Insomniac

There are many more important things going on tonight other than my inability to fall asleep a couple hours before the clocks fall back. The election is upon us, #1 Texas is down against Texas Tech at last check. The Cavs lost a game earlier to the Hornets in New Orleans. The Browns have a chance to go to 4-4 tomorrow against a division rival (not gonna happen though). I am eagerly awaiting May 10th 2009. I have report cards due this coming week and quarterly assessments to score as well as quarterly writing pieces.

But right now I am tossing and turning in my bed with heavy self pity on my brain. I thought maybe getting it out in the open would help. It's nothing private. It is nothing everyone who knows me doesn't already know themselves. Plus, I wear my emotions and thought on my sleeve to a fault.

I cannot seem to get over this feeling of failure lately. I have been dealing with it for a good year or so maybe less. Nothing has really changed. I am the same person I always have been at the core. But lately my shortcomings have really been exposed. I have learned I have anxiety issues that constitute a disorder. I have some slight paranoia and constantly practice negative "catastrophic what if" thinking. To top it off I have some major codependency issues and cannot say "no." You all know this already. No surprise here. I knew I had some paranoia and was afraid of confrontation, but I never realized all of this.

Now everything I do somehow relates to these things in my head. I can't escape it. I feel like a mental, emotional, weak minded fool. I liked it much better when I didn't know about these things. Ignorance is bliss. I have been trying really hard to improve myself. You may remember my positive affirmations posts. I blatantly wrote those to help pump myself up and force myself out of this negative thinking rut. But it is not working. On the outside I am trying to be positive but in my heart I don't feel it. It is not "me."

There was a time not too long ago that I was happy. I felt proud of who I was and what I was doing. I thought I was doing the single father thing well and took a lot of pride in it. Again, I am sure this came out in my posts and your interactions with me. I thought I was doing things right. I tried real hard to do the "right" thing and be the better person, especially in dealing with my job and my daughter's mom. It wasn't easy but I thought I was doing well.

I have come to find out I was not. There were too many holes to count in the way I handled myself. My parenting wasn't firm enough. I was raising a daughter who was demonstrating the same shortcomings and faults of my own. I wasn't raising her to be the person I thought I was raising her to be. I wasn't following through with other things in my life like I should have been. I was setting myself up for what I am dealing with now I guess.

This was like a bad dream coming true. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid by, not trying to think negatively, but instead avoiding thinking too positively to just be cut down later and devastated that all I thought was good was false. It still happened.

But I fought on. I revamped my style of parenting. I maintained my vision of doing what I thought was best for my kid and I changed my methods to help her avoid the same path I have followed mentally and emotionally. She has shown tremendous growth. I would like to take credit for it but really, it isn't mine to take. My methods were not this successful. Hence the feeling of failure. In an effort to stay positive, to push the affirmations I continue to give myself credit for at least changing when I did. But it doesn't feel good in my heart.

I have lost that pride in myself completely. I have lost my joy of teaching. The stress is unbearable. My class this year is a really cool group of kids. This is the kind of class I entered teaching to teach. But I feel horrible when I wake up in the morning. I go home feeling completely defeated and drained. I wanted to change the world and I think I am making it worse like I did with my kid.

I am finding out that the way I think and they way I deal with things or approach things is completely off base and unhealthy. Again, I used to take pride in how I would approach things and the way I would think. Instead, I am finding out that this way is negative or harmful.

My bitterness and anger towards people and things is growing. I get frustrated and annoyed so much easier than I have before. I just don't feel like I have the best of me out there anymore. I feel like the worst of me is all I have left. And I just keep bringing others around me down.

I really would rather not hear any comments trying to "pick me up." Seriously. This really is not a passive aggressive method of getting compliments from family and friends. Actually, it probably is and I just don't realize it like all those other things I didn't realize before. So I guess my point is, don't fall for some lame attempt to suck out people's approval. This is a more of a venting, trying to get myself to go to sleep post. If you have suggestions on how one earns back positive feelings they once had, let me know.

These affirmations aren't really working, but maybe something else would. Maybe I just need to get tough and get over myself. I should just stop thinking this way. Force myself to think positive and the heart will follow. Rome wasn't built in a day.