a list of things currently causing me extreme anxiety

[bedlamsbard]

So, a list of things I am stressed about right now, because writing them out usually gets them out of my head and occasionally people have advice on what to do about them.

1. the DirecTV situation. I canceled my debit card last week after realizing I had been autocharged since September for an account I didn't think I had -- when I got my internet hooked up, something went sideways and they initially signed me up for (a) a lower speed internet connection and (b) DirecTV, and while the internet eventually got sorted out, at the time they said there was no DirecTV subscription attached to my account, which was fine because I don't have a television. I did continue to get e-mails from DirecTV, but I just deleted them because I had been told by AT&T (which owns DirecTV) that there was no DirecTV attached to my account, so I assumed it was just a weird e-mail error. When I finally got hold of my bank statements last week and realized I was being charged for it, I tried to call them and couldn't get through. The e-mail attached to the DirecTV account (which is the same e-mail I use for my AT&T account) won't let me log in to DirecTV and the "reset password" bit on that account redirects to an e-mail and a phone number that are not mine. My last AT&T customer service interaction was pretty awful (as in, it resulted in the internet disaster; the internet technicians who came to my house were helpful, but the customer service agents on the phone were NOT), so I'm terrified to try and contact them again. Today I got the "your payment did not go through" e-mail (since I canceled the card), and I'm just...not sure what I should do? Can I just ignore it? Is it going to affect my AT&T account? (Which I pay for completely separately and not on autopay, the only thing I have on autopay are Audible and Patreon, never my bills.) Is it going to affect my credit score? WHAT DO WHAT DO? ETA: Got through to AT&T's online chat and they canceled it. I am now supremely freaked out because HOW, but at least that's done with. HOPEFULLY.

2. The weather. Atlanta isn't supposed to get snow, but we are supposed to get below-freezing temperatures, which I don't mind because I'm from central Washington, but I'm terrified of the pipes freezing even if I drip them.

3. Why would I ever go back to working on Ouroboros when I still regularly get cruel comments on Wake and Gambit? The idea of working on Watchtower fills me with a knot of pure terror and mental calculation on which planned plot points and characters are going to get the most hate. Today's set of comments was a genre I'm now pretty immune to ("Padme is a cheating slut"), but every time I see a comment notification for Wake or Gambit my first instinct is fear.

4. The government. That impediment in the White House. The government shutdown.

5. Got a summer job offer but need to officially put my name in the lecturer pool, but that university's jobs website is down. (Or rather, its security certificate is expired so my browser won't let me go to it. I assume they will fix this sooner rather than later but I'm still freaking out.)

6. Related: need to officially petition my department to let me take an outside job this summer (since we're still on stipend even during the summer), which means I have to write a formal letter.

7. I think I'm good money-wise even not taking on another roommate, especially with stipends going up this fall, but what if I fall and die or something.

8. I really miss my mother and I still really do not like Atlanta.

9. Star Wars. Constant stress.

10. School. 'nough said.

11. Cosplay. I need to actually like...learn how to sew. Before Celebration. Which is in April. And I need to paint my lekku.

12. I bought an Instant Pot and I haven't taken it out of the box yet.

13. My electric kettle was acting up last month and I panicked and bought a new one but the old one is now fine so I don't know if I should return the new expensive one or not? It is inarguably a better brand, but it also has not come out of the box and the other one is fine. OR IS IT?

14. I'm not sure if the yogurt I bought last month (or November?) is still good since it's been opened but I don't want to just throw it out. But I don't want to eat it either.

15. My garbage bin is falling apart.

16. My landlord still hasn't fixed the back porch light and I don't want to text him again and remind him, but it's been out since August. Also, "check filter" keeps blinking on the thermostat.

17. What if the power goes out. We're supposed to get wind gusts, which always has the possibility of knocking out power lines, and while my first ex-housemate lived here for five years and never got a power outage of more than a few hours, the first month I lived here a hurricane knocked out power for three days.

18. I have Etsy orders that have never been shipped but I hate having to bother people and go "hello, I never received this" or "please send me thing that I sent you money for."

19. I have so much art that's not up on walls but frames are hard to get, especially when you don't have a car and have to hand carry them back from the store, which is doable for most things but not for poster frames.

20. My ears having been ringing since Tuesday, I have a doctor's appointment for next Tuesday (the day after tomorrow), but what if they never stop ringing, what if I just have to live with tinnitus for the rest of my life? (Given that I have a recurring earwax problem, it's probably related and I'm almost definitely going to get my ears watergunned again.)

