Did I do the right thing?

I am a twitter user and last week I had a situation where I hope I did the right thing.
A user I follow posted a link to her blog which said that (amongst other things) that this was goodbye. Now being a mentalist I wasn't sure if she meant goodbye to blogging or whether she was not safe. I tweeted back that I was worried but didn't get a reply. Then another user tweeted he was also worried. Anyway, after tweets back and forth and the fact the tweeter has a daughter from the info I could gleen about her, both myself and another tweeter phoned a U.S police department to do a welfare check.
They did the welfare check and all was OK, but I felt an enormous sense of guilt afterwards - Did I do the right thing?
Was I interfering? Did I read too much into what had been posted? I know if I had the police turn up at my door I would probably be really pissed off, especially if I was suicidal.  I don't know, it felt like the right thing to do at the time, but afterwards I felt I had made a lot of fuss about nothing.
I was expecting this week to be relatively quiet at work but it has turned out to be majorly busy.  Technically my contract ran out last Saturday but Ski School aren't worried by that.  However, the office is totally disorganised.  I won't bore you with the details but I am pretty exhausted and today couldn't even lift my head up off the pillow.  I telephoned and lied, saying I was vomiting and had an upset stomach and that I really couldn't work.  My boss asked what they should do.  I held my temper and did not shout "I don't fucking know, you're the boss".  Later, they phoned me (repeatedly I might add) and asked if I was OK.  I said yes and then was told that if I am not in tomorrow then "we are in the shit".  So now I feel enormously pressurised and have also found out that not only do I have to do my job, but on top of that I have to teach as well, plus babysit a kid until 5pm.  So I will be working 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. without a break and then on to my other job which is half an hour at the end of the day closing up a shop.
I am totally drained.  I haven't even booked my flight back to the UK yet, or started packing.  I managed to clean my apartment yesterday and I have to say it looks cosy and back to how it should be.  I have ignored my ex boyfriend (I can't even cope with him at the moment) and told him I would see him tomorrow (in case he had any ideas about coming round here).  I can feel myself sliding a bit but have no time to go and speak to anyone, just to let off some steam and calm myself down.
I think I need some chocolate.

And so on

I had a bad day on Thursday, so much so that I telephoned in sick to work citing an upset stomach, even though this was a complete lie.
J not sympathetic at all and returned from the pub, saw me and went in a mood.  I told him the other day to stop trying to fix me ( he is very good at solving problems but dictates to me what I should be doing and thus making me feel worse, useless and a crap girlfriend).  I know what I should be doing, but don't have the motivation to do it.
I'm getting a bit slapdash with my meds, it's like I just don't care.  They are permanently strewn over the kitchen table and I never remember whether I have taken them or not (my short term memory is shot to pieces).  I even have a pill doser but forget to fill it up at the beginning of the week.  Yep, useless me.
Went to work yesterday even though they weren't expecting me in and had taken me off the plan.  As usual I got my weekly kicking and made ridiculous mistakes which my work colleagues covered up for me.  The kitchen staff just looked exasperated.  Doesn't really matter, even when I get it right and the kitchen lose the order I get the blame anyway and of course the bosses believe the kitchen rather than me because of the mistakes I make.
I think I might email my psychiatrist.
My health insurance is till not sorted.  I have to get a solicitor involved which although will cost me, it won't be as much as I owe the health insurer.  Also there is a consumer magazine which my Psychiatrist recommended - he said he has never heard of a story so ridiculous as mine and said that the magazine may publish something about it, just to piss off my insurer.  My second insurer (who will pay the medical bills) are proving very efficient and so I am paying monthly premiums to them.
I actually miss the NHS.

Ear Ear

Bloody ear infection got worse, I ended up phoning my boyfriend and dragging him from the pub (again), screaming in pain and all he could do was ask, "what can I do?" (although he did do some very nice breathing technique focusing stuff).  I just screamed at him to phone the bloody doctor and get me some goddamn fuck off huge painkillers, which surprisingly he did. 
I have now realised I am a complete lightweight when it comes to pain, although strangely if it self inflicted I kinda like it. I thought about why that is and all I can come up with is the old "control" card.  Self inflicted pain is something I have control over.  Random ear pain (which was on a par with infected tooth pain) is not something I can control.  The plus point is that the antibiotics from the ear infection have finally caught up with my digestive system and so the unwanted weight gain is leaping off in pounds - yeay!
Because I am such a lightweight with the pain I had no intention of an hour journey down the mountain to see my psychiatrist, in favour of my duvet and House m.d. repeats (season 4, v.good).  Instead, he phoned me and we had a quick chat about how I was (ok mostly, more stable but still some mood swings) and I told him the Zyprexa was helping mood-wise but not weight wise.  So we are upping the Lamotrigine and cutting down the Zyprexa and will discuss next week the alternatives (provided the insurance will pay for the different drugs). I didn't quite get round to telling him that I had gone cold turkey on the Zyprexa and to make up for the resulting insomnia I had been popping the old 100mg Seroquel.  (Slept until 11.30 a,m, today - loooooverleeeyyyy!)
really should get back to real work soon, I am getting used to this life of unemployment as ski school have no work for me right now until Monday, so that's 2 weeks money I have lost out on. Which means I will probably be back to the old scrimping and saving, trying to get my bills paid and having no money for the rest of the month.

