On The Wrong Side of My Eyes
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, to be honest I just haven’t felt up to it. That’s just one of the many problems with being a depressed blogger – when you are in a funk it is pretty hard to get the motivation necessary to post. I’m back now.
So a little back story, when I posted last month about self-worth, it was a bit before my own annual review. Let’s just say it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. What I think made it harder is that the negative feedback, I’m sorry, “constructive criticism” was not about my work product, my skills or abilities, but rather about my personality and how I am perceived. I wonder if I can bring in a doctor’s note about that? Seriously though, for those of us with personality disorders, what do you do when it is how you are perceived that gets in the way of your career success? Do I get a pass?
Needless to say, hearing the feedback from my manager and boss about how I come across to people really through me for a loop. I always considered myself to be pretty self-aware, but obviously I was wrong. I have no real context for dealing with this sort of thing and it undoubtedly has stirred up some bad feelings. One of my most painful memories from my early adolescence is from junior high school. (Yeah, I know, everyone has painful memories from junior highschool, what makes me so special? Nothing, but it my blog.) I had a large group of friends my age, both girls and boys, from all different backgrounds and walks of life. One day, a girl who I thought was my friend, walks up to me and hands me a stack of papers, classic white, lined, notebook paper. And as I start to look down at the first page she announces to me that she is submitting to me a petition – a petition that all of our friends had signed to signify that they all agreed that I was a bitch and I was being kicked out of the group.
There are many things that I am prepared to hear about myself, criticisms I am open to, things I want to change. Hearing that people think you are a horrible person, when all along you thought you were one of the good guys (when you don’t actually intend to come across that way) is devasting. I’ve heard that one of the signs of a personality disorder is the feeling that your outsides don’t match your insides… All of this time I thought I was seeing myself how others saw me, but all of this time I’ve been on the wrong side of my eyes.
One Black Cloud 
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