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Trepanning.
As far as I can tell, ALA is not for people that need help. To clarify, ALA is not for people that need help figuring out what it is they want to do beyond "get paid." For background, when I heard the phrase "professional development" I didn't realize it meant working on a profession someone already has, instead of learning how to make one to begin with.
So I was correct in realizing I'm not the target market for the conference. It's one thing to walk around the exhibit hall and explain to people selling bookcases and chairs I'm a student and don't have the budget to buy anything, and it's another to realize that the sort of help I need - basically, someone to sit down with me and talk about library science as a profession and its possibilities in regards to what I should be focusing on as a career, or at the very least a day job that doesn't make me fantasize about metal and glass - isn't being offered at the conference right now.
The ability to ask for help isn't one I have much acumen with; there's a lingering feeling that if I can't succeed as an independent individual, finding the aid I need on my own and managing that way, then I've somehow lost the right to be a person and should be put in a home or something. Being aware of the need for help and not knowing how to ask for it - that feeling of drowning when everything is too big and too loud and too much and there's no small space where I can stop and look at everything, nothing for me to grab onto and then feel my way around - doesn't make for a good situation in the short or long term. I had that on when I first looked at the program layout for this conference; I had it when I looked at the programs a few weeks ago; I had it on Friday when I arrived. And it hasn't gone away.
This is a situation where I know the fault lies with me for not asking earlier, for not being able to ask, for not thinking of finding someone to help me figure out what to ask. It's very, very easy for me to translate that into "I am not worth the time and attention of other human beings" and from there it's usually three hours of silently chanting that I have no friends, that no one reaches out to me, that those I care for and reach out to never respond in kind, that I should not try to make a fuss because I should know better than to attempt. I've gotten better at remembering it's never more than two days, but it's very hard to remember, during those phases, that I need to clamp down on what I'm doing because it's not me, and it's not right to reach out when I'm there because it passes every time. If I do reach out, by the time it's over I've gotten some perspective on the situation and feel bad about making a fuss over myself and drawing in that sort of attention and concern because it's no longer needed, which means I'm unwilling to reach out for yet another reason.
It's the not knowing how to ask, or what to ask for, that makes it all worse than what I know it could be. It gets me into the "bad Hannah bad Hannah bad Hannah" inner monologue that's hard to dislodge.
I went back to the friend's apartment and watching The Ref and am still doing my best to combat this headache and nausea combo I've got going. But I'm doing better, and I've had people knock some sense into me. I think tomorrow, after I hear Dennis Lehane in the morning, I'll probably just go someplace nearby the convention and hang out there until I need to leave instead of spending more time in the convention itself. I'll see what happens.
So I was correct in realizing I'm not the target market for the conference. It's one thing to walk around the exhibit hall and explain to people selling bookcases and chairs I'm a student and don't have the budget to buy anything, and it's another to realize that the sort of help I need - basically, someone to sit down with me and talk about library science as a profession and its possibilities in regards to what I should be focusing on as a career, or at the very least a day job that doesn't make me fantasize about metal and glass - isn't being offered at the conference right now.
The ability to ask for help isn't one I have much acumen with; there's a lingering feeling that if I can't succeed as an independent individual, finding the aid I need on my own and managing that way, then I've somehow lost the right to be a person and should be put in a home or something. Being aware of the need for help and not knowing how to ask for it - that feeling of drowning when everything is too big and too loud and too much and there's no small space where I can stop and look at everything, nothing for me to grab onto and then feel my way around - doesn't make for a good situation in the short or long term. I had that on when I first looked at the program layout for this conference; I had it when I looked at the programs a few weeks ago; I had it on Friday when I arrived. And it hasn't gone away.
This is a situation where I know the fault lies with me for not asking earlier, for not being able to ask, for not thinking of finding someone to help me figure out what to ask. It's very, very easy for me to translate that into "I am not worth the time and attention of other human beings" and from there it's usually three hours of silently chanting that I have no friends, that no one reaches out to me, that those I care for and reach out to never respond in kind, that I should not try to make a fuss because I should know better than to attempt. I've gotten better at remembering it's never more than two days, but it's very hard to remember, during those phases, that I need to clamp down on what I'm doing because it's not me, and it's not right to reach out when I'm there because it passes every time. If I do reach out, by the time it's over I've gotten some perspective on the situation and feel bad about making a fuss over myself and drawing in that sort of attention and concern because it's no longer needed, which means I'm unwilling to reach out for yet another reason.
It's the not knowing how to ask, or what to ask for, that makes it all worse than what I know it could be. It gets me into the "bad Hannah bad Hannah bad Hannah" inner monologue that's hard to dislodge.
I went back to the friend's apartment and watching The Ref and am still doing my best to combat this headache and nausea combo I've got going. But I'm doing better, and I've had people knock some sense into me. I think tomorrow, after I hear Dennis Lehane in the morning, I'll probably just go someplace nearby the convention and hang out there until I need to leave instead of spending more time in the convention itself. I'll see what happens.
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Which is a lot of maybes and hopefullys and probably not very useful advice at all.
*hugs*