Decisions - to work or not to work

My dilemma is this:

I am now "unemployed" from my two summer jobs.

I have, in the last 3 days, found some work via a friend paid on an as needed basis as I am "as needed" according to the weather and volume of tourists.

I have an appointment at the Tagesklinik (outpatient day clinic) on Monday with the expectation that following I attend for two full weeks then on a planned basis.

I have not much money at all, so should really be working, plus I enjoy the job, but it is unstructured which is not good for me.

I need this money to attend the day clinic (travel, materials etc.) as I don't think my insurance will cover it.

I might have work now, but none in November

My health overrides anything else - the clinic is to help me with this.

So at the moment I am mulling all these thoughts. Can't decide : Work vs Klinik

No work

....until 8th august. How the hell am I gonna pay my bills? Just found out that shop workers have no rights here in Switzerland except for the big supermarkets so am stuffed, can't claim anything for the "downtime". At least I am not sacked though. Boss wants to talk it through with my bitch lying colleague on Tuesday. If I could, I would tell him to stuff it.

It hasn't really hit me yet, but when it does I know where I will be.

Anyway, am going to distract myself with a health craze next week - jogging, keep fit and swimming. Don't care what the weather is like.

Time off work, lying colleagues and potholing

Bit of a mixture, I know, but that's been my week so far. It started off with a friend and I trying to find a local legend - the hidden cave in the mountains nearby. it was a fantastic day and I haven't laughed so much in ages, especially when S decided to try her mobile phone inside the cavern! Really enjoyed the moment but of course the inevitable slump will creep in (atypical).

My work schedule this week has been all over the place - the boss is back from America for three weeks and my lying bitch of a colleague changed the work plan without telling me, so I though bollocks to it, I wasn't expecting to work so I am going off for a hike. That mad with her that when my boss phoned I could have quite easily told him where he could stick his job. However, I am bound by the need for money. C's problem is that I work two days a week at the schwimmbad which she knew at the beginning of the season when we all discussed with the boss about how many days/hours etc. that I would be working. At that time though, I couldn't tell them the exact days but as soon as I knew (after my boss went) C was the first person I told. She seems to have conveniently forgotten this and now I have the blame that I can't work those two days a week because she has no-one to look after her child. The other 5 days I have been entirely flexible and have been able to swap some of the pool day around with my colleague there, but why should he change his days off every week so I told him we would not do that any more and I was sticking to the Tues/Weds to work which he is in agreement with. My colleague at the shop, C, works out her schedule based on her husbands work schedule which varies week to week and he never knows until two days in advance. NOT MY PROBLEM IF SHE DOESN'T HAVE A BABYSITTER when they are both working.

So my boss phoned me yesterday and I have to go in today, so he's either going to sack me or shout at me as C is his favourite and worked for him last year. Won't matter that I have been the only one selling anything. Hopefully he will sack me so I can claim some unemployment, I would rather not sign off sick and would rather put up with the anxiety controlled with tablets, even though I am already shaking at confronting him. He can be a very cross Dutch man. the problem is in these situations I get tongue tied and tearful however many times I rehearse what I want to say in my head then my brain gets fuzzy and the anxiety begins.

I have an appointment next week for a discussion with another Psychiatrist type person about attending a support group - I think it might be a DBT based thing but I am not sure. Anyway, it is all in Swiss/German so I guess I will have to focus and try my best at the lingo. Already looking up words for "pissed off", "World fuck off" and "No, I will never get over it". And if they try any of that challenging crap I'm outta there. Bit nervous about it.

Turn up the heat!

Well, I'm slowly coming out of my low mood now that the weather is slightly better, am almost manic compared to my normal state. Actually feeling positive about life! But don't get too excited - whilst the routine of a working day gives me the structure I need, the fact that I don't always know exactly which days I am working is all a bit unsettling, and I need more regular days off. In fact, my colleague at my shop job has been struggling to find a babysitter and so wants me to work some extra shifts. This is because her husband doesn't know his days off until one or two days beforehand.

