[1225] Sober Up

I’m on the verge of an anxiety spiral, and I’d much rather be able to focus on the latest episode of Gen V. I’ve got this sense that I’m “on the outs.” It’s the early stages, but it’s a familiar feeling that has never once not gone confirmed. Let me walk you through how and why I think it happens.

Even though I’m on the back half of my 30s, I still catch a fair amount of looks. At work, I work. I do more than I should, well, and people notice. I, naturally, speak and carry myself in a way that translates my education, preferences, silliness, and politeness. My “story” is filled with unique or intriguing things that draws people in or keeps them curious. On paper, I’ve got a decent middle-class, professional, capable conclusion you can draw about what I might contribute to your life. I’ve broken enough hearts not mapping onto baby-daddy/husband in the imagination of exes and fuck-buddies.

You see that last line? That scathing presumptive yet cheeky kind of sentiment? That’s the first line I cross with most people. Eventually, the darkness in my soul manifest as bluntness or humor and sets the stage for the alienation. At least, it’s an easy thing to point to when the other resentments start to pile up. I’m not an edgelord saying ridiculous things for the sake of a reaction or because I know it’s taboo. I do find sincere and persistent joy in trying to make the most horrifying or sad things about life laughable. I’m, literally, the person who fits in best with the dead baby unit colleagues when I worked at DCS. There’s like 3 of us every 100 or so miles.

“Bad”or “awkward” or allegedly mean-spirited jokes are one thing. What really trips me up is when I’m trying to take something seriously that others don’t have the emotional or intellectual bandwidth for.

Right now, me and 3 colleagues at the last place I worked started a sober-living program in a house that one of them owns. 2 are “best friends.” The job I left is, and has, been doing a series of shady and dangerous things with their IOP program, which I reported. Well, my 3 partners still work there. The owner interrogated at least one of them. I informed them I was going to make the report. No one said not to. I, frequently missing the boat of what “normal” people do/mean when they say they’re going to make the same call, didn’t (implied: should have known) know they weren’t going to.

This is after one of them said to a receptionist that came in worried and venting about needing to report what they were doing, “Girl, I’ll call with you.” This is after that same one said, “I’m not giving them notice when I quit.” Her, and her best friend, also said, “I’ve already got a new job.” All of this, you know, is “just venting.” I can’t take it seriously.

We work with people’s lives. We should, by any appreciable measure, be better about meaning what we say and doing the right thing. I’ve tried to set up a regular weekly meeting. You can feel the inherent resistance, even for a quick Zoom. I come to the meeting prepared with topics and open questions. I get half answers. I get a silly hang-out session, which is fine and fun, but we need to know how to evict someone in a way that doesn’t hurt us or them. How thoroughly did that get discussed? How many questions in the group chat have gone unanswered?

This is a real opportunity to get the kind of wealth and income that I’ve been desperate my entire adult life to achieve. 2 people at a company an hour south of us opened 2 years ago and they now have 8 houses and nearly 100 beds. The drug problem isn’t going away in my lifetime, and people needing adults in the room for regular therapy, oversight, encouragement, and affordable ways of navigating our increasing dumpster fire of a country is going to be one of the hottest games in town. I want it done right. I want it sustainable. I want to prove that it’s not idealistic to both treat people right while making money.

But, I don’t feel like I’m going to be able to trust creating something that I don’t, in some manner, own. That means getting my own house as soon as possible. That means creating and training from within the people we invite into the space. Increasingly it’s feeling like dialing my personality to a zero and just being as professional and hard-working as I normally am and not trying to be particularly friendly or loose.

As we’ve worked together for the last few months, each person kind of takes up what they think they know or would be good at. We’ve all contributed a couple hundred bucks, either in cash or in things like a stove, to the space. I’m the only one who has moved furniture and driven over the hour away from where I live to move things along. The house’s owner has hired some repair people to get odds and end things done. My old supervisor was supposed to coordinate grant opportunities and draw up contracts. I ended drawing up the contracts when she didn’t follow the instructions I laid out about how to protect non-profit status. I don’t even know that 2 of the 4 partners have even been to the house.

I want to believe that their experience, network, perspectives, etc will contribute in a long-term way to our collective benefit. I can’t escape the feeling that, by virtue of who I am and my whole life, I’m going to find myself cut out of the group chat they start themselves. I’ve listened to them gripe and trash-talk the people at the office, you know, “just venting.” I’ve immediately felt the hurdles and resistance to formalizing our processes from meetings to move-in to budgeting. I’m not going to do anything on purpose that derails what this could become, but I worry I won’t have any control over what ends up having the biggest impact. I, genuinely, didn’t intend to quit my last job, and that day the forces conspired around me.

That sounds insane, right? Like I’m not trying to take responsibility for what I said or like I had some deeper agenda I’m downplaying. I had no idea I was quitting that day. I had no idea that my already more than halved paycheck was going to turn into $200 a week over the course of 3 hours. I had no idea I was going to be in a conversation with the receptionist about fraudulent behavior from the owners. I don’t want to lose my credentials anymore than they should be worried about their licenses.

In counseling, one of the ways people hurt themselves the most is in mind-reading. You have no idea what anyone is thinking about you. It takes a long time to recognize they aren’t. That’s precisely my concern. I know that people, extremely and reliably selfishly, will think about how they feel independent of anything else. That, burns me. That makes anything I’ve ever done, said, or contribute mute unless it’s relevant in the case against me. I’ve never been this close to a practical grasp of my entire adult life dreams, and it feels at the mercy of that same spiteful process.

And I don’t really know what to do. Writing will get me through the night, but I’m on my heels. I’m going to be looking for the opportunity to demonstrate my worth and “really prove” I’m more than the last worst joke or social faux pas. That’s pathetic and unsustainable. It’s also not fair, nor something I’m willing to bitch about how unfair it is indefinitely.

At the end of the day, I can control the exploration and leverage of the power I have. I have, messier, more expensive, but would be entirely mine alternatives or concurrent plans to explore. I don’t have to become best friends with anyone. I don’t have to conflate my familiar, probably accurate, sense about how things will play out with some notion that it’s inevitable or like I don’t have to take things day by day.

I feel an immediate sense of calm and order when I look so closely at what’s wrong it becomes impossible to carry either a hopeful or dreadful expectation. I think I can watch TV now.