21. Food is hard.

22. I probably need more human interaction.

23. What if this year SWCC decides not to have the tattoo parlor?

24. Department is hiring and it's all in subfields I don't care about so I've mostly been ignoring the candidate lunches and job talks but I really...should not do that...okay, if I go to ONE of each next week.

25. The depression and anxiety and executive dysfunction worry me but not enough to go to Emory's counseling services about it, despite the fact that I hit rock bottom last year.

26. I want a teapot but I own so many teapots it seems silly to buy another one but all my teapots are at home and I am not at home.

27. My favorite mobile game (which I play literally every day is ending in March.

28. What if my tendinitis comes back?

29. I need to sort out my clothes but I don't actually have space to keep them all in.

30. I still need to get my Dooney & Bourke bag fixed (busted zipper) and also it smells like old sweat and I don't know how to make it not do that.

31. Too many backpacks, not sure if Febreezing my favorite one to the point of death has gotten rid of the old sweat smell or not, and don't want to wash it until it's warm enough I'm sure it will dry.

32. I'm still really scared of my ex, and I know we're both going to be at SWCC, and I'm terrified I'm going to ruin another Celebration by being sad and scared the entire time and lose current friendships over it, because SWCO was a disaster for me and I still can't look at pictures from it without flinching.

33. Probably not doing enough work as a graduate student given that I heard another grad student's schedule and I don't know how she SLEEPS.

34. Still haven't done any of my ethics sessions, required by my university, but they're all boring and meant for STEM people and I hate being on campus.

35. Need to either handwash or dry clean my wool sweaters but scared. (I've got one of those home dry cleaning kits.)

36. Tumblr.

37. Need to get new glasses but don't know when I'll be home again.

38. I HATE ATLANTA.

39. did I mention I had to cancel my debit card. and my bank can't send the new one here because this isn't my address on record (for various reasons) so it's going to be sent to my mom and she'll send it to me.

40. My SWCC badges are getting shipped home instead of here, which should be fine because my mother can just send it to me but what if something goes wrong.

41. I have a skirt I got custom-made that needs to be tailored because it's too big at the waist, which means I have to go to a tailor. I also have a leather jacket that's needed to be fixed since I lived in New Orleans.

42. On the Hera Syndulla cosplay group on FB, but won't post because I know my ex is also on it and I'm afraid of her.

43. I need to clear out all my ex-housemate's kitchen stuff but effort.

44. My mother sent me an Omaha Steaks box for my birthday but what if the power goes out and all that meat goes bad and also I'm not great at cooking steak.

45. I have a spending problem but I'm trying to save for SWCC.

46. My current WIP.

47. what if my Latin is not actually as good as I think it is?

48. I want to color my hair again but my hair doesn't like dye, and I'm wary of getting it done professionally again because most hairdressers don't know how to deal with Asian hair. Plus, expensive.

49. I need to organize my pins because they're all just piled up on my dresser.

50. Just...scared. Always scared.

ETA: 51. Finally changed the batteries on my kitchen scale and apparently it's just dead. And now I can't get the battery out. (It's those little flat ones.) Further ETA: Fixed the scale (battery was in upside down), but now I'm bleeding.

Comments

[brokenallbroken]

[support]

FWIW, I've had tinnitus since I was 12. It's more annoying than anything else, not life-impinging. Except for the need to have some sort of white noise because complete silence is painful, but that's easily dealt with any number of ways these days.

My hearing test battery showed that despite the tinnitus, my cochleas work perfectly, so it's not even all that damaging physically.

[bedlamsbard]

*hugs* Thank you.

I know several people with tinnitus, so I'm not terribly worried (except for how I'm always worried), since it's just been annoying; I'm just hoping that since I do have a history of earwax build-up it's related to that somehow. Sigh.

[sara]

Well, IDK what to do about a lot of this, but you should throw out the yogurt.

You should probably also call AT&T. I just had a go-round with Comcast (fucking Comcast) and it was thirty minutes of solid frustration but this month the bill came and it was sorted, so that's something anyway.

[bedlamsbard]

Consensus seems to be to throw out the yogurt, heh!

I managed to fix it through AT&T's online chat! Which was much less stressful than calling them would have been and I'm really glad they were able to do fix it through the chat, even though now I'm really freaked out. (Someone used my e-mail address and my debit card to set up DirecTV Now in an AT&T store back in July? I've never been in an AT&T store in my life. YIKES.)

[musesfool]

Can your mom send one of your teapots with your debit card?

Can you order frames online and have them shipped and do the framing yourself?

And lastly, you should definitely throw out the yogurt.

[bedlamsbard]

Hmm, probably! Though packing and shipping a teapot is a lot more expensive than just putting one envelope inside another envelope.

