I’m in a weird mental state lately. Can’t even explain the mix of emotions clearly.

First, my mother has a surgery appointment coming up next week since the doctors suspect breast cancer. We don’t know if it’s benign, malign, just an inflamed cyst, etc. - so this whole stuff has me worried. Of course I have some medical background knowledge due to my career, but apart from the rational mindset is the emotional one that’s just scared of losing my mom to cancer. She’s worried too, as she don’t know how well she’d take a chemotherapy with her other health issues (fibromyalgia, small fiber polyneuropathy).

Then there’s my need to change jobs - lately I realised how since I got done with my RN degree in late August, I was never happy about my workplace. Working almost every weekend (today is my third in a row, btw), working way more hours than the 30 h/week I was only hired for, only one or at most two days off between bouts of shifts, more early shifts than late shifts despite me telling them it fucks up my biorhythm and finally: no really competent things to do for me and being stuck in a rut. I decided that I need to change, either now or never. So I will let my fixed-term contract run out at the end of this month. Yet, making this decision on the 28th of November left only a small time window for getting a new job. I can proudly say that I managed to score two job interviews with online applications that really interest me. One at a hospital, the other at a rehabilitation centre for oncology and angiopathy (my mom works at the latter by doing arts and crafts as an afternoon activity for the patients, so that’d be a huge plus). I really want to expand my knowledge in the medical field, which is close to impossible in a nursing home. There, everything is trimmed on time efficiency and providing the bare minimum to the residents. I’m glad to leave this behind, but it’s still stressful for me.

I lately have trouble to really show my emotions again. As I heard, this is rather common with ADHD and some other mental conditions and is referred to as “masking”, i.e. putting on your “I’m normal” mask. Doesn’t really help that in the past what I thought were my friends rejected and ridiculed me for being ‘too emotional’. Therefore I usually swallow my sadness, anger, or any other negative emotion and due to psychosomatics I get digestive issues. Recently I saw a random YT video by a guy I don’t even know - unfortunately he talked about how his old Chihuahua passed away recently and that was the straw that broke the camels back for me - I randomly cried in my living room like I last did… late 2023? I couldn’t even cry a lot during my grandma’s funeral since I had to be strong for my mother who was in tears. Thinking about it, I always had to be strong - or at least, appear so - because it was expected of me. So crying alone in the privacy of my home felt somehow cathartic.

Given that I lost all my “friends” due to my career choices and different lifestyles, I only have my parents as a regular social contact besides work. So I’m also really grateful for this little community here, even though I’ve never met anyone of you in person. It helps that I can sometimes get stuff like this off my chest, even if not many see it. For those who’ve read this far, thank you and have a great weekend!