Complain, complain, complain...

I've been deliberately trying not to write so much about my head and all of my many issues (for which I really wish there was a better word), especially because counselling was really helping there for a while. But alas, it was only a temporary measure (which I realise is better than nothing, but still, it's intensely infuriating to feel like you're just starting to get somewhere, and then the resource is over. But anyway - back to the point). So, given that I'm currently without any sort of counselling provision, maybe it will do me a bit of good to talk about things a bit.

Today, it's complaining. Negativity is a difficult and complicated thing for me. It's a huge part of my personality - I think most people that I know would mention complaining at some point in any description of my characteristics, and certainly being a bit cynical, negative and pessimistic is just a part of who I am, and who I have always been. And I like a lot of things about that - it's just not in my nature to be some happy clappy, sunny, optimistic person who accepts everything around them. It's important to me to question things, to play devil's advocate and see the downsides of things to try to weigh things up, so negativity is a big part of that. Also it's just funnier. It's difficult to have a sarcastic, sardonic sense of humour (which is the sort of humour I've always been attracted to) without being negative, darker, cynical - whatever you want to call it. And god knows I love a good rant.

But dwelling on the negative, complaining about every.little.thing in my life, making mountains out of molehills, and searching out things to get angry and annoyed about - these come down quite firmly on the Not Good side of things. And it's astonishing to me how easily and quickly I can go there without even realising it. There's a little bit of self-righteousness in there too (well, maybe more than a little bit). I seem to get a kick out of finding things to be annoyed about, and putting myself on what I see to be the right side of any argument. Something in there about my high standards, I should think. Maybe I'm constantly trying to find a way to vindicate my way of looking at a situation, trying to find a way to see myself as right so I find all these arguments, even if they're just in my head, and a storm of anger comes down from it.

It gets to the point where I don't know what else to say or think or talk about. I literally have no words left that aren't negative, that aren't complaining or moaning about something. I feel blank inside, like there's just a huge vacuum when I take out the whininess. And then, of course, I get down on myself and start to beat myself up, as if the constant anger and glass-half-empty-and-probably-has-poison-in-it-anyway attitude wasn't bad enough.

So I've been trying to be a lot more conscious of this lately. But when it's such a big part of who I am, it's difficult. I find it hard to come up with anything else to put into my head, to have any other thoughts at all. Which is probably why I end up spending so much time spaced out in front of the tv, trying not to think about anything at all.

And, inevitably, this all comes back down to balance. Finding a middle road that doesn't mean that I have to change my entire personality to be like Alec Baldwin when he guested in Friends that time, but to also not be a complete pain in the ass, and an extremely miserable, depressed and angry one at that.

I don't know why I find balance so hard. I don't know why I inherently seem to oscillate from one extreme to the other. I know that a lot of it is down to the whole perfectionist thing - if something isn't perfect, it's completely shit, so everything starts to exist for me in a solely binary state. But I don't really know why that is. And the question of why is a difficult one in itself. Part of me looks at this as some sort of logical problem, like an equation, or a murder mystery where one clue will suddenly solve the whole thing. And I do think that there's at least some rationale in the idea that if I could figure out why, then I could start to address it better. But it's highly unlikely that I ever will understand why, that's just the nature of these things. Wherever this all came from, it's here and I have to deal with it. These are just some of the rabbit holes that my mind likes to disappear down, to avoid having to actually do anything, to deal with the situation.

So, for the moment I'm trying to just not complain as much. To think twice before I write or say something that's moaning about something that's really not all that important. To stop and think and be conscious of what I'm saying or thinking, before I just let it take over. And as corny as it sounds, I've found that (for the meantime, at least) covering my room in photographs is helping. Photos of everything and anything from the last few years - a reminder that everything isn't all that shit. That I do have good things, and to try to stop the "but..." that tends to come after that. And as much as I don't like photographs of myself all that much, I'm generally grinning like an idiot in most of them and in some weird way that actually seems to help me remember that while I might not have a rose-coloured view of the world by nature, neither am I utterly miserable. I might act like it a lot of the time, but it's not really who I am. I just have to keep trying to remember that.

Evidence of things unseen

I suppose I should really write something here. Hopefully something a tad less dramatic than my last post.

I realise now that it perhaps sounded a bit more sinister than was my intention. When I talk of giving up and so on, I don't mean giving up on actually being alive and breathing and what not - I mean giving up on the idea of anything ever getting any better. Giving up the hope that can be so painful so often. It feels so much like everytime I have hope that things might change, that things can get better that something comes along to knock me down, and then kick me when I'm down, then stamp on my head, piss on me and leave me there for scavenging animals to try to eat. Not that I'm being melodramatic or anything... But it's increasingly difficult to try to focus on the bright side when it feels like the universe punishes me every time that I do.

