Prepping for a Job Interview

So on a more upbeat note; I decided to post a blog about prepping for a job interview. I work in the business field. I look younger than my age so I have to make myself look the roll so to speak before an interview.

1.       I tie my hair back into a bun. I was actually told by one of my instructors in business school that women should pull their hair away from their face during an interview. This way the interviewer can see the woman’s face. I decided to try it to see if my instructor was blowing smoke or on to something. It turns out he was on to something.

2.       I wear my glasses. Apparently, glasses make a person look smarter. Therefore when I am doing an interview I leave my contacts at home and put on my glasses.

3.       Light make-up only. The interviewer should be able to see me and who I am not 10 layers of make-up that make it look like I am about to have a night on the town.

4.       I neatly trim and shape my nails. I remove any nail polish. I do not wear fake nails because I don’t want to send the message I am not willing to get my hands dirty.  Not to mention, fake nails drive me bonkers.

5.       No perfume. I hate perfume in general, but the interviewer could have a fragrance allergy so any perfume worn could give the interviewer a headache or even a migraine. This does not make a good first impression.

6.       Wear clothes that fit. By fit I mean clothes that are neither too tight nor too small. For me this is difficult, some clothing items I alter myself and some I pay a tailor. When it gets into reconstructing a dress shirt to fit me, I pay a tailor. It is worth the money because first impressions are important.

7.       Buy a portfolio. I put my resume, schedule of interviews, ink pen, and stuff along that line in my portfolio. It looks more professional than walking in holding a couple copies of my resume. I bought my portfolio for 15 dollars, it was worth the investment.

8.       I drive by wherever it is I am interviewing at the day before, because nothing is worse than getting lost or not being able to find the place I am supposed to interview at.

9.       Make sure all alarms are turned off on and the cell phone is set to silent. The last thing, I need is a reminder to go off during an interview or for someone to call me. I seek to eliminate that as a possibility. I check my phone beforehand to make sure this won’t happen.

10.    I give myself a pep talk in the mirror. I know it sounds stupid but I will stand in front of the mirror and tell myself a few times that I can do anything. It helps me build my confidence to convey who I am as a person to a potential company.

1, 2, 3, 4

The following blog is about my four suicide attempts and the reasons behind it. This is a deeply personal topic for me and although I do not find it distrubing, some people may. Therefore this is your warning.

You know that love of life that so many people talk about and live for, I don’t feel that. Most of the time I feel like I am simply existing and I do not feel alive. I suffer from depression and I don’t remember a time when I liked generalized life. I do remember distinctly the moment when I first wanted to die. I was 6 years old. I don’t remember why it was I wanted at 6 or the reason. What I do remember about it was I was in the backseat of my parents’ car and my mom was driving. She was rambling about how God will send for us when it is our time to die and we will be ready. In that moment, I felt ready to die and that feeling has never faded.

When I was 13, I made my first attempt at suicide. I took a lot of Tylenol. I am not sure of the exact amount but I suspect it was over 100. I got very sick and I was throwing up. After two days, I was still throwing up and my skin was turning yellow. My elder brother stopped by my parents’ house to visit and see how everything was going. When he saw that I was jaundice he demanded that my parents take me to the doctor. My dad took me to the doctor that day. My family doctor thought it was an acute case of food poisoning and I had to get a shot everyday for about a week.

The reason I attempted suicide in the first place is because my home life left something to be desired. My room was next to the living room and my dad would turn up the TV so loud I couldn’t hear myself think which resulted in me not sleeping.  I also had the majority of the chores dumped on me while my twin went out and did his youth activities. At school, I was dating an older boy (imagine that) and the girls were jealous. So they started a rumor that I was a lesbian. Since, I was not sexually active with my then boyfriend.  I was mocked relentlessly for being a lesbian. I had girls start chanting ‘gays okay’ while I walked by, not because they really thought it was okay to be gay but because they were being an ass.

In an attempt to rectify the situation and get help or guidance or something, I attempted to talk to my mother. I prefaced my question, in if she ever head of someone wanting to commit suicide because they were overwhelmed with life and people at school were being mean to them. Her response was that was ‘stupid’ and she never heard of someone committing suicide for that reason. She went on to explain that she didn’t believe in any mental disorder.  

I felt alone in the world and I knew I had no one to turn too. Any attempt I made to get help would probably be put to rest by mom and her belief that these things are not real.

My feeling after the attempt was one of isolation. I felt alone, but I had one person that cared. One person that came over to my parents’ house everyday to make sure I was okay. It was my boyfriend at the time. He cared and when I saw how much he cared I felt like I had something to live for. So I decided that I wasn’t going to attempt suicide again.

As much as I would like to say that is the end of my story with attempting to end my life and my hatred of life it is not. I was only the beginning. 

