Hope?

I'm doing a bit better today. I managed to distract myself yesterday and get a few things done, which helped take my mind off of things a bit. I'm trying really hard not to let myself slip back into all those dark potholes along the road, and I think I'm getting somewhere. Maybe. I hope, anyway. I just have to keep reminding myself of everything that I realised and felt when I had my 'revelation' a few months ago. I need to focus on who I want to be, not who I am now, or what's going on now to upset me. I have to keep in mind who I want to be, who I think I really am underneath all of this shit, and keep trying to get there. That makes it sound a helluva lot easier than it actually is, and I'm not exactly doing cartwheels over here, but I'm trying. That's something, I guess.

As for the whole ex situation, that's a bit more complicated. But I think I might have figured something out there too. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. This doesn't have to be all sorted out perfectly, one way or the other, right now. If we both really meant everything we said about how much we care about each other and wanting to stay friends, then that's how it will be. It won't always be easy or comfortable, but as long as we don't let go of the friendship, we'll figure our way through it somehow. Eventually.

Or something like that. I think I'm less articulate when I'm less upset, for some reason. Makes wanting to be both a writer and sane a little difficult, really. Anyway, I'm trying to get back to real life and not let everything in my head overtake that. Making Christmas presents, baking cookies, working, tidying, doing laundry, all that stuff. May not sound all that exciting or that big of a deal, but anything that might help me cling onto my life is worth a shot.

A new day? Pfft.

Well, it's a new day. I don't really know what profound message there's supposed to be in that. People talk about tomorrow being a new day when you're having a bad day, but what the fuck sort of help is that supposed to be? Another whole day to feel miserable and shitty and to have to drag yourself through? Great.

You probably can't tell from my sunny disposition, but I'm not in a much better mood today. I'm tired, weak, dizzy, annoyed, irritable and cranky as all hell. All I want to do is crawl back into bed but my mediocre-ly paid job beckons me so here I am. I keep trying to distract myself - when I find myself drifting off into my head and daydreaming about anything (good or bad) I keep trying to tell myself to stop it, and think of something else to think of. But that's easier said than done. Especially when my office appears to be staffed with loud, obnoxious missing links of evolution.

I want to sleep so badly. I don't really remember what I dreamed about last night, but I don't think it was upsetting, so I'd take sleep over consciousness any day. I just don't know what I'm meant to do here. I don't know where the middle ground is between ignoring everything and hoping it will be ok, and having a complete meltdown like yesterday.

And I'm not sure that I even want to find the middle ground right now. I mean, I don't want to feel like this, I don't want to be in this sort of pain and feel like my entire life is falling down around my shoulders. I just want it all fixed. I want him to want me again, I want my best friend back. I don't want to get over him. It's been months and that's what it comes down to. I don't want to get over him. I want him back. I know that that isn't going to happen, but I can't get it out of my head. So where do I go from here? I know that so much of this situation - not just the relationship stuff but depression in general - is about the choices we make. But I can't choose how I feel about him. I didn't choose to fall for him in the first place, how do I choose to not feel this way about him now?

I really feel like I'm missing the part of my brain where people figure this stuff out and get through it. I just have no idea how that happens, or what it looks or feels like. All I know is I'm tired, and I want this out of my head. I want not to have to think about it. Not to be tormented with it.

Anyway, if I want to stop thinking about it so much I should probably shut the hell up.

I don't know.

I don't know what to make of today. I've completely fallen apart. I feel frustrated, ashamed and disappointed in myself, that I've gone right back to where I started, it seems. More than that I'm just tired. Tired of being tired. Of feeling so alone, and in pain, and feeling so completely uncertain about everything. I feel like I have no judgement anymore - no idea what's real, what's not; what's right, what's wrong; what will help or what will make things worse. I just don't know.

I know I'm exhausted. I've cried most of the evening. I tired myself out for a bit there and distracted myself with quizzes on the internet (sounds really lame, but it seems to help take my mind off things, because I'm forcing myself to think about something else). But as soon as I started to feel better I noticed that I was doing it again with the fantasies. Imagining that everything would be ok - that all of my fears have been wrong, that my ex isn't seeing anyone else, and that things will be happily ever after. But they won't.