Which is what brings me to the topic of this lovely little post - evidence. Evidence is a pretty big part of my depression and anxiety problems, now that I think about it. I have all of this evidence stored up inside for every time something has gone wrong, everytime something hasn't gone my way, everytime someone has let me down or hurt me (intentionally or otherwise). And it's very difficult to see evidence for anything more positive. Everything becomes distorted and corrupted in your mind, you absolutely cannot believe anything good that's ever happened, anything good that anyone has ever said to you. Anything good is all lies, as far as you're concerned.

One of the techniques of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to list the pros and cons to things - make out an actual list of the reasons for and against anything that you think. It's supposed to force you to recognise that you're not always right about the things that you think, to stop you over-generalising and catastrophising everything and look at the details instead of just going off the rails. It's a difficult balancing act, though, to actually make yourself recognise and accept any of the good things. That's what I've been struggling with a lot lately.

For a while there I kept trying - no matter how down I got - to not turn it into a self-worth thing, to not beat myself up everytime I got upset or annoyed or emotional about something. I tried to just accept my flaws rather than focus all my energy on them and how awful a person I must be as a result, and tried to concentrate instead on the person that I want to be. To actually try to be a bit better instead of just complaining to myself that I'm so awful all the time.

But that gets hard sometimes. When you get let down or disappointed or struggle to cope with something not going as you had hoped it would, it got more and more difficult for me to keep trying to focus on the practical, positive, proactive side of things. It didn't even feel like self hate a lot of the time - it was fear. Paralysing, horrible, horrible fear. That I was so much worse a person than I thought, because why else would these things be happening to me? Have I just been kidding myself, pulling the wool over my eyes - am I really so much worse than I ever thought I was, and that's why all of this is happening? And if I'm so awful when I thought I was trying to get better, then I must just be a waste of space, I can't do anything right and should just give up. It went something like that.

I seem to have a fear of not being able to see the real evidence in front of me. I'm terrified of discovering that I've been blind to something, that I've been stupid not to see what's right in my face. I suppose maybe that's something to do with the perfectionism - not just the not being perfect part, but being wrong. I hate being wrong. I hate not knowing. I hate not knowing what to do next, what the right answer is or how to find the answer. In some ways, that's a positive trait in me - I suppose it's what always made me good at research and really enjoy learning things and gave me a curiosity about the world and education. But when you turn that sort of inspection towards yourself, it can all go horribly wrong.

And then on top of all of that, there's the sense of failure. I was so convinced a few months ago that I'd made some sort of breakthrough, that things were really, honestly going to be different. And that I've managed to have such an awful month or two makes me feel rather defeated. It makes me question everything. Do I just keep trying, or am I trying at the wrong thing? Is there something I should be doing differently? And if so, what is it, and how do I find out? And so often, that all just gets so exhausting. It feels physically hard to keep going on, keep getting out of bed and going through the motions each day. Very real and scary financial implications for me and my family are the only things that do eventually drag me out of bed. But that becomes so much effort, that it's hard to find the energy or motivation to do anything else.

I need help with this. But I don't know what sort. New meds? Therapy? Although I can't afford therapy and I don't know if I have any free options left to me at the moment. I know I need to get out and socialise more but I've gotten to the point where I just don't seem to have many friends left, and those that I do have I can only see or talk to once in a blue moon because they're too busy. And then there's the whole can of worms of whether or not to tell anyone anything about my problems, which is a whole other post on its own. My doctor keeps telling me to get out and exercise more. To try to find a hobby or something that involves other people. I don't think she gets just how far gone I am - I can barely force myself to be around my flatmates, trying to do something like that is like entering the Olympics before I can walk. And I feel so confined by so many aspects of my situation that I, once again, don't know what the right answer is. I have zero funds at all for anything - I'm finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, let alone finding any disposable income for extracurricular activities. My work schedule is such that I never have free time that I can depend upon - I have to work from home when I'm sick and when I'm on leave, so I can't exactly commit much of my free time to anything because there just isn't much. And I'm so physically exhausted all the time from not sleeping properly that doing anything other than collapsing as soon as I get in the door seems like an impossibility.

Now I'm starting to make excuses for things, I know that. As much as I need some help and support, I need to do this myself because no one can do it for me. I need to make the effort. Trying to figure out that balance between doing it myself and needing and wanting help has always been a struggle for me. I always seem to oscillate between being so desperate for friends and relationships - people I can rely on - and being so hurt and disappointed by the failure of such relationships that I give up on people altogether. Neither is really working for me.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts for the time being. Maybe getting some of this stuff down here will get it out of my head for a bit so I can actually have some thoughts in there about something other than my mental health. It'd be a nice change.

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.

Pinball Wizard

I only ever seem to write here about how tough things are getting. That's unfortunate. I've lost the will to pay sufficient attention to the likes of the X Factor to liveblog it, and I just don't seem to have much else in my head these days, but how tough things are getting.