I could do and probably will, I just feel bad about it for weird reasons. But the poster-size frames I definitely can't carry back three miles on my own, even if they're otherwise cheap(ish) and easy to acquire.

Throwing out the yogurt seems to be the general consensus!

<3 Thank you.

[dragonlady7]

I'm not here to solution at you, but I will generally sympathize, this is a familiar feeling. And offer a few observations: generally, dairy that's gone off won't kill you or hurt you at all, so my rule is that if it tastes fine I eat it, and if it doesn't I pitch it, and no harm done, so if the yogurt tastes like yogurt and has no visible mold you're fine. *shrug* Sometimes I throw it out anyway because it just seems old and gross, but that's more based on whim.

I just took my Instant Pot out of the box and have been having a blast, but i let it sit in a box on the floor for quite a while, so no judgement. just-- you have a treat waiting for you when you get around to it, is all! :)

I haven't tried this but a great way to get smell out of things is apparently to put a box of baking soda into them, and if that fails, you get a few charcoal briquettes and put them in there instead. apparently it works a treat; having worked for an air filter company about a decade ago i can testify that charcoal is fantastic at collecting aromatic molecules from the air, and i've been contemplating getting a bag of briquets to put in sachets near the cat litter box which is directly under the table with my sewing machines. I'll try it and let you know if it works, but I don't know when I'll get to that.

<3 <3 <3 I hope some of these things work their way out soon enough.

[bedlamsbard]

<3 At this point I wouldn't eat the yogurt, but I might bake with it. (I have a cinnamon scone recipe that uses yogurt.) But it has been...a while.

I've heard good things about the Instant Pot! At some point it will come out of the box. I don't have a lot of counter space in the kitchen, though. (And if I run two appliances at the same time, I blow a fuse. Old house. Old wiring. Can't run the electric kettle and the microwave at once.)

That reminds me I need to replace the box of baking soda in my fridge...

<333 Thank you, hon.

[dhampyresa]

*hugs*

When you see the doctor for your ears, maybe you can ask about the tendinitis? That could help lay your fears to rest.

[bedlamsbard]

<3 Thank you.

There's been no indication that the tendinitis is coming back (and I'm pretty sure it was linked to stress the fist time), but I live in fear. It's worth asking.

[azurelunatic]

A good script for following up on missing orders is:

I ordered [order details including item, order number, and date] and haven't received it yet. I would like to check on the status.

I hope you are well.



(Interacting with people! So stressful!)

[bedlamsbard]

I just feel so bad about doing that with people running small hobby shops, though. *sigh*

[harpers_child]

If you have a smell in fabric and want it to not smell anymore spray it with cheap vodka. That's a trick I learned from someone who did theatre costuming.

The home dry clean kits work fine with wool sweaters. I've used a couple different ones before no problem.

I know asking people for help for mental health issues sucks. Can you email health services at school? Worst case they can't help. Every other case you feel better.

[bedlamsbard]

The Febreeze (I got the one specially for fabric, but it does seem to be mostly alcohol) seems to have mostly worked with the backpack, but the purse is leather on the straps and, uuuuhhhh, not sure what on the body. Not leather. So I'm wary about febreezing it. (Easier and less hassle to buy than vodka! Since I'd have to go to a liquor store.)

Some of my sweaters haven't been cleaned since last winter so I definitely need to break out the kit...my mother's used them successfully but I never have. <3

Unfortunately CAPS only takes appointments via phone, sigh. They do have two therapy dogs, though! Whom I have never seen on campus but which are ADORABLE. (Under canine support staff at the bottom!)

[luthe]

Please breathe. It is good for you.

If you don't want to go to the Emory counselors, perhaps using a phone app or something will help your anxiety? There is Pacifica, or Wysa, or the SAM app... Also, talk to your doctor. Sanity in a bottle isn't perfect, but it helps!

Keep the extra kettle. If and when the existing one goes tits up, you'll have a spare already on hand.

Text your landlord. You pay him money, he's supposed to provide upkeep.

Go to the ethics sessions. If you don't, it will bite you in the ass.

There are lots of internet tutorials on cooking steak. One of them will help you.

Again, breathe. If you need help, put a sound clip of Vader's breathing on repeat and sync yours with it.

[brokenallbroken]

Go to the ethics sessions. If you don't, it will bite you in the ass.

Also this. Are they live or online? Because if they're online and anything like the ones I had to do, it's an excellent time to knit or play solitaire or something.

[bedlamsbard]

<3

I have a Headspace subscription! Which I pay money for (partially because the sleeping meditations actually consistently put me to sleep, which I used to have a lot of problems with).