I wonder what has been going on in my head these last few months. I wonder was anything real. I don't think so. I've barely seen anyone else the last few months apart from people at work, my family, and my flatmates. And I keep all contact with all of the above to a bare minimum. I've lived entirely in my head, and created this world where everything is fine. And because I've not been quite as depressed, or at least not beating myself up in quite the same way, I've been telling myself that I've been making some sort of progress. But I haven't. I've done what I always do - retreated into this fantasy world. And now that reality is smacking me in the face I'm having a full blown meltdown.

I don't know how to get from one minute to the next. The prospect of the rest of the day terrifies me - what am I going to do after I finish this blog? Cry some more? Go over and over and over things in my head? I guess I go over things so much in the hope that one time I'll get it right - I'll figure it out. But I never do. And it's not something I can figure out. It's not like if I concentrate hard enough I'll work it out, like on a quiz or something. This all just is, and I have to deal with it. But the problem is, I have no idea what that means or involves. I don't know if I've ever truly gotten over anything that's hurt me badly in my life - I don't know what it looks like.

And then comes the night. Trying to get to sleep and failing miserably. The aching pain of needing to sleep but being afraid of it. Trying not to cry during the night. Counting down the hours till I have to get up for work. Dragging myself into work and trying not to cry on the bus. Trying not to cry in the office, in the bathroom, in the kitchen. Not to mention trying to get a fuckload of work done, that was already going to be difficult enough to manage.

I just want this out of my head. All of it. Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all was a fucking asshole.

Normal?

Man, does life suck sometimes. Everytime I think I'm getting somewhere, something just comes and smashes me right back down again. With everything, even the little things. I thought I was getting on top of things at work, but there's tons more to do than I thought so I'm screwed. I thought I was getting to being ok with myself, and with the break-up with my ex, but I am so, so, so not.

I don't know why I do this. I don't even know how I do it. I live in this little fantasy world all the time, where I banish all bad thoughts with imaginings and fantasies about everything being fine. And then reality rears its head, and I'm right back where I started again. I just feel like I do not know what I'm doing. At all. I don't know what's the right thing to do, what's the wrong thing.

I'm told that I catastrophise things all the time - always imagine the worst case scenario, become convinced that that's what's going to happen, and freak out. But when I try to rationalise that maybe that's not what's going to happen, that I don't have much evidence for that, I end up being proven right about the disaster. Like with my ex - we've been keeping in touch since we broke up. Not the way it used to be before - we used to talk all day every day then. We'd tell each other everything. Now it's just the odd message and email here and there. And I don't know what it's ok to talk to him about. I used to be able to talk to him about anything, and I just don't know what the rules are for this sort of thing, and it's awkward to talk about that via phones and email. Every now and then I'd get freaked out that he was seeing someone else. I had no evidence for this, just paranoia on my part. So I'd tell myself that - that chances are he probably wasn't. That chances were, he was telling me the truth when he said he wasn't ready for a relationship and that it was bad timing with us, so he wouldn't be looking to get involved with anyone else so soon after us breaking up.

But now I'm not so sure. It seems like I was maybe right in the first place - that he just didn't want to be with me, and that he might be seeing someone else. And I cannot handle this. At all. I'm completely falling to pieces. I was so looking forward to his coming home from university for Christmas, so we could try to get our friendship back on track. So we could just hang out and talk crap and get used to being just friends again. And since he was suggesting things for us to do, it seemed like this would all be great.

Until now. Just a passing remark, but something about it is stabbing me in the stomach. And I just do not know what to do at all. Do I just cry my way through this for god knows how long? Do I cut him out of my life? I don't want either. The only thing that got me through the break up in one piece was his insistance that we would still be friends, still be best friends. That nothing could change that. The idea of my life without him is terrifying. It's dark, lonely, cold and utterly, utterly horrible. But everytime I think of him with someone else, it's like being stabbed. Over and over again. So which is the best option?

How do people get over things? I've never really understood this. I've never really gotten over anything. Time and distance has helped a bit, I suppose, but I can still burst into tears when I think of past things and people that have broken my heart. My heart is still broken from all those hurts. It feels like I just don't have the bit of your brain that you're meant to have to get over things. I do not know how people do it. I suppose there's one or two things I have gotten over in the past. They still make me sad when I think about them, and I regret screwing things up, but I don't exactly cry over it anymore. But it took me 7 years to get to that point. That is clearly not normal.