It's an uphill struggle these days, it really is. I'm trying really hard not to be negative about myself, not to slip into those old ways of thinking where as soon as I get upset/stressed out/annoyed about something that I make it all about me and how awful I am, and how much I loathe myself, etc etc etc. Sometimes I've slipped a bit too far towards that before I catch myself on, but I'm trying.

But the thing that's distressing me most at the minute is my apparent inability to take my mind off things that are concerning me. They rattle around and around and around my head, like a pinball going at lightening speed. And the things concerning me are mostly things outside of my control. I can't do much about them, I can't 'fix' them. So they fly around inside my head and torture me.

Not being able to fix things is an increasingly bigger problem for me. I've realised that I have this need to try to fix everything - to take on the responsibility for everything, and try to make it better. Sometimes because I think it's my fault and it's up to me to sort it out; sometimes because my bizarre perfectionism makes me think I'm the only one who can sort it out; and sometimes just because. Because I just can't handle anything being wrong or broken or not right. I don't seem to have any clue how to accept things not being how I want them to be - I just can't get my head around the idea that I can't fix something.

And then I spend so much time fixating on the things that I can't fix, that I don't pay any attention to the things that I possibly could do anything about. For example, something that I can't fix but can't get my mind off of: the situation with my ex-boyfriend. Something that I can do something about but keep ignoring: sorting out appointments with recruitment agencies, sorting out projects for Christmas that need to be done asap, getting myself some exercise to combat the weight, the sleeping problems and my general overall health.

I know I'm being an ass about it but I just keep doing it. I was about to write that I just can't help it there, but that's not true and I damn well know it. I have to keep trying so hard to remind myself that that is never, ever true. I can help it, I can change the way I react to things, but only by trying really hard, every single day. In some ways, trying to combat the depression is so much more difficult than the depression itself. It takes so much effort. It's so easy to forget, to just slip back into old, lazy ways.

A huge part of the problem is that I spend too much time alone. Far too much. Basically all of my time. I need more time with other people to stop my head wandering to places that it shouldn't. But that's not a prolbem that's all that easily solved - I literally have no one to hang out with. I have a friend from uni who I've been getting back in touch with lately and we meet up for dinner about once a month but that's it. And I suspect that she's slightly peeved at me at the moment for not going away for another friend's birthday for the weekend, but I'm far too skint to contemplate it.

But there's no one else. I don't get on so well with my flatmates, and they spend all of their free time with their boyfriends anyway. Another friend who I used to hang out with sometimes has been basically ignoring me since she started going out with her boyfriend last year (and of course competing with everyone else's boyfriends is helping me feel just super about my own situation...), I've barely been able to see her or get any kind of response from her since. She always agrees that yes, we must catch up soon, but it's always put off and off and off, and I just can't really consider her a proper friend anymore, because it's too much of a continual disappointment.

My doctor keeps insisting that I need to join a club or a class or something, but she really doesn't get that I have absolutely zero funds for such an endeavour, and none of my interests really lend themselves to that sort of thing, so I have no idea what I'd do. As much as I know that she's right about me needing to be around people more, I just don't know what the right answer to that is for me. I've never been the joining a club sort of person. The only things I was involved at in school were musical, despite my having zero musical ability. And the only choir I'm aware of in Belfast that I could join has the friend mentioned above in it, and at this point I don't really want to have too much to do with her.

I'm making excuses for myself, I know that, and I know that I need to cut that right out. But I can't help but feel that if something doesn't sound interesting and slightly comfortable to me, then I'm not going to be very good at meeting people through it.

I don't know, I've exhausted myself thinking about it now. And that's another problem - I just get so bloody tired all the time that I give up and just turn my attention to finding something to watch on tv instead.

And now I want a nap.

Tired.

Today has not been a good day.

Work has gradually been getting more and more on top of me, so when something went wrong today I think that sort of set everything else off. I just don't know what to do anymore. I was so determined before that I wouldn't let this beat me, that I just had to be strong and stand my ground. But somehow that hasn't happened. I didn't really notice it not happening, until it hadn't, so to speak. It's as though the lights turned off so slowly and gradually that I didn't notice the darkness approaching until it was pitch black.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I've slipped back completely into old ways of thinking. I've still been trying to resist the thoughts of low self-worth and bat those away as best I can. But this rut that I've sunken into is more than just a dull, lifeless routine. I feel so completely lost sometimes. I don't trust my own judgement, so I don't know what the right course of action is. With anything at all. I'm on the verge of tears all the time, even when I don't realise it - all of a sudden I'll just burst into tears and barely be able to figure out what might have started it or what I'm upset about.

