The last vestiges

Day 408

I never feel great when it's the night before I have to work. As it turns out, this continues to be a problem even when I get the two days off I've been looking forward to for weeks. Do I dread going to work because I hate my job? I don't really think so. This job is a lot better than a lot of my other alternatives and there are things about it that I genuinely like. I'm not sure I'd be happy at any job right now and it has very little to do with the responsibilities of the job itself. 

No matter how much I try and no matter how much I repeatedly put myself out there, I can't seem to become comfortable with the idea of being out in public. I worry on a daily basis about how others react to me and what they think of me. And it's not that I think I'm being judged and ridiculed behind my back, necessarily. I'm not worried about that. It's more a side effect of my latent narcissism. I instinctively make everything about me. I'd like to think I've done a great job in recent years of curbing that desire but it still pops up in unfortunate places. Subconsciously, I assume that since I'm so hyper-focused on myself, so too is everyone else in the room. They too are disgusted by my body and see every little imperfection on my face, on my clothes.

I know that's not true. 

But it doesn't change the fact that it's very difficult for me to dismiss these neuroses. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. I dreaded going to school because of that walk through the hallway in the morning where I earnestly tried to minimize myself in a vain effort to escape notice. I'd walk into class and take a seat as far in the back as possible because I knew if I felt others behind me were concentrating their attention on me, I wouldn't be able to focus. 

I worked at Walmart for four years and dealt with the public every single day. I worked there long enough that I became a very familiar face for a lot of people. I was still never comfortable with it. Some days were better than others, but many days were a struggle to cope. I felt uncomfortable and itchy because I felt the eyes of others on me. I'd stress out about things like the way my navy blue t-shirt looked or the fact that occasionally when I bent over a bit of my backside was exposed. I made a habit of literally sitting down next to the display cases when I unlocked them for customers due in no small part to these neuroses.

I have no illusions that these neuroses don't have any basis in fact. I'm an overweight and awkward dude. If I were to get in shape and gain confidence in myself, some of these anxieties might lessen somewhat--but I know they'd never disappear. Every day is a struggle to deal with my insecurities. It's probably true that the six months I spent unemployed (a period of time in which I very rarely left the house) exacerbated these issues, but four months working have done little to help so far. 

I wish I didn't dread working so much. I really don't have it bad at all. I'm finally at a place in my life where I'm managing. I'm making enough money to live and to buy things for myself as well. But it's getting to the point where I'm having a hard time even enjoying my time off because I'm always dreading going back to work. It's not an issue of getting a different job because things would be the same regardless of what job I had--unless for some reason I was able to land a job that wasn't demanding physically and required very little in the way of social interaction. I've had something like that before and it was also quite depressing.