And all of the things that I supposedly should be doing to try to get better mean turning my life upside down, all at once. And I just can't do that. I'm literally not in a position to do that. I need somewhere new to live, with different people or preferably on my own (and I have nowhere near enough money for that to be likely at any point in the near or even distant future). I need a new job. I need more money. I need new friends. And as someone stuck in a crappy job in a recession, who's gotten used to not having anyone around me, and spending 100% of my time alone, I just can't even imagine what not being like that looks like.

I still keep trying not to get annoyed at myself over all of this - to not my simply being upset and sad turn into self loathing and getting angry at myself, but that's getting harder and harder. Because the more I fail at fixing things, the more it is my fault. And even if I just try to accept that, without piling blame and guilt on myself, it doesn't seem to be doing much for me.

And possibly more than anything, I hate that it's Christmas right now. I love Christmas. Always have. But I always manage to get so, so, so sad that I'm alone every year. I mean, yeah, I go to my parents and everything for the holiday itself, but not having close friends and/or a boyfriend to hang out with and do all the things that everyone around me seems to do at Christmas is a torture that increases year on year. And I thought for a while there that this Christmas would be different. That I wouldn't be alone, because I'd have my boyfriend. My best friend. But now I feel like that's being ripped away from me at the worst possible time of year.

I know that it all comes down to the fantasizing - I imagine things being better instead of doing anything to achieve it. And I let my imagination run away with me. Why do I keep doing that? Why can't I get those things out of my head?

I just don't know what to do anymore. And I'm really, really tired of that.

Rut.

I haven't really written anything much here in a while. That is not a good sign. I've gotten to a point now where I don't know if it's a good or bad thing to not be writing about what's going on in my head all the time. I get bored of thinking about it and going on about it, but I fear that not paying enough attention to what's going on up there leads to complacency and laziness.

I've definitely slipped into a bit of a rut the last month or so. Tired all the time, making excuses for not doing anything (even making dinner or tidying my room), I've ended up spending all of my time either asleep or barely conscious in front of the laptop. I can't seem to muster up much energy or enthusiasm for writing at all - hence my liveblogs of the X Factor and reviews of Spooks falling by the wayside a little. I've not managed to get settled on an idea for NaNoWriMo, and of course work has now gotten in the way.

I've been feeling vacant and empty; annoyed and angry at the most ridiculous things - this week the MTV EMAs being held in Belfast was a particular source of anger for me. Despite the fact that it's a great thing for the city, and has highlighted the local music scene that I'm such a fan of, I've just been pissed off by the whole thing. I think a lot of this is stemming from the fact that I feel so alone. I was so determined a couple of months back to try to shake my life up, to reconnect with people and try to get out more. But it's not that easy. There simply are not a lot of people in my life at all - not in this country, let alone town - with whom I can do things. Things as simple as just going to the cinema or the pub - there's no one I can just call up and hang out with. And I can't just magic new friends out of thin air. I've been trying to reconnect with old friends and I have done, to some extent, but that doesn't mean that we can start hanging out every night, it's a once every 6 weeks sort of thing. And I can't expect anymore than that - I'm grateful for that much, at least.

And that all leads to resentment that I can't do things that I want because I have no one to do them with, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness and emptiness. There are all these adverts on the radio and tv here at the moment promoting mental health and trying to encourage people to seek help. They all urge anyone feeling depressed to talk to someone, a friend, a family member, anyone. Everytime I hear one of those ads I can't help but scoff at them - if I had anyone to bloody talk to in the first place, maybe I wouldn't be depressed.

I'm not quite getting to the point of hating myself in quite the same way as I used to - I'm managing to keep a bit of a lid on that, for the most part. It's not always easy though - it's scary how quickly I can fall back into old ways of thinking without even noticing until it's almost too late.

Mostly, the worst thing about this is that it gives me too much time to myself inside my head. I spend all of my time alone, pretty much. I sit in an office by myself all day. I go home and sit in my room all night. I never go out, I never have plans. I don't even have as many people to talk to online anymore because of my social media avoidance. All that time to myself, inside this head, is not a good thing. It's very definitely a Bad Thing. Too much time to think about things, to dwell on stuff. And perhaps more dangerously, too much time to daydream and fantasise about everything being ok. Too much time to create an alternate reality in my head where I do have friends, a boyfriend, where everything is how I'd like it to be. And then the harsh light of day when I'm forced to remember that none of that is true.