I'm really struggling to understand this. I thought I was trying; I thought I had made some progress. And I know, somewhere in my head, I have made some progress. I'm not immediately turning this around to become yet another instrument to beat myself up with - at least not for too long, anyway. But I feel like nothing works. Meds, counselling, therapy, my mini-revelation. I don't quite understand what I'm doing wrong. And it doesn't help that there are so many things currently outside of my control that are making me feel worse. Stuff at work, stuff at home, family stuff, money stuff, left-over relationship stuff. As much as I know that I am the only one who can change anything in my life or in my head, it feels that there are so many external factors conspiring against me that the universe is just toying with me for its own malevolent amusement. The bastard.

I do want to keep on trying, I do. I don't want to give up because that is possibly more frightening than anything else. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I don't know what is the right answer anymore, which is the right direction. I can't seem to make any decisions for the life of me, because I honestly can't see clearly enough to know which choice I ought to make. I don't like that.

I don't want this to be the end. I don't want to give up. I don't want to resign myself to feeling like this all of the time and just accept that I'll always be miserable and alone and unhappy. But I need some sort of help. I don't know what that help is, where to find it, or how to know it when I see it, but I need it. I want to keep looking for it, but I'm getting tired.

Hurry up and wait.

I am both exceptionally lazy, and really bad at waiting. I don't quite understand how those two things square up, but there you have it.

I just can't seem to do anything these days. I'm constantly tired and lazy and never want to really do anything but lie around and nap. But at the same time, I'm incredibly impatient about some things. Especially anything in my head. I know that I just need to give it time to get past certain things, to move on. But I don't want to wait. I want things to be how I want them to be right now. This very minute. All this waiting and being patient crap does not sit well with me. It seems that anything outside of my control cannot happen soon enough, but the things inside my control can wait as long as I feel like it. Which isn't the most logical or sensible approach to these things.

I'm not entirely sure what's at the bottom of all this. Is it just a general laziness, that's come about from years of low energy, low mood, low everything? Or is it something more inherent in my personality? Do I have some sense of entitlement, that I deserve everything I want right now, without having to work for it? Is it some sort of need for instant gratification that's a worrying and depressing sign of our times? I dunno, but it's bloody stupid and annoying. I don't think I was always like this. I don't remember feeling like this when I was at school or university. But then maybe the structure of those sort of systems kept me afloat. Always things to have to do, by a certain time, and they were mostly things that I liked and enjoyed doing, so motivation wasn't as big a problem.

I really wish that I could get those things back - the energy, motivation, sense of purpose that I had from academia. I had dinner with an old friend from university recently, and she said that she doesn't think I've changed at all from our uni days. I don't know about that. Obviously, she doesn't know about my problems so I guess she doesn't have a lot of data to go off of. But it's nice to know that I still seem like myself to her, whatever that is. I guess my personality, my sense of humour, all that sort of stuff maybe hasn't changed that much. And in some ways, as much as it's draining to have to hide my problems from so many people so much of the time, there's almost something refreshing about being around someone who hasn't got a clue about them - it's like I can almost pretend that I don't have these problems and just be myself. Obviously that's only a temporary thing, and hardly a long-term approach to depression, but still. Gotta see the upsides where I can, I guess.

Ironically I think I'm a bit more confident now that I was at uni. I think that's partly just the effect of going out into the working world, being in increasingly more situations where I need confidence and such. And I think it's also partly because of the depression. It's weird, the sort of strength that you get from it. It doesn't feel like it a lot of the time - you feel so tired, so low, so afraid and lonely and unworthy so often. But somewhere there's some kind of 'well fuck the world' sort of thing that comes out of it. A feeling of 'what the hell can the world do to me now, things are already pretty bad' that gives you some sort of weird, quiet strength. And just knowing that I've had these problems for so long now, but they haven't done me in. Not quite yet, anyway. But I know that that means there's some sort of strength and energy in there. Somewhere. I just need to unearth it and put it to good use.

I have no idea how I got to this from the start of this post. It's weird, the way my train of thought can go, especially when I'm writing. I think that's why I need to do this more. Sometimes I do just get sick of thinking and talking about things, and I do feel a bit self-indulgent doing this, like I think my problems are so important that they should be aired to the world. But that's not my intention. Writing seems to help me get things straight more than just going over and over and over them in my head. So it seems like an actual productive thing. As well as kinda cathartic. And for some reason, writing vaguely publicly like this helps with that - when I would write just for myself, like a private diary or whatever, I would go down the rabbit hole of self-hatred far too often. I used it to torture myself for some odd reason. I don't know quite why that is - maybe I thought I had to play up to the idea of a victim or something.

I have to keep reminding myself of this - something has changed for me. Even though I've been feeling quite down and stuck and lost of late, it's still different than it used to me. Only a little bit different, at times, but still. I have to hold onto that and keep reminding myself. I very often don't want to - I want to sink into that pit of despair sometimes. It's perversely pleasant and comforting to drown in the negative. But I try not to let myself do it for long - just enough to realise that that is not how I want to be anymore. And yeah, maybe it's all a lot harder than it seemed at first when I had my 'revelation' or whatever the hell it was. I had so much energy then, it seems, that I don't now. But I'm still trying. Maybe I need to tone down my expectations a bit, but I'm trying. I think. I hope. And I guess that's the main thing. To have hope.

