Post #9

Get up and go has got up and gone

The Crone Chaos Report · Report Status: Further Mayhem Expected. Chaos Level: Full Crone

Like wait, what?!!! I CANNOT seriously still be feeling this damn tired. I drew this sad and pretty pathetic conclusion this morning when I woke up. I felt groggy - a bit hung over but that’s how I feel because I take my progesterone pill each night at bed time. Progesterone can really give you that dozy, drunk feeling. So I curse the alarm, “shut up you piece of crap!” I’m seriously swearing at inanimate objects at this stage. I HAVE LOST THE PLOT! My poor phone, I’ve thrown it across the room so many times it needs 3 phone covers and bubble wrap to protect it from my rage! So I grab it, sort of roll like a Weeble, (“Weebles wobble, they don’t fall down,”) out of bed. Flub around with my bed socks and pajama bottoms (they get tossed out of bed in the first five minutes of sleep),visit the bathroom and then trudge like a disgruntled teenager down the stairs foraging for Tatter Cloak’s breakfast. Before I start, you may ask, “why OH WHY IS SHE PANDERING TO HER HUSBAND? He’s not a damn CHILD!” I ask myself that too sometimes when I got out of bed the wrong way! But there are good reasons: 1. He deals with my chaotic, cranky shit WAAY more than any human being who is kind, should have to. (He’s SAINT Tatter Cloak half the time and cock end the rest ;) when I’m in one of my moods) 2. He argues I need my sleep but I feel so damn guilty having the motivation of a dead sloth, that I do it to force myself into some kind of routine. Somewhere deep within the mists of indifference, I seem to care about this. Like a zombie with a faint memory of (breakfast) GRAINS!

WANNA KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON? So the FUCK do I! In a nutshell, my motivation is on the rocks. Most of the time I just can’t seem to get moving. It’s not just in my body, it’s stuck right there in my head like some kind of twisted internal voice telling me to NOT BOTHER with ANY DAMN thing. It’s like a devil on my shoulder, sleek, smooth-tongued and sexy, saying, “hey just stay where you are, it’s not that important. Someone else can do it? You deserve to lounge about, let someone else do it.” And that voice is so freaking convincing. I believe EVERY word. They don’t call it a silver tongued devil for nothing. But the really bad thing about this is my brain seems to have switched off. I MEAN OFF,I am yanking away at the on switch but nope, no lights are coming on. I have short-circuited myself. I can blame brain fog and its shitty friends like forgetfulness and inability to focus. The dropping estrogen does that. But it affects production of feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin and motivator, dopamine. Add stress hormone cortisol, awful sleep and exhaustion and it’s like the worst sounding supergroup wreaking havoc on your motivation.

Sounds about right. My DESIRE to do things has gone. Get up and go has fucked RIGHT OUT of here at the first chance of escape. My curiosity for knowledge and learning is like a noodle dick, highly ineffective and painful to watch. Worse still, once, this downward spiral would have worried the crap out of me. It was the mark of me to learn and understand things. Now along with the DGAF-o-Meter (my trusty Don’t Give a Fuck measure), I just don’t care. But there’s one problem here. When I get to the office, I’m going to have to try really DAMN FUCKING hard to fake it. I can get away with it at home and with friends but what about those who pay my salary?! SO. Nobody can know I am winging it at my job.

Our secret okay?

I’ll smile and nod and bite my tongue (and you can see how hard that’s going to be for me, because I work with morons. Lazy, entitled, unskilled and overpaid) and just look like butter wouldn’t melt. But on the inside, the raging inferno that gets wound up by the sound of my colleagues’ voices bubbles away like a hag’s cauldron!

I don’t need to lecture you on this one. The Sister Crones I meet up with, because we need to support each other (and I’m not lying when I say this) they’re pretty accomplished. One’s an exec, another’s a teacher, one’s a foster parent etc etc you get the idea. These are women totally used to carrying a very heavy load. They have all said, some days they can’t string a sentence together because the brain fog, fatigue and utter fucklessness is so strong. They too have been charmed by the devil on their shoulders. This is serious because we worry about getting that big fat boot.

You can’t talk to HR because, well HR protects the company not the employee, and giving them a heads up is like a one-way ticket to THE CHAT about performance. Next thing you know you’re doing a Patrick Bateman from America Psycho and imagining all sorts of inappropriate things while you get lectured. So the bottom line is staying on top of the HRT or finding a coping mechanism.

And that’s why I trek downstairs looking like something a mangy cat dragged in, to make Tatter Cloak’s breakfast. I also have a little chart of ‘wins.’ Yep sounding more like a corporate whore by the second, BUT WINS MATTER to me. Every little practical thing I can get done in a day (to stop me feeling like a failure to humanity) keeps the chaos in check. It grounds me. My to-do for today is to get washed, and cleaned, look human-ish. Put on some laundry and get a casserole in the slow-cooker. A bigger win will be if it’s edible. The casserole not the laundry. If I can do all that before I go in to work, then bonus points for me.

So what are your wins going to be? We know this is a long-haul so every little counts (as that limey supermarket chain Tesco says!).

Enter the Crone Zone