And I know that I'm the only one who can control the thoughts inside my own head. I'm not trying to make excuses about that. I know that the only way to get more energy to do things - even if it's just productive little things at home like laundry and tidying and making dinner - is by doing things in the first place, no matter how tired or pissed off I might be. But it's hard not to feel like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Getting out and being around people is what I need the most right now, but I just don't have anyone to do that with.

This is a bit of a rambly, incoherent post, but I've been struggling to concentrate in work so I figured I may as well try to get some of this out there. I have no idea what the answer to any of this is. Just to try harder, I guess.

Lost weekend

I'd like to say it was a lost weekend due to partying hard or something like that, but unfortunately it was just my being lazy and a bit crap. I slept far too much (partly thanks to my neighbours keeping me up till at least 5 or 6am on Friday night/Saturday morning) and just lay around watching tv instead of doing any of the things that I intended to. I'm giving myself a by ball for that one, and I'll get back on track today. Things to do include working on my CV, an application form, and completing my next CBT session.

I think I did slip a little this weekend. The devil makes work for idle hands indeed - all that time spent alone, with my own thoughts, and little else to engage my mind was not that good for me. I was either getting worried about things, or off daydreaming about everything being ok. Neither of those activities are particularly productive. But the important thing is to just accept that, and move on. No point beating myself up for slipping a bit, and getting mad at myself. I'm only human, of course I'm going to slip occasionally. But so long as I don't let it overwhelm me and start to define me again, I think I'm still moving in the right direction.

In other news, it's flipping cold here, thanks to gale force winds courtesy of the tail end of Hurricane Katia. Summer is definitely over, then. I've finally given up hope of us getting a brief blast of summery weather so that I can wear my summer clothes, and I'm embracing the boots, jumpers and coats of autumn and winter. Thankfully, I love winter clothes (especially coats - I think I have an actual problem with coats). And with winter comes Christmas, which I also completely love and get super excited and hyperactive about. Although I'm a tad apprehensive about it this year - all the plans I had for it in my head are now rapidly dissolving alongside my relationship, so it won't be quite what I had hoped. I'm trying not to dwell on that too much, though. Instead, I'm just thinking of the awesome floppy felt hat I saw in New Look recently that I must have. And the one I bought a little while ago that I've not had a chance to wear yet. Apparently hats make me happy.

Anyway, this has been a decidedly random post, for which I apologise. I've got a lot of work ahead of me over the next couple of weeks as my course (finally!) comes to an end, so hopefully after that I'll have a lot more time for proper writing and actually getting into some of the ideas that I've had recently. That should give me October to plan, and November to do NaNoWriMo. If the wind hasn't whisked me away to Oz before then.

Thinking is hard

Hmm. Last night was a bit of a bust. I was starting to feel a bit low and blank and didn't really know what to do to counteract it. I ended up going for Torchwood and pizza. I think that helped. Probably because Torchwood has gotten so completely ridiculous that it takes your mind off of anything even remotely real.

But the whole daydreaming thing is becoming a bigger and bigger problem for me. It's my go-to for so much - to comfort myself, when I'm bored, when I'm sitting on the bus, when I can't get to sleep. It's really tough to break away from it - I need to fill my head with something else, but I literally don't know what. It's like when someone asks you to tell them a joke - suddenly you can't think of anything. I try to think of things, no matter how random or silly, to fill my head with and nothing happens. It's infuriating. Especially when I'm trying to get to sleep and don't really want to exert my mind too much, because I'm trying to stay sleepy. I think I need to actually *do* more things in the evenings. Last night I was sort of looking forward to having an evening to myself, as I'd had to work the last week or so, but it just left me restless and fidgety.

I think I need to spend more time with other people as well - all this time to myself can't be good for me. But I feel a bit caught between a rock and a hard place where that's concerned. All of my relationship stuff sort of puts me off wanting to be around other people right now as I don't want them to ask about it (nor do I want to lie about it) because I'm really not ready to talk to them about it yet. So I sort of feel like I need to avoid people a bit. But I need the company. Rock - me - hard place.