Once more unto the breach...

I know that this will probably seem rather self-involved and indulgent, not to mention terribly dull, but I think I maybe need to update the state of my head here a little bit more often. I seem to do better writing about things than letting them endlessly ruminate in my head, so maybe this will help me to stay on track a little bit better.

So, yesterday was quite a crappy day, as yesterday's post indicates. Everything seemed to be getting away from me, and the only thing that I could concentrate on was how lost and lonely and scared I felt. I cried - a lot - and went home and lay on my ass for hours watching tv and eating junk food. But somewhere along the way in the evening, I managed to get some work done (mostly because I absolutely had to, no other option). And I really did feel better for it. I wasn't going to bed stressing about how much work I would have in the morning and I felt relatively productive and like I accomplished something. Only a small something, and there are a million and one other things I need to do, but still. The day at least ended a little bit better.

Today I'm mostly tired. Which is par for the course with me at this time of day. I know that I really need to do something about exercising, because I think that's the only thing that will help on the tiredness front. My doctor has offered to give me exercise on prescription - basically 6 weeks' paid for access to a local council leisure centre. I'm a bit skeptical (mostly because there isn't a council leisure centre particularly convenient to me), but it's only 6 weeks so I can at least give that a try, right? Plus my weight is being brought up more and more by the doctor each time I visit. I'm not exactly obese (yet) but I'm definitely far too overweight and it's starting to cause me a lot of problems. Not least of which is the fact that very few of my clothes still fit me.

As for all of the other things that have been running around my head non-stop lately, I'm just trying to shut them out for the time being. Maybe I just needed a bit of a low day and a blow out like yesterday to help me re-start everything a bit. I don't know. But I feel a little bit better today, and that's something. I just have to try very hard now to keep that going.

Freaking out about things, obsessing over all of the things that I'm unhappy with in my life doesn't do a damned thing to fix them. And maybe there are some things I can't fix, and I need to accept that. I'm not very good at accepting things I don't like (understatement of the century, that is) but I need to figure out how. And for right now, I just have to try not to let it defeat me, at the very least.

And with that, back to work.

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.

Balancing act

The past week or so has been...frustrating. I think maybe that's the best way to describe it. I'm frustrated at myself, at things I can't control, at people around me. And I don't like it. I feel like I'm backtracking on the progress I'd made. I'm hoping that a lot of it is hormonal, and that that is at least some explanation for how emotional and out of control I've been feeling. But that's not really much consolation, to be honest. I don't like how I feel, or how I'm acting, or how I'm thinking. I feel like I'm slipping back towards being that person I don't like anymore. I've been irrationally angry, hurt, emotional and felt completely powerless. I've felt like I have no idea which turn to take next - that I can't trust my judgement. Sometimes, I can't even make a decision - I literally have no idea which way to go.

Balance, as I've mentioned before, is something I'm not good at. And that's been a big factor for me lately. When I was feeling dark and low before, I would often think that I might be best to give up on a lot of things - that the hope was what was keeping me down. Maybe I needed to get rid of those things (even if they had at times made me very happy and very 'me') from my life, just accept that things are shit, and move on. But that's defeatist, self-deprecating and non-productive. It's cutting my nose off to spite my face. I know that. And yet...

I know that the bigger thing to do is to try to find a balance with these things. Some sort of middle ground where I'm not living in some sort of fantasy about things, where I'm being realistic but still actively trying to make things better. But I really find that difficult. In the abstract like that, it sounds perfectly plausible and reasonable but when it comes to the crunch I honestly don't know what's the right answer. It's more than just being afraid or unsure or scared of the hard work. I genuinely do not know what will be best for me, sometimes.

Whilst this does apply mostly to one particular area of my life at the minute, I'm being deliberately vague for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm a bit sick of the sound of my own voice (in my head, anyway) going on about this particular problem. I need a bit of a break from it, but at the same time needed to get it off my chest a bit. And secondly, while there's one particular thing in the front of my mind when I write about this balance thing, I know that it applies to lots of other things. It's something I really need to work on generally. But I really feel quite lost and frustrated about how to do that, when I'm having so much trouble with trusting my own judgement. And my still being quite tired and not fully recovered from being sick is making me make excuses for myself to just lie around and do nothing, and end up getting upset about things. Which is obviously not helping.

Anyway, this has been an even more rambly post than normal, for which I apologise. I will endeavour to get back on track soon, particularly with the recapping/reviewing. I've been horribly lazy about that stuff recently, which I must sort out in the next week or so. I've decided to have a go at live blogging The X Factor (since I'm still on a Twitter hiatus), so I can only apologise in advance for what Saturday night will bring!

