Pressure

Sometimes I feel so much pressure to do and be everything, that I want to crawl under a rock and don't want to do or be anything.

At the mental hospital where I work, I'm commonly the one designated to monitor "shower duty", which usually includes laundry duty and clean-up duty. As well as monitoring anyone who can't leave the unit for behaviors, while the rest of the patients go to the cafeteria for lunch, or to the gym, or outside, etc. In addition, I'm the one most often asked to take the higher level sex offenders, who sleep on a different hallway from everyone else, to bed, or at the very least to relieve the staff that does take them so that (s)he can go eat. And, I'm the only person, possibly including my supervisors, on the official driver's list for 2nd shift, so if someone has to go to the Dr. or ER during 2nd shift, I'm the designated person to take them. In addition, I'm one of the staff that the kids are most likely to talk to with questions, problems, or general attention-seeking. All of this leads to me being asked to do everything, but never getting to finish anything. It also exacerbates my tendency to try to be everything  to everyone.

At my (non-paying, I mention) internship, the therapeutic foster care agency, I have a current caseload of 4 kids in 3 foster homes, with 2 of the foster homes I'm in charge of being without a current foster kid. Three of those kids are level III foster kids, which means they are severely physically disabled, and I have to see them 3 times a month(3 once-a-week visits) in order to basically make sure they're getting all of their meds, etc. The fourth kid is level I, meaning some behavioral issues, but nothing extreme, and I have to see him 2 times a month, although I usually see him 3 times as well, because he's in the same foster home as one of my level III kids. Today, I discover I'm getting a 5th kid on my caseload, being placed in one of the vacant foster homes. This one will be a level II, which means major behavior problems, basically she's batshit crazy, and will need to be seen 3 times a month just like my level III kids. All of this has to be crammed into 2 days a week. In January, my supervisor told me she's made calls to her superiors to try to get approval to offer me a permanent, paid part-time position. Several of my colleagues have apparently discussed with her the need to hire me. The current rumor I heard today is that she wants to hire me full-time, not just part-time. Which has me kind of concerned, because I still have next year's internship to figure out as well, something I'm about to begin the process of obtaining.... a process which actually should've been started weeks ago.

And in school, I have a professor who doesn't know what the hell she's doing, and a class where a group project is worth 60% of the grade. And I don't know what I'm doing with that either.

It feels like all of this stuff is starting to add up right now. I feel like I have so much going on. And when that happens, it makes me more indecisive, especially when it comes to major life decisions such as changing jobs. It feeds my procastination habit, and I don't do as well on anything as I would if I could stay focused on one thing at a time. It's very frustrating. I'm just ready for school to be over!

Affirmations

An interesting coincidence occurred on Monday. The conversation I posted on my previous entry got a little bit more heated between me and my mother. She finally calmed down some after I explained in detail the basic concept of Buddhism - the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path - and explained that Christians who adapt bits of Buddhism are adapting those concepts, not worshiping Buddha. But I still get the impression that she's kind of in denial.

Anyways, I'm a part of a Celtic Spirituality group through church. It's a book discussion group - we read the assigned passages, and then discuss it at our bi-monthly meetings. The group also has another member who is approximately my age. In an event of interesting timing, this fellow group member started discussing his own views of the compatibility between Christianity and Buddhism. The conversation naturally migrated back toward Celtic discussion, but the fact that it was brought up, and the timing of it, seemed like the Universe affirming me that I'm right in my views, and not to let my mother's fundamentalism get the better of me.

In other news, my Imbolc went wonderfully. I held a small candle ritual and meditation before bed. Good way to end a rare day off!