The Only Person that had a Good 2016
Hello everyone! It has been a long time. Do you remember me? Transwoman, demi-girl from the Chicago burbs? Ring a bell?!
As my last written post mentioned, I was taking a little break from blogging. After doing this blog project for a solid year, I wanted to take a break and focus on other things. I just started a new position at my job, which has been very exciting and very hectic. I have been writing and gaming and doing all this other fun stuff in addition to normal day-to-day stuff. But my crowning achievement for this year though has to be finally finishing my graduate studies and earning a Masters in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University.
I had started the graduate program way back in 2012. With only one class left, I suffered a massive depressive episode, an episode that literally sucked all the life out of me and made me its slave. It was the most terrible and frightening thing that I have ever experienced. I went from being a generally happy go lucky person to this anxious ridden low-energy person. My world completely flipped.
My depression though didn't appear from nowhere. It came from years of not dealing with stuff, of years of not accepting stuff. There was heart break, father issues, and at the surface of it all was my gender identity. Something that I had knew was there since I was a teenager. So just mix all that shit in a blender and then blah! I broke; I cracked.
So for a year or so, I suffered through it. I suffered hard. I would sleep entire weekends away, neglect responsibilities, neglect my dog. Then about 9 months in, I slowly slowly started to emerge. I got a decent job, one that was super far from my house -.- . I started picking things up again. I rebuilt myself from the ground up.
Work became a big part of my life. I kind of found this niche of working in web coding maintenance. It was super basic css coding tweaks, but I generally liked it and started to dabble in programming. For a while, this job went well. But like all things, it started to get sour. There was work place harassment, bull shit work clicks, and an environment that was counterproductive to career growth. So I started the interview tour. Lot of lunch break phone interviews and this and that. Just when I was about to give up hope, I finally landed an interview with a cosmetic publisher in the suburbs. After seeing the position and meeting with the people of the company, I knew that I wanted to work for them. I knew this was a company that I wanted to invest my energy into. So after slaying the interview, I got the job and quit that shit fuck of an old job.
The almost year since starting I really made for a name for myself within the company. I tried to help every which way I could, I networked, I communicated with people. I just did everything I could and more for this company. Part of me just got absorbed by the work. I loved the atmosphere and the people and just gave into it. My boss constantly challenged me in good ways, and I became bold with my ideas. I wasn't afraid of standing my ground or defending myself. I also wasn't afraid of trying new things or putting in extra work to get things done. In the year that I worked at this company, I have smoothed out processes, learned more about HTML, started down a journalism career, got a whole bunch of free make-up and just generally felt better. As I'm realizing as I'm typing this, my depression became much more manageable in the context of a job that I cared about.
I guess that is my point. If you can find a job that not only inspires you but motivates you, go for it. Finding a job that fit me was one of the single best things for my mental health. It gave me a sense of purpose and belonging. It doesn't gloss over all the other shit, but it makes that shit so much more tolerable. Finding a decent job also allows for other things to pour back into your life, interests and projects. For me this job allowed me the opportunity to go back and finally finish that last grad class. It got me back into writing. And I learned a fuck ton about contouring.
So my 2016 was actually *cringes a bit* not bad. I worked my tail off, got a shit ton published, and actually feel not bad. So yay me! I know a lot of people had a shit terrible 2016 but you know what enjoy the last little bits of it and then we will party in 2017!