Anyway, that's where I am at the minute.

...in which I lose my mind listening to local radio.

Oof, things are getting a bit tougher. I'm under a lot of pressure in work today and have literally no idea how to do everything that I need to do in time. I've not really been feeling the stress this much since my whole big revelation thing (really, that sounds so lame, I need a better word for it. Suggestions on a postcard, please!). And there are various irritants that have been bugging me today, but I'm still determined not to give into it. I don't want to slip into bad habits of getting angry and trying to make other people angry on my behalf, or at least try to make them feel sympathy for me. That way madness lies.

Another thing that's been bothering me a little is how much I'm daydreaming. I find it really hard not to. I have a lot of alone time - whether it's when I start getting a little bored with my work (I have my own office so I have to actually get up and go somewhere else to talk to people), sitting on the bus, in bed at night/in the morning when I can't sleep etc etc - it's a lot of time in my own head and I don't really know what I should do about that. What do other people have in their heads in those sort of situations? I genuinely am not sure if what I do is normal or not. I try to come up with things to think about to distract me - dinner, laundry that needs done, what I'm going to wear tomorrow, all that sort of stuff. But almost before I know it my head has wandered onto things that don't do me any good. I've gotten so used to entertaining myself in my head with these sort of daydreams that it's a really difficult habit to break. But I know I need to - it's not good for me, and I am trying.

I hope that these sort of posts don't sound negative/complaining. I'm mostly just trying to work things out by getting them out of me, and I'm trying to just acknowledge my behaviour/thinking, rather than give myself grief for it. I think I'm doing pretty ok on that front so far - I've not been beating myself up about things, just trying to stop when I catch myself doing something counterproductive.

Well, this has been a thoroughly uninteresting post. I guess that's what spending the morning listening to local talk radio does for you. Frankly, I'm just lucky not to be trying to jump off the roof after listening to all this crap. I defy anyone to have to listen to this on a regular basis and not lose at least a little bit of their sanity! I will endeavour to think of something more awesome later on.

Today, I'm so-so. Increasingly nervous, as I mentioned last night, but still determined to not let it get the best of me. I used to think before that I had to act like I was depressed, to justify the condition or something. I realise now that none of that matters. I don't care who does or does not believe that I genuinely have problems with depression or anxiety or whatever, so I don't need to spend the whole day in tears, or try to fit into some notion of what a sufferer is supposed to look or act like. All that matters now is that I try my damnedest to get better.

I think going to sleep is the most difficult part of the day for me. It's always been when things would play on my mind a lot, and when I would employ the daydreaming tactic the most, to try to comfort me and get the things I didn't want to think about out of my head. It's a struggle not to do that. Hence, it took me hours to get to sleep last night, even though I was up late and had been working most of that time. I tried my best to get my mind onto other things though - listing stuff, coming up with ideas to write about, what time I'd get up at in the morning. Anything at all, so long as it wasn't likely to cause me any kind of consternation to stop me sleeping.

I did come up with an idea that I really want to pursue for a writing project, so that's something. I'm finding I'm starting to have more ideas now. Even if they're shit ones, at least there are ideas - there were none before. My mind just felt so blank and vacent. It's nice to feel like I'm getting my imagination (the productive one, not the one where I imagine that everything will be ok without me doing anything to make it so) and my sense of humour back. I feel a bit more like myself again, and even though I've said I'm trying not to make my feelings of self worth the focus of this, I think those feelings are improving. A little bit, anyway, for today. And that's good enough for right now, I guess.

I'm really curious about how this all comes across to other people who suffer from any kind of depression or anxiety issues - especially anyone who's battled through it. I know it's different for everyone, of course, but I'm just kinda curious to know if what I'm describing seems familiar to other people, or if it's all a bunch of shit.

It might also be evident that my nerves are making me post and write a lot. I just keep feeling like I need to *do* something and work isn't quite keeping my attention. However, I have a lot to get done today, so back to the coalface I go....

To do:

I've been talking about all the things that I need to do to change, to make myself the person I want to be, blah blah blah, but it occurs to me that it might be a good idea to actually list them out so that I can better work on them, and make myself a bit more accountable when it comes to the things I want to achieve. Again, probably of absolutely no interest to anyone else - I really am going to try to come up with something non-head related to write about very soon - but this seems to be keeping me together at the minute, so I'm just going to crack on with it.