Addicted to misery?

Well. That was a slightly longer hiatus than I intended. It seems that my body chose almost the exact moment that I handed in my final assignment (well, the exact day anyway) to have me come down with the mother of all colds. And of course I've been way too busy at work to even contemplate taking proper time off to get better, so I've been shuffling and snivelling along as best as I could. Finally starting to feel a bit better, but still really tired. Which has been fairly fatal for my motivation and energy levels. I was so looking forward to getting my course over with so that I could get started on the million of other things I want to do, then I have to take to my sick bed. Typical!

What's also typical is that I'm writing this when I should be working. In fairness, it's after 9pm at night and I'm at home so I really shouldn't *have* to be working, but there you go. It's just one of those weeks and my lack of productivity due to this lovely lurgy I've had has gotten me really far behind.

But anyway. None of that is remotely interesting or informative, unless you had a desperate desire to know what's up with my work schedule and immune system. And frankly, if that is the case, I think you might need a little more help than reading this blog can possibly give you.

I've had a post floating around my mind for the past week or so. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to write it, but I guess we'll see by the end of this.

It's occurred to me lately that my depression and anxiety issues have a lot in common with addiction, for me at least. I've been thinking about how come I've changed now; how come I've had this revelation, this clarity now and not before? Or later? And is it just sheer luck - do you just have to sit around waiting for this revelation to hit? It seems to me that it's a lot like when addicts reach that last straw, their rock bottom or whichever other cliche you choose to use, that finally makes them want to change and gives them the strength to be more successful with change than they were before.

But the problem with that is that it suggests that it's up to the fates to decide when that moment is. That doesn't seem quite right.  Or fair. But I honestly don't know why I came to my sense now instead of years ago. I know that I had a bigger wake up call than I've had in a long time - someone was incredibly honest with me and (after hours of crying and wailing) that somehow finally made me see things more clearly. It made me realise how much of my life I was wasting, how many opportunities were being ruined and how this would never change if I didn't change.

But I have no idea how anyone else is supposed to get to that moment. Part of the reason that this has been floating around my head was that I was wondering if maybe I should consider doing some sort of voluntary work within the mental health/counselling sector. I have no idea if I'd be any good at it, as I'm not generally a very touchy feely sort of person, but I feel like I'd like to make my experiences count for something. But if having this sort of moment of clarity is so arbitrary, what could I really do for someone?

And whilst I'm talking about this in terms of addiction, it brings up the whole idea of balance. I've never been very good with balance - always been all or nothing. That's part of the perfectionist trait in me, I suppose - that it's completely perfect, or it's completely shit. No in betweens. But this is more like an eating disorder than an alcohol or drug addiction - I may have gotten addicted to misery to some degree, but I can't avoid negative emotions anymore than an anorexic can avoid food. So I have to find some way to balance things. To know when it's ok to be upset, and let myself feel that, and when enough is enough.

I've been struggling a little with that lately. Being sick but having so much to do at work wiped me out, and now I'm finding it hard to get out of that 'just make it home and crawl into bed' phase, even though I'm mostly better by now. It's been too easy to slip back into old habits of spending the entire night in various states of consciousness in front of a tv and/or computer screen.

And there's lots of other things where I find it hard to find some acceptable balance. I shan't go into all of that now, because I don't have the time (and this post has been in my drafts folder for far too long), and I don't really have the mental energy for it either. I'm finding less impetus to think or write about what's going on in my head. I can't quite figure out if that's part of the post-cold laziness, or if I'm getting sick of talking about it, and whether either of those is a good thing or a bad thing.

All in all, that's a rather meandering, pointless post, for which I apologise. I have funner posts in the works but I apparently now have a slightly busy weekend ahead of me involving hyperactive children, so it may be a while before those come to complete fruition. In the meantime, I'm thanking the big spaghetti monster in the sky that it's Friday and I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of this Wispa that's been in my office drawer for two days. It's the little things, y'know?

Panic stations...

Hmm. Today is not fun so far. I was out of the office yesterday for a course that I'm doing (for work) and apparently a client came on complaining that they hadn't received something they should've gotten ages ago. Now, the client is perfectly entitled to feel annoyed about this - it's something that slipped my mind. I had been working on it, then I got sick and some other drama reared its head, and it completely slipped off my radar. My fault.

However. I am also the only person in my department. There used to be 3 of us, then 2, then one part time person as well as me, and now it's just me. And we have more work than ever before. I have been trying to point out just how impractical and unsustainable this is to my boss, but being the sort of person that I am, I'm not great with confrontation so I've obviously not been making myself clear enough. I've also been stupid enough to just work all the hours in the day to get things done, and the more that I do this, the more my boss expects it of me.

