I made the effort and went out yesterday afternoon and spent a few hours “helping” out at the Open Day. Except that there wasn’t really anything for me to help with, so I actually just spent the time standing around chatting to people, trying to find an excuse for why I’ve not been involved since last summer, and watching the other members being busy doing useful things. Things which I am qualified to do, and in some cases much more experienced in doing than alot of the other members. But now that I am not an “active” member any more, I can’t muck in with the others and be useful.
I came home at teatime feeling a bit down and got more and more gloomy as the evening wore on. My gloominess was caused I think, by a sense of not belonging, not being part of something. Square peg in a round hole syndrome again. I spent last night getting more and more gloomy, the sense of wasting my life growing stronger and stronger, and wondering what the point of it all is. What is the point of trying to do normal things? It is emotionally tiring, putting on a normal mask, and who am I fooling? If I am honest with people about the state of my mental health, they think I’m a nutter and don’t talk to me because they don’t know what to say, but if I put on the mask and make an excuse for my lack of activity, they think I’m not committed and lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know that is just my perception and I have no real evidence that that is what other people are thinking but the lack of comments such as “It’s good to see you” helps to fuel that way of thinking.
And so last night I went to bed feeling low and aimless and have woken up in the same mood this morning. Today I am supposed to be going to stay with a friend and her family overnight but I just know that I am not going to go. I am going to make up some excuse about being really physically tired, or full of cold, or needing to be back for some imaginary plans for tomorrow. The truth is that I just can’t face the stress of thinking about what to wear and trying to find something that fits and looks ok, and having to pack an overnight bag, sleeping bag, laptop etc to take with me. I just can’t be arsed. I haven’t got the mental energy to do all that. I don’t know what I will do instead. Probably I’ll just waste another day with the tv and computer on, doing nothing except reading blogs and wasting time on Facebook games.
At some point this morning my friend is going to ring and I can get away with ignoring the phone the first time she rings, saying that I was still asleep, but at some point I am going to have to talk to her and tell her that I am not coming and that means experiencing feelings of guilt for having let her down. But I just feel that being with people today is just going to be too hard – too tiring to keep the mask up and trying to ignore all the voices in my head that tell me I should be doing this or that. And the irony of it, is that I know that even if I don