Thank you!

[starlady]

I use arttoframe.com for a lot of my framing--the only pain point is having to measure the art, but that is a constant in framing. They have many options for various things including frame color (I got the expensive glass for my genuine woodblock prints, for example, but the cheaper glass for other things), and they ship right to you. Also they pretty regularly have 20-30% off sales.

This makes me want to do a round of framing myself, but I might move at the end of July and transporting unframed art is so much easier and I don't actually have any more wallspace in my room.

Reading this reminds me I need to make a choice about going to SCCC pretty soon.

[bedlamsbard]

Thanks for the rec! I tend to haul myself out to Jo-Ann or Walmart for cheapish frames, but that's a 40-50 minute hike, so... And it means I need to remember what I own that needs to be framed and what size it is.

[sporky_rat]

Charcoal for smells (not Matchlite stuff, you'll end up making it smell chemically).

Send an email to Health Services/Counseling whatever at Emory and Inform them that phone calls are hard, you need to do things via text or email by dropping by one day while on campus and then getting a text back.

Your landlord needs to repair the light. It's been out and not working five months now, you pay rent, they're not keeping up their end of the landlord/tenent deal.

AT&T/DitectTV owes you money, and if they don't give it back, your bank should take it up with them.

Etsy Business Owners also either owe you money or product, it is not a badass thing to send a reminder of 'hey, you've got my money, where is my product'.

If the power goes out and it's at freezing or below, put the frozen stuff outside in a plastic tub, put the must remain cold stuff in a tub and leave it in a sheltered area (laundry room? Tool room? That sort of place) and everything should be fine. Just keep an eye on the temps.

[bedlamsbard]

Thanks, hon. <3

[maptowhereialreadyam]

That’s a lot. I hope things have gotten better over the last few days for you. I know breaking things down can make things easier at times or make it worse because it’s a wall of stuff. Hopefully the later! Just one item at a time is really good for building resilience!

Regarding 32, I wasn’t sure whether sharing this would help or stir things up for you but I’m going to err on the side of helpful. I’m fairly certain I saw your ex sell her tickets on Twitter about a month or two ago. So perhaps there’s some hope?

[bedlamsbard]

WHAT. I need to find someone who's willing to stalk her Twitter and confirm, omg. (It is a point of quiet pride for me that I have never once gone to any of her social media pages in the past two years.)

[rheasilvia]

I am so sorry that the people who comment on your stories are so awful. I have no idea what goes on in people like that, and it's horrible that you have to suffer from it - small wonder you don't want to keep writing when that is what happens as a consequence... I personally really love Ourobos and would love to read five more volumes, but certainly not at that cost to the author! Man, fandom can be so toxic. Suckage.

Also want to add a voice to the "tinnitus is not so awful" contingent. I had a Hoersturz some years ago - there doesn't seem to be a real name for this in Engliush - which left me with tinnitus, and I was initially horrified and thought I couldn't bear it, the whole nine yards. I could only fall asleep with wave sounds and all that. I don't even notice it anymore these days; the brain learns to tune it out. A friend of mine who had a similar experience now tells me she has grown to actively love her tinnitus.

[bedlamsbard]

Gambit has gotten a lot of flak way back from Chapter 1, for various reasons, and I'm just not in a place where I really feel like going through that. Someday, I hope, because I do want to tell that story. But not now.

<3

I'll go back to the doctor again if it's still here in a week, mostly because it turned up so suddenly that I'm panicking a bit, but thank you.

[dogstar]

I can't solution at you but if you want a bunch of cute puppy photos, check out my Instagram

http://www.instagram.com/snowoofpomskies :) Featuring, among others, Solo (who was Kanen as a puppy but was renamed because the personality was wrong) and Sabine (who is always and forever Sabine)

[bedlamsbard]

What sweet pups! *tries to pet computer screen*

[pinesandmaples]

I'm off next Friday (the 1st) because I'm working on Saturday. Want to go frame shopping then? We can also visit my favorite tailor that day, too, so you can get the skirt and bag fixed.

Also, I clean my own hand-knit wool sweaters, shawls, and socks all the time. Want to out-source that job to me? I can do yours with the same loving care I do for my own (shockingly expensive) hand-knits.

[bedlamsbard]

Let's, if you're up for it! I don't think I need to get anything specially framed, though I do need to sit down and measure all the odd-size things I have just so I know what sizes to buy.

My handknit socks I just toss in the wash with the rest of my stuff and then air-dry. My sweaters aren't handknits (never done a sweater, not sure if I ever will), so I just...need to deal with them, either by handwashing or the home dry clean. That's tomorrow's project, I think.