posted today, in 140 character bits. makes more sense if read bottom to top:
the fact that i just found out in the past half hour that definitely 2 of my brothers have died, and possibly my mother (unsure)… a normal person, i think, would be feeling something.
i feel like i am having a complete mental/nervous breakdown. we had the whole business where i wound up in the emergency psychiatric clinic last thursday, coming on the heels of me slicing myself up while insanely drunk, and, well, just all stressed out. had told the frustrating PT design client that i had things to do, would get back to them monday. checked email late monday to find way too emails in a row, posted the entire weekend, ALL IN CAPS!!! WITH EXCLAMATIONS POINTS!!! PLEASE CALL ME!!! WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED ME/!!! I HAVE MONEY FOR YOU, IN CASH, WILL THAT GET YOU TO CALL ME?!!!!
what was bothersome was that the reason he wanted me to call him was for no important reason, he just wanted to find out how i was progressing on the design job that wasn’t due for another week.
so, given the amount of stress i was dealing with, i sent an email, which i thought i phrased nicely, but saying, look, there’s a certain way projects have to go when you’re working with a freelance designer, which is that we meet, discuss the terms of the project, set up a production schedule, and i give you a set date by which i’ll have the next phase of the project to you, then we meet again, etc. but if you are, on a 24/7 basis, sending me emails IN ALL CAPS!!! CALL ME!!! WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED ME?!!!!, it makes it difficult for me to do my job.
i then promptly set my inbox so that any emails from that client would go into a subfolder, bypassing the inbox, with the intention of looking in it friday (yesterday). as friday, yesterday, was the day when i said i’d have the rough draft of their design piece ready.
of course, yesterday i had a complete emotional breakdown, soaking wet, breaking down crying in a psychiatric community outreach office, and had to take a huge hit of ativan to stop me from cracking completely… i just never contacted the client.
and woke up at 1pm today, and should’ve gotten it to them today, by 6pm, latest.
instead, i am fumbling with basic math, and i have their indesign file open, and i am moving the mouse around, moving things, and it’s getting ugly, just worse and worse, cannot pull this design piece together, creatively i am useless, and i’m supposed to be pulling copy from their website, but none of the words are making sense.
a recent episode of ugly betty had the wealthy son character being taught a lesson, that in order to achieve healing, he needed to learn how to be honest with people, not hide in subterfuge.
if i were to follow that lesson, this is the email i’d send to this client right now:
“Hi, client. I’m very sorry that I didn’t get the rough draft of your design job to you yesterday like I said I would. I’ve been trying to work on it today, but am having trouble getting it finished. See, in between trips to the emergency psychiatric clinic, having a bipolar/mental breakdown, and the side effects I’m dealing with from the tempoary drug I’m on, and repeated trips to the food stamps office and meets with a case worker and trying to get set up with a psychiatrist and, oh, this general persistent depression, in which I haven’t changed my clothes or showered in 6 days…
Sorry, rambling there. This medication I’m on, which they gave me to help me not get violently drunk and slice myself up with knives, it’s making me very stupid, and my writing is all disjointed. I think what I’m saying is I’m sorry. I know you need help, but… Are you willing to wait 2-3 months til I get my medication stabilized and find a job so I’m not living in primordial terror of being homeless again? Can you wait til I get out of my bad space? The fact that you need this design piece to be done in time for a mailing at the end of this month… yes, that does cause a problem, I know.
Client, I really don’t know what to say. Has my being honest helped the situation at all?”
Yes.
It would probably just make the client confused or guilty or both.
So everyone in your family is dead?
The client seems a bit demanding. Is this his first freelance job?
the client seems to have little experience with professional freelancers.
my post, btw, was meant… not entirely truthfully. i know, of course, a freelance designer does not send such emails to clients, but when errant flights of fancy probe the brain… who knows.