So the story today is that he doesn't seem to be too happy with me that things have slipped behind, despite my telling him repeatedly that things were behind, and that I was doing my best, but there's only so many hours in the day. And I don't get paid for all that many of them. Therefore, I'm feeling much more anxious and panicky today than I have done in a while. I am trying hard not to get overwhelmed, or to fall apart, and just take deep breaths and concentrate on what I need to do. But I'm very nervous about having to talk to my boss about all of this. It's an inherent part of my nature - I've always been a good girl, who does things by the rules and never gets in trouble. And now I feel like I'm being called into the headmaster's office to be shouted at.

It has also been an inherent part of my nature up until now to feel responsible for everything and to feel like I have to try to fix everything. But that just is not working anymore. I have to try to be strong to just do the work I'm getting paid for and not keep giving into the pressure, but also to make that clear to my boss so that he is aware of my workload.

This is a bit of a meh post, I know, I just find it helpful to write this out to try to keep myself calm instead of getting worked up about it.

Heartbroken, but not broken.

I've not really written anything about my head or anything head-adjacent for a few days, so I thought maybe it was time to have a quick check in. Writing here seems to help me to figure stuff out a bit more, moreso than just sitting around thinking about things.

It's been...an odd few days, to say the least. I've not really been sure if I wanted to talk about this here or not, but I figure it might help. My relationship issues have finally been resolved, in that we broke up. He said it was nothing to do with me, that he just isn't in the right place to be in a relationship right now. Which completely and utterly sucks. But there's not much I can do about that. Which is the really frustrating thing sometimes - I think when I was concerned that things weren't going well because of me and my issues and the way I had been behaving of late, I thought it was under my control at least a little bit. That if I could just convince him of how I'd figured so much stuff out and was determined to change, that things would be ok. But that's not the case.

The hardest thing is that we're best friends. Best, best friends. We were so close before we started going out, and meant so much to each other that neither of us wants to lose that. But it's difficult to figure out how to get used to not being a couple but still being close. I know it will be hard, but as I see it I just don't have an option. I need my best friend. So we'll just have to figure out a way to make it work.

I think I've been doing sort of ok with it, though. Which I am a bit proud of, to be honest. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still in the spontaneously-bursting-into-tears-at-any-moment stage, and I'm utterly heartbroken. But I think it helps that I'm not mad at him - it was just really bad timing. And I really do believe him when he says that he still wants us to be close friends. I know that our friendship is important to him, and I suppose it probably says a lot about how far I've come that I can believe that even when I'm upset - that I'm not jumping to the worst conclusions and beating myself up. And I've been doing my best to get on with work stuff and work for my course (which will be over in less than 6 days, thank the lord!).

But it's still really, really crappy. I'm just doing what I can to get through each day. If I feel sad and need to cry a little, then I do, but I try to keep a bit of a lid on it so it doesn't get out of hand. I think I always had trouble with that before - knowing what was ok to be upset about, and how upset was reasonable before I started being self-destructive with it. I seem to be making some sort of progress on that front.

It helps a lot that people have been really supportive of me with the stuff that I've been figuring out over the last few weeks since I started posting here again. My friends are proud of me - and he is too, when I explained everything that I've been working through recently - and I feel proud of me too. That helps keep me going. I like this version of me a lot more, and I want to hang onto her and not let her go. I just keep trying to hold onto this vision of the person I most want to be, and not let any "buts" get in the way.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. Everything is still hard, and takes work. Especially with things like motivation to do stuff that bores the ass off me (namely most of my job and this course at the minute). But I'm getting there.

Busy

Hmm. It seems I haven't written anything in the last day or two. That wasn't intentional, I just somehow was too busy. Well, sort of.

I've been reasonably productive at work this week, which is nice. It's rather satisfying to feel like I'm getting things done and achieving things. Of course, there's still tons left to do, but I've decided that's not my problem anymore. I'm working as best I can in the hours I get paid for - there is literally nothing else that can be expected of me.

I've not been all that productive in other areas, though. I've been coming home and collapsing under the strain of an hour or two spent shopping in town and not really getting much done. This evening I did manage to do some ironing for the first time in I don't even know how long, and put away my grocery delivery. Doesn't sound like much, but it was something.

Still have to get my CV and application form, and my presentation for my course done. I'll get there, though. It's a bit difficult to find the balance between doing absolutely nothing all the time, and trying to be productive. Going from one extreme to the other is obviously not going to work, but I still feel like I'm being rather lazy. But I'm keeping at it and trying to do some things, which has to be better than the nothing I've done every other evening for months.

I also met up with an old friend from university, who I haven't seen for probably a couple of years, this week. Which was really nice. I didn't feel as frustrated as I often have before when trying to catch up with uni friends. I'm not sure exactly why that is. I think it's partly because I'm seeing my life and myself less as something that is to be judged, and more as a work in progress.