So. In no particular order, things I need to stop or start doing:

• Write. I need to write more. About everything and anything. This sort of stuff about myself so that I can try to benchmark what I'm doing (I'm in the middle of a management practices course, can you tell?), and since they do tell you to write about what you know. But I want to write about other stuff too, whether it be short stories, random articles, reviews of music, tv, movies - whatever. I just need to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in this instance). But I do want to set myself a target of doing the NaNoWriMo thing in November. I want to complete a whole something. Probably not a novel, more likely to be a screenplay or something, but I want to do actually finish something. Doesn't matter if it's crap, just need to finish it. 

• Recruitment stuff. I need to sort out my CV, talk to recruitment agencies and careers guidance people and get a better plan (or even, a plan) for how to get a new job.

• Put my foot down at work. I need to stop giving into everything at work and bending over backwards, doing stupid hours and taking on far too much because I feel it's expected of me or that there's no other option. I have to make it clear that there are limits, and that we have to find another solution. No exception. 

• Re-connect with people. I've drifted away from so many friends over the years. I put it down to them not making the effort to keep in touch with me, and taken it very personally, but I can't know any of that for sure so I really ought to just put it behind me. I don't have to be suddenly best friends with these people, but it would be nice to get in touch again, occasionally talk to and see each other and enjoy each other's company again. I guess under this heading also comes spending more time around my flatmates. I've become so good at avoiding them and keeping a low profile at home that I'm practically a domestic ninja (note to self: write treatment for sitcom called Ninjaz In Da House). All that time spent alone isn't good for me - too much time to day dream and dwell on things. 

• Stop daydreaming. It's sort of an odd thing to say, I suppose, but it's a big problem for me. I spend so much time daydreaming and fantasizing about how I want things to go that I become convinced that that's how they actually will go, making it well nigh impossible to deal with anything that diverges from the fantasy. 

• Treatment. I need to get serious about treatment for this depression/anxiety stuff. I've upped my meds already, so I'll be keeping an eye on that with my doctor, and I've started the Beating the Blues thing. I think I quite like it so far. It's Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which I've never had much luck with before, but I understand more than ever now that I need to have certain things to each day, and to hold myself accountable for doing or not doing them. It's a session every week conducted online, and it gives you weekly projects to complete. I've only done the first session so far, so I'll see how it goes. But I think it could be a good support.

• Lose weight/get healthy. I'm not setting myself specific targets for this just yet. I've basically not been eating much for over a week or so because I'd gotten myself into such a state that I was nauseous and completely devoid of appetite. That is slowly starting to return, but I don't want to just jump back into my bad habits of eating junk all the time, I want to start eating healthily again. But (and apologies for the TMI nature of this, but...) healthy food when you've not been eating can have a bit of a fight with your innards, so I'm trying to do it all gradually. I've lost a little bit of weight thanks to the nausea so I want to make sure I keep that off, and it's been a good motivation for me to avoid junk food and comfort eating. The exercise portion of this will need to wait a little bit till I feel physically a bit stronger and have work a bit more sorted out so I can plan out when I'll do things. 

• Do the things I love again. I used to love music and movies. LOVE. I lived for them, they were the only things that kept me going sometimes, and touched and moved me in ways I can't put words to. But lately, I've just been using them as vague distractions, if even. I've found that I couldn't watch or listen to anything 'serious' (for want of a better word) - anything that encouraged much of an emotional reaction in me. Because I was trying to avoid emotional reactions, I guess. I'm a bit wary still of putting myself through the wringer with anything like that, but I want to get into a place again where I live and breathe this stuff like I used to.

• Stop procrastinating. I realise there's a great irony in me saying this, as I often take to this blog when there's something else I want to not do or distract myself from, but I need to just get off my arse and do things when they need doing. It's the only way to build momentum and thus energy. I've had huge problems with it lately, but I think I'm making some tiny inroads with it. 