This of course means that I then have to try and change my two days work at the swimming pool, which then means that my colleague there is trying to accommodate. All in all I am doing my usual thing of trying to accomodate everyone rather than just telling them all to fuck off and let me work the same days each week.

Anyway, I think I have Monday free, except for teaching aerobics in the evening.

And there I was thinking that working part time would take some of the pressure off me and allow me time to do useful stuff to lift my low moods such as, oh I don't know, meditation? Exercise?

At least I can pay some more of my bills as my pool job pays surprisngly better than I anticipated. My appointment with the kind of debt help people isn't until the end of August though - got to try and hold of the creditors until then.

At least shouty man hasn't contacted me again (yet). The anticipation is killing me.

I've been very good not picking at my skin this week, although the tension of watching Wimbledon has been high. Despite the fact that I know Federer is going to win. Hopp Schweiz!!

J has not been n the best of moods. He has chronic back pain and has been in a shitty mood most of the week, wincing each time he moves and refusing to let me book him in for acupuncture even though it is free on the insurance. I thought about packing him off to the local hospital pain management clinic except for the fact that they take an holistic/psychotherapy approach and he thinks thats a load of shit. I can imagine what his face would be like when they ask him how he feels about his pain and should embrace it as a friend or something.

I am not totally sure whether my meds are working-I keep feeling a bit dizzy/brain + eye co-ordination not quite tying up/shivery feeling, as if I have forgotten to take them (which I haven't). I don't think I am allowed any more with my current dosages so am not sure what to do. Someone has told me it's probably my sensitivity to pressure changes in the atmosphere when the rain comes in. Fucking hippies. I think I just need more drugs. Bring back my Psychiatrist!

And then there was me and the cat

After the other day I wsasn't sure whether I was really in the mood for working yesterday - luckily it was one of my lifeguarding (ha!) duty days so I was being paid to sit in the sun and watch thirty swiss teenagers beat the crap out of each other in the pool and trying to drown each other. Now while I am not opposed to the thought of drowning (it's meant to be quite peaceful), I am getting paid to look after them, so I did my duty and distracted them with retrieving toys from the bottom of the pool and practising snorkelling which calmed them down for all of....ooh...one hour. It does get a bit tedious telling the same kids the same thing over and over again "Because I said it's the rule, because it IS dangerous" (despite the fact that their parents are watching them jumping from the edge onto a rubber ring and nearly cracking their head against the concrete edge, but what do I know, I'm only a qualified lifeguard?) but I know they are just testing me because I am new his year.

Their tactics to wind me up include: doing something again which I have just told them they can't, trying to think of new things that are more dangerous than the last to see what they can get away with, rounding up a few friends to go and play on the trampoline (away from the pool) and then get all ten of them to jump on it at the same time from the edge, answering back, taking the piss out of my german/swiss skills - you know, just the anticipated actions of teenagers that think what they have dreamt up is the most original idea ever thought of before.

My tactics at the moment are not as lengthy, but lets just say, the whistle is reserved for REALLY bad stuff so they know I am serious and a new one I thought up the other day - hold up my mobile phone and pretend I am taking a picture of them about to misbehave to give to my boss (who they are v.scared of), which works really well as they are always checking where I am and a mobile phone can take pictures from quite a way off. Of course, i don't need to take an actual photo but it's quite fun to phase them out and play with their heads for a change. Stalking individuals is also good - when they think you are just following them, they get really freaked out. Wonder if the ones predisposed to paranoia will crack - hmm, will have to watch that develop.

Don't get me wrong, I used to do Youth work back home and I enjoy the interaction and thinking up new stuff to entertain the kids so they don't get bored, but get bored very easily of the kids who think they can wind you up. These days what they don't realise is I have a lovely lovely pot of pills for anxiety which basically meant that while I am aware of the dangers and am still capable of doing my job, I don't give a crap about the amount of times they try to push me - I am completely calm! This must be really frustrating for them and I do feel quite sorry for their poorly thought out ideas (plus the fact that I can understand more swiss than I can speak so I usually know what they are plotting.)

Yes, I think I really am going to enjoy this job.

Taking care of people's safety for nine hours does get mentally exhausting - I just don't seem to be able to concentrate like I used to. So this morning I am mega tired and don't feel motivated to do anything, hence I am now curled up with my laptop and the cat. I'm thinking of maybe doing something useful like, ohh, lets say housework and eating something (is 2pm too late for breakfast?)