Part 21 - Getting Grounded

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued" - Fall Out Boy

After a couple of weeks on the new medication, everything started to feel different. I suddenly felt more positive, and motivated to changing my life. I wanted to turn things around. I was sleeping better, which significantly improved my moods. And this was all largely due to a change of medication. I’d struggled with insomnia, and slept in short bursts of time (usually for no longer than four hours straight) for so long, that it just became normal, and I’d forgotten what sleeping properly felt like.

My parents noticed a startling change; I was more considerate towards them, and happier to help them around the house. I was talking more, being less withdrawn, and my moods were becoming infrequent. They encouraged this change and were always the first people to praise me, which went along way towards keeping me going. I had but, by this point, severed contact with a lot of my previous friends. Those I met at college, and my previous housemates. I was breaking a chain of bad behaviour, and those friends would not have encouraged this, and in some cases probably have done the exact opposite. I knew that to rectify my path in life I would have to start from scratch again, and build my way up. It was hard to do; I still miss some of my old friends, but I have re-connected with some of them, whilst expressing that I have now changed my lifestyle. Although those friendships will never figure significantly in my life again, I can still remember people who I had once cared about. But at that time, I needed positive influences in my life. I would never escape who I was if I had constant reminders.

By July of 2005, I had been back home for almost a month, and my Mother came to wake me up that morning (something which I hasten to say, she would never have even contemplated months before lest she feel the wrath of a really pissed off Amy), and full of enthusiasm for my ever progressing change of lifestyle, said "today is a brand new day, and the first day of the rest of you life. It all gets better from here". And she was right. It really was the first day of the rest of my life. My parents were more than willing to write off all the hurt I had caused over the previous years, if I just proved to them that I deserved it. No-one said that this revelation would be easy, and indeed, it wasn’t. But it was a good start.

I began applying for jobs here there and everywhere. As long as I could be seen to be trying to get a job, my parents were happy to financially support me for the time being. I got a few low key cleaning jobs for a couple of hours a day, which tide me over to start. But I really wanted a full-time job, and would only stop job seeking when that happened. The town where I live has very few employment prospects, as it’s a pretty small town, but there are a few companies that have an ace reputation for work. I wanted to work in an office of some kind, that much I knew, but with very little qualifications, I knew I’d be pushing my luck by expecting a dream job to land in my lap. However, you don’t ask, you don’t get. I continually applied for any job going in one of the more reputable companies in the town, for jobs way out of my league, just to get my CV in the door. It paid off.

I got a call one afternoon, early in August, to say that the position I had applied for within the company was a little out of my remit (something I knew all too well), but that there was an office-junior position available that I may interested in. Ker-ching! Exactly what I was looking for. Me and my Mom went to town on preparing for the interview. My ROA (Record Of Achievement) was fully updated, and my Mom bought me new clothes so that I would look really smart. The day of the interview, I have never felt so sick in my life (including after the paracetemol binge!), but I pretty much aced it. I felt I’d gotten along really well with my interviewers, and they didn’t even think to ask about the huge gap of many years in my CV, so that crisis was averted. I got a call later that week, requesting a second interview. Ker-ching! I was beginning to believe that I could actually pull this off. I just needed someone to give me a chance.

Second interview nerves were even worse than the first, but my parents kept telling me that it was a hugely positive thing, being called back. Five days later, the young lady who interviewed me, called me as I was on my way to meet my Mom from work, and offered me the position. My exact words were "Really? That’s awesome. You just made my life-time!". My now senior manger giggled at that one. I now know that qualifications had played a vital role in securing me the job. I had come across as bright and articulate during the interview, and the choice had boiled down to me, and one other young lady about my age. The other candidate (whom I never met), had a university degree, and would obviously not be happy with an office junior role for too long. She’d played the same tact as me, and probably figured that once she was in the company, it would be pretty easy to rise through the ranks. She wouldn’t stay long, and my new boss knew this. They knew that I’d be there for the long haul. It was a slight gamble, but I would hope that I have showed her over the years that she made the right choice by giving me that chance.

So I had a full-time job, in a good company, with sick-pay, holiday-pay, bonus opportunities, and one where I could develop my skills. I was pretty computer savvy so that was put to good use, although I sometimes miss the old way of pen and paper, being the old-school gal that I am. I loved where I worked from the first day, and although I sometime want to pull my hair out, I wouldn’t change it for the world. And it opened up so many opportunities to me. I immediately stared driving lessons, and celebrated my first pay check by buying tickets to see My Chemical Romance live for the first time. Within a matter of months, I had reduced, and then stopped, my medication, and it seemed everything had finally fallen into place for me.