accent. I do not have an ADA approved smile.

There is no backing out of this job. I need it and I need the healthy increase in pay that will allow me to truly have a middle class life for the first time since the divorce. But I'm starting to feel more fraudtastic by the day, even before considering the leveling up I need to do with my Excel and PowerPoint skills.

Late to the party, but ...

It'll be 11 years next month that I left what I thought would be my lifetime job at a newspaper chain (I was there 25 years) to take a public-sector job (not the feds, thankfully now). Yes, I was nervous, but I knew I could do the job - the big boss was a former editor of mine, so it was the second time he hired me in our careers. When he left and his No. 2 became the big boss six years ago, she kept the central staff intact because we work well together.

My advice to be confident, but not overconfident. They hired you for a reason.

I hope it's a good experience.

 

[WolvEagle]

This reminds me I dream at least six times per year that the game I'm covering is just about over or over and I just...can't...write. I'm not staring at a screen dealing w/writer's block, I just keep not writing somehow. Sometimes I'm just going over the same graph over and over again. Sometimes I'm trying to write in an elevator or interview room. I think sometimes I dream I'm in the bathroom. Wherever I am, I'm aware I've blown deadline to smithereens and there's nothing I can do. It's a miserable dream and I wake up with a start every single time.

I've had those dreams, too - about school and previous jobs. I was a good student and I'd like to think I did a good job at my previous stops, but still ...

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

My college dream has evolved a bit - still includes the "haven't gone to class since the first day of the semester, now going to try and fake my way through the finals," but it has expanded to be specific that I'm in my second-to-last semester, need the requisite 15 hours of classes this semester, then 15 hours of classes in the final semester, to graduate.

But as I go down the line without having gone to any classes, I just figure "If/when I fail this, I'll push that course back into the final semester," then I realize I'll need like 24 credit hours in a single semester to graduate.

 

[BrownScribe]

Adding onto the dreams bit. I am really bad at math. I failed Math 111 like three times in college before I finally passed it. But I still have dreams occasionally about the Registrar's office calling me up and telling me that they are rescinding my degree due to having found I didn't pass Math 111.

In my defense, Math 111 at my university had to be revamped eventually. Why? So many students were failing it that there was outcry.