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.

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.

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?

Shoppers Anonymous

Weather's a funny old thing, isn't it? A week or so ago I finally let go of any hope of a return to vaguely summery weather, and resigned myself to autumn and winter clothes. So lots of boots, wool coats, knitwear, hats and scarves. Which I really rather like. I am a fan of autumn and winter, because I like getting all wrapped up in wintery clothes and I think they rather suit me. I can rock a Christmas jumper, I'll tell yous that and tell you no more.

And yet here I am bemoaning the weather outside. It's currently absolutely tipping down outside. I wouldn't mind so much, but I can't seem to find a water resistent pair of boots for love nor money, and had I known it was going to be like this today (bloody weather forecasts, never getting anything right...) I'd have brought wellies and a waterproof raincoat. The rather thin and flimsy trench coat I have with me isn't going to do too much against this rain.

I suppose it's the unpredicability I don't like. Which says a lot about me, I now realise. I like to plan and be prepared, and I don't do too well when I can't do so. Which also makes it rather ironic that I can be so lazy and unmotivated to do the things I need to to stop me getting into a panic. But then I suppose that's the fun of being a bit mental, eh?

But back to the weather. The other downside of the changing seasons is that it creates within me an almost primal desire to shop. I never used to be like this - I never used to bother all that much about clothes and buying things. But the last few years I've gotten really desperate for it. It's partly been because my weight has been up and down (mostly up, alas) and therefore half my clothes never fit me at any given time. But that is only part of it. I'm not really sure what the other part is, at all. I don't know if it's rampant consumerism, an increasing superficiality and concern for appearances rising to the surface of my personality, or if I just really, really like pretty things. The fact that this change coincided with my moving approximately a 5 minute walk from most of the shops in my city cannot be a mere coincidence. I tend to wander around the town for a bit when I just don't want to go home right after work, when I want to aimlessly amble around for a bit.

And then there's the online shopping. Oh boy, is that ever a curse and a blessing all at the same time. I rarely buy online, but I use it to browse (and to kill time when I'm a bit bored). Which means that I end up browsing every single damn item that most of the high street shops have. Y'know, just in case. God forbid I should miss out on buying a top I'll probably only wear twice before it either doesn't fit me anymore or I decide I don't like it all that much. In my defence, I don't shop anywhere expensive, I have an eye for bargains and sales, and I don't run up crazy debt to support my shopping habit. There's a lot more browsing and window shopping going on than the kind where actual money changes hands.

In summary, it appears that I am a girl. I'm not entirely sure when that happened....

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!

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....

A brief diversion from our regular programming...

As I have mentioned a few times, stopping myself from wallowing and dwelling on the various things going on with me right now - particularly the things I have no control over - is something that I'm trying pretty hard not to do. Which means I need a lot of distractions. Which led me to this site - Not Always Right. It's pretty funny, and it does sometimes make you despair for society, but meh, so long as there's a few cheap laughs along the way it's all good, right?

This might be my favourite entry so far. So simple, yet so, so funny. I keep giggling everytime I think of it:

(The customer is having difficulty with our website. One of the common reasons is using an incompatible browser.)
Me: “Okay, maybe it’s a problem with your browser. What web browser are you using?”
Customer: “Mozzarella filofax.”

That is just brilliant. In fact, I want to start a band called Mozzarella Filofax. It will be a cover band, of cheesy songs from the 80s. Eh? See what I did there? Cheese? The 80s?  See? What do you mean that's not funny?

*sad face* *cue Charlie Brown music*