This has got to be my dullest blog post yet - I do apologise! It seems like the more I try to think of something interesting to write about, the more my mind resembles a rabbit in headlights. All suggestions gratefully received!

Will you be my friend?

I've always found friendships a bit elusive. Something I desperately hunted after, yet could never quite keep hold of. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I'm sure there are quite a few I've yet to discover. This has been on my mind a bit lately. Relationships of all sort have always seemed to be at the heart of my problems - or at the heart of my hurt, at least. I've carried around the grief of lost friendships and ruined relationships every day of my life. It's heavy, and it taints everything else. Always wondering who's going to reject me next, and when.

I think I'm slowly starting to realise how to let go of that. Some hurts were bigger than others, and will take longer to heal. But I think I'm figuring this stuff out. That other people have their own hang ups and issues, and that not everything has to be about me. And I hope I'm figuring out how to be a better friend to people. To have more patience, to be less selfish, to be more self-reliant instead of trying to make people my crutch. I think that's a mistake I've made a lot over the years - mistaking emotional dependence for closeness. It's incredibly unfortunate that I've realised this too late for some of these friendships, but there you go.

I hope that I can salvage something back from some of them, however. There are a lot of people I've just drifted away from, lost contact with for no real reason. I'm getting back in touch with friends from university with whom I haven't had much contact over the last few years. I think maybe I found it difficult to adjust to our friendships changing as our lives took different paths, but I get that now. I get that we don't have to have the same friendship that we had when we lived together at university and spent 90% of our time together, but that I'd still rather have them in my life than not. I can only hope that they feel the same way about me.

There are other friendships that need repaired, or at least need a service. It's hard to know how to go about doing that sometimes, but I can only try. That's all I can do - be patient, and try.

The Fear.

I've been having some trouble thinking of anything to blog about recently. I've got ideas for scripts that I want to write, but I don't really want to write too much about that here. Not that I think anyone is about to run off with my ideas, but I'd just rather keep all of that contained until I'm ready to unleash it onto an unsuspecting world.

Writing is a funny thing. It's something that I've wanted to do all of my life, yet it's also something that I've struggled with for much of my life. As the saying goes, I don't like to write, I like to have written. And that's not uncommon for successful and talented writers, so I believe. For me, writing isn't this enormous, overpowering passionate endeavour - the sort of thing that it pains me not to do. It's simply the way I communicate and engage with the world. It's not all that dramatic, it's just the way I best express myself (I hope, anyway) and the way my head works. I hope that's a vaguely positive thing for my ambitions to be a writer, I don't really know.

I've always had a bit of a fear about writing as well. I was good at academic writing - really good. And one day, when I finally find my dissertations from uni, I'll throw them up here and prove that. I wasn't any kind of a genius, but I was a good writer when it came to essays and dissertations on arts subjects. But I've always struggled with anything more personal and more creative. There's several reasons for that. A great deal of it is simply laziness and lack of motivation. Part of it is that I don't do well without structure and deadlines imposed externally for this sort of thing. But a really big bit of it is just fear. Fear of failing. I've wanted to be a writer my whole life - what if I try and it turns out I'm shit? Easier to just make excuses about why I can't write, n'est-ce pas?

But I'm sick of that. I'm sick of living in limbo all the time, in some sort of suspended animation. And I've finally realised that it doesn't have to be so all or nothing. A huge part of my problems are that I make everything black and white; all or nothing. It's perfect or it's the worst thing in the world. I'm slowly starting to see that things aren't quite like that. Insert some cliche about life being about the journey, not the destination, here. I don't have to be a perfect writer right now. I don't have to sit down, write the most amazing script in the world, have it commissioned and win a bunch of awards for it. At least, not right now. I need to practice. It's a muscle that needs exercised, whichever part of my brain that deals with the writing end of things. The only way that I'll get to be a good writer is to keep trying and to learn.

And that's how I feel about a lot of things now. I've spent so much of my (adult) life with these ridiculous perfectionist standards. Either it's perfect, or it's shit. No in between, no second chances. But that's just beyond daft. Life doesn't work that way - and nor should it. We have to continually strive to be better, to get better, to learn. To not beat ourselves up for not being the perfect person that we want to be right.this.second, but to keep trying to be the person we want to be. We won't ever reach perfection, but we might at least get to something approaching happy. And that's got to be worth trying, right?

Hmm, this was supposed to be about writing and it ended up being about my head, again. I'm not sure if that's because writing is so tied into my personality, or because I'm in danger of becoming obsessed with the inner workings of my mind. It may not appear obvious, but I truly am trying not to be self-involved with this - I'm trying to be self-aware instead.

Anyway, if any of the two or three of you reading this feel like giving me writing assignments to try to give me some sort of deadline or structure, please feel free! I'm not writing your essays for uni, though. Not without payment, at least.

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.