• Finish and pass my course. I had, of course, wanted to pass my course with a distinction (I'm  a perfectionist, which I will write about at some point in the future), and did well on the first couple of assignments, but since everything sort of fell apart a bit after that I'm just going for a pass now. I was pretty close to throwing in the towel with the whole thing recently, so I just want to get it over and done with, pass it and put it on my CV. Thankfully I've less than a month to go with it, so hopefully I can cross that one off the list soon!

And so, back to work for me. 

Thoughts of a rainy afternoon

Rather predictably, things are getting a tad harder each day. Energy and motivation are drifting off a little bit (though the tiredness may be partly down to the increase in meds, I can't tell for sure), but I guess that's to be expected. I'm very much aware that it's getting closer to the discussion I'm supposed to be having with my boyfriend (if I can even call him that anymore, I'm honestly not sure) about everything, and I'm getting nervous. Which is, in turn, making me retreat into daydreaming that things will work out.

But, the point is, I'm still trying. I'm trying not to do that, I'm trying to get my work done, I'm trying not to think about my self worth. I think that's sort of the key to this whole thing - not to sweep my low self-esteem under the carpet by any means, but to stop dwelling on it so much. I will never feel better about myself if I continually think about nothing but how bad I feel about myself. I have to focus on doing, rather than thinking - making the changes I need to make to be the person I want to be, so that I don't have these feelings of low/non-existent self worth. That probably sounds both incredibly corny and really, really obvious.

This is all really obvious though, that's the thing. All of this is stuff I've heard over and over again in counselling over the years. I've nodded my head and said yes, I understand. And I thought I did, but it never really hit home till this past week. I'm trying as hard as I can not to let go of that realization. I really do feel differently about it all now. As I mentioned previously, I used to use this depression stuff as some sort of badge or label to make excuses for myself, and to try to garner sympathy and attention. Maybe I thought people couldn't care about me as I was, they'd only care if I made them feel sorry for me? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter anyway. I'm done with that. I don't want to be the victim or the martyr anymore. I want to kick this thing's ass. If anyone thinks of me as special, I want it to be because I've fought this and managed to be a decent person through it (well, from now on - whether or not I've been a decent person in the past needs to be irrelevant to me now, it's past and gone). And I want to be proud of myself for doing that.

Anyway, that's just some of today's thoughts. As much as this is probably rather self-indulgent, I'm trying to make it a productive and positive thing, even if it doesn't read that way! I do definitely want to start writing about things other than myself and what goes on in my head, though. But I've spent a lot of time up in there over the years, so it's kinda hard to figure out what I want to write about, or even how. I've never done so well with writing without any kind of structure - I like to be given deadlines and tasks. I seem to need some sort of constraints to keep me focused when I'm writing. So I guess I just need a lot more practice at writing to be more disciplined with it. We'll see what happens with that, I guess. (And yes, I'm aware that this waffling does not bode well for that....)

Daydreaming my life away...

I realise this is basically becoming an online diary, which is probably not the most interesting thing to blog about, but meh whatever. I'm hoping that somewhere along the way of my meandering waffling I occasionally stumble across something vaguely interesting or useful or insightful, so I'll keep going. I think it's doing me good, anyway. I'm trying not to be quite so introspective and all "me, me, me" about this, but sort of measuring how I'm doing. I feel like it's keeping me a bit accountable to the things that I want to do and the changes I need to make.

So, anyway. A couple of things I've noticed over the last 24 hours or so. My energy is waning a little bit (though I'm still experiencing some nausea and my appetite isn't really back so I guess that isn't helping), and I'm finding it a bit more difficult not to let my mind wander. I have this habit that I've had almost as long as I can remember of fantasizing tiny little things. I don't know if this is common in people who suffer from depression, or in anyone, because for me at least, it's the sort of thing I feel a tad embarrassed about admitting to. But I tend to have sort of daydreaming conversations in my head anytime I'm alone with people. I'm finding it tough to not do that at the minute. It's almost an automatic thing, and I do it especially to comfort myself. But I know that it's not going to do me any good, really. It's wishful thinking, to a certain extent, and lulling myself into a false sense of security that everything will be ok.

I'm trying not to be down on myself about it though. Just to try to stop when I catch myself doing it. I'm trying to distract myself as much as possible, with work and an incredibly patient and understanding friend who's been keeping me sane the last few days.

So, I guess I need to add sitting around daydreaming to my list of things that need to change! Less daydreaming and more doing, I suppose.