To understand my next 3 suicide attempts, you would have to understand the journey to that point. When I was 15 as I was browsing the internet one day, I discovered the world of BDSM. It was interesting to me and it seemed like a different world, a simpler world.  I talked to various men online over the following year. They were all older men and well over the age of 18. I ended up chatting with a man shortly before my 17^th birthday about things.  I met him shortly after my 17^th birthday and he took a couple pictures of me. He threatened to show those pictures to my parents if I didn’t leave my parents home to go be with him.

I left in early May and I traveled to his home. I really wasn’t sure what I was in for, but I thought I was ready for it. I spent the next nine months of my life getting beaten into submission, shared with groups of men and women, locked in cellar, and etc. I wanted to please him but I found it to be impossible. He was always angry and would lash out at me. I suffered broken bones, I was suffocated to the point of blacking out and when I woke up the whites of my eyes were completely red. My eyes stayed that way for weeks.

Eventually, I gave up on trying resisting anything, because it hurt less when I didn’t put up a fight. Saying no or physically trying to stop something from happening was like encouragement.  He could at this point get me to do nearly anything he wanted. While I was underage he had me convinced that if I tried to get help, if I tried to tell someone that I would get locked up by the police and never see the light of day again.

It wasn’t until I was 18 that I had the courage to leave and I called my parents for help. This time, my parents were there for me.  I went back to my parents’ home in rural Oklahoma. I tried to put him out of my mind but he still called me frequently and emailed me a lot. I did not tell my parents what I was doing while I was gone and they didn’t ask.

I lived with my parents for 3 months before I moved out into my own apartment. I was having trouble with the change and the responsibility that came with living on my own. I was at work when I got a frantic phone call from him and he told me that the police executed a search warrant on his residence because of a report of an underage girl. This time, he had courted a 16 year old but she went back home to her family the week before. I heard several different stories on the terms in which she left so how or why she left I cannot comment. 

None the less, he was pretty mad and the police found pictures of me. Later on that afternoon, the chief of police in the town my parents lived in got a phone call from the detective over the case. I lived on the Kansas/Oklahoma boarder and my apartment was in Kansas. The chief of police had my parents’ phone number and gave it to the detective.

The detective called my father, who gave him my telephone number. I met with the detective a few days later after I hired a lawyer.  I was honest with the detective because my lawyer told me I lied, even a white lie then I could get into trouble. The police department executed another search warrant while I was getting interrogated by the detective, because I told the detective about hiding places for pictures other stuff in places they did not look.

He was extremely pissed off when the second search warrant was executed, however he had already removed the items from those places.  A short time later, the actual charges were filed against my former master.

He really wanted to get out of this but it is difficult when there is photographic evidence of something happening.  He called me a lot during this time and he was increasingly desperate. He would yell at me and tell me he was going hurt me. I believed him. 

He convinced me that what I should do is try to kill myself, because it would be the best thing for me. He had me convinced that being labeled a minor in a pornography case would ruin me for the rest of my life and my life wasn’t worth living. Over the following weeks, I attempted suicide 3 times. I tried to drown myself once and slit my wrists twice. I never had the strength to push down hard enough on my wrists to get deep enough to cause any real damage, even though I can still see light scars from that today.

My twin noticed the marks on my wrists which lead to my now sister-in-law coming over to talk to me. One of my male friends voiced a concern about it around that time too. I expressed to them my concerns and for once in my life I felt safe, like no one was going to hurt me. I stopped with the suicide attempts at that point.

This fall it will be 10 years since my last suicide attempt. I have struggled with depression over the following decade. But I found a wonderful Master, that doesn’t beat me or terrorize me. I feel like I have something to live for with him and even though I still hate life. I have moments where I feel alive and I feel happy. I live for those moments.

The point of me writing this is because one thing I have realized is that I did not pull the strength from inside me to stop myself from wanting to kill myself. It was that one friend, that one person who cared about whether or not I lived or died. In retrospect, I learnt something from those 4 attempts and that is one friend can save a life.

Weight Loss Control

So I have been on a fairly restrictive diet due to my hypoglycemia. The diet works to control the blood sugar issues. However, I have been dropping weight. When I started this diet I weighed in at 128 and size 6. Now 6 months later I weigh 108 and a size 0. I am one pound from being considered underweight for my height based off the charts.

I am going to start increasing the amount of calories in my diet in the hopes that I stop dropping weight. I can’t just go out and eat anything because of my medical condition so I have to evaluate and make choices that are right for my body.  Increasing the amount of protein, which was recommended to me by my doctor, seems like the most reasonable path.  I am going to add in a cheese stick with my morning and early afternoon snack. That will add 160 calories to my diet per day and increase my protein. Hopefully, it doesn’t cause havoc to my blood sugar levels.

We shall see how this goes.

-emma