sitting with unknown

I realized I am sitting with so much unknown right now. I am looking to change jobs but I don't have one right now. I am ending my lease in just over a month, not sure where I am going to live. My kids are grown up and on their own, no dates or relationships to speak of, and realizing how much that primary relationship shapes things, planning vacations, finances, even just dinner.

I can be pretty worried about my mental illness, worried about being crazy, and I know it comes up here at times where people notice and call it out. However I also see that I am handling this really pretty well, dare I say better than some. My mom is more nervous than I am about all these changes. I then start to question if I really am okay. I am confident I will get a job and really don't want to go in tomorrow or the next day. Then in the middle of the night I realize I may not get a new job or one that pays well, the roommate I am meeting on Tuesday may be a horrible person, I haven't started packing so that would be an issue as well. So I went back to sleep, got up and took care of my renters insurance, started to get more into planning the crochet class I am teaching next week, and basically taking care of things.

The reason this is in spirituality is that Buddhist practice is about sitting in what really is, like uncertainty. We have a lot more of that than we typically want to face. I know my parents are very much into the comfort of their home and stuff, not in a bad way but in a fairly typical way. Maybe practicing with uncertainty over my years of practice is helping. Maybe having a brain chemistry that tends to be unstable is helping face unstability? Who knows.

Sounds like a normal response to a significant challenge going on at present. Don't overthink it; take charge by planning some physical activities to redirect your thinking as needed.

If you have psychological issues, and you know better than anyone here does, subjective experience is everything in that area afterall, you are high-functioning (to borrow a word from autism etc.).

You are high functioning with whatever psychological issues and diagnosis you have. Remember that. You can't have held a job long term, not to mention the career and challenges of your particular job and raising kids and education while working etc.. you have if you weren't.

Anyway even though you always handle things well, nothing is entirely our psychology, everything is psychology plus circumstances. In stressful circumstances people don't function as well psychologically, NOONE does.

I really truly believe that anxious types like me would be far far better served in life by relative stability in circumstances. But it is simply not entirely in our control - so we may benefit greatly by stability, and simply not get it, and have to deal with what is.

Btw, some anxious types, although seemingly overwhelmed by the day to day or long term problems are really strong in short term acute crisis (making urgent medical decisions, car accidents, etc. - coolest most rational head in the room, at least short of a ton of training in that). Might be a strength as well.

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Originally Posted by Zoe Girl

The reason this is in spirituality is that Buddhist practice is about sitting in what really is, like uncertainty. We have a lot more of that than we typically want to face.

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Maybe there simply are degrees of uncertainty. You know you will get a new job; you just don't know exactly when. You know you will be living in a new(-to-you) place; you just don't know the exact address yet. You know you likely will have a roommate; you just haven't met that person to date.

There is certainty of the big elements. It's just the details that need to be sorted out.

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Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore

If you have psychological issues, and you know better than anyone here does, subjective experience is everything in that area afterall, you are high-functioning (to borrow a word from autism etc.).

You are high functioning with whatever psychological issues and diagnosis you have. Remember that. You can't have held a job long term, not to mention the career and challenges of your particular job and raising kids and education while working etc.. you have if you weren't.
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Thank you, that means a lot. I need to hear that,

It helps that at least 3 of my colleagues are leaving or have left. General consensus is stress level and lack of support. So the department can have a focus group or a committee or an action plan. Most of the long term staff will keep going, they learned a long time ago to lay low and not trust.

I was thinking what I would do if I were you--it is really stressful to have all these different things happening at once. I might try to just focus on one at a time? So maybe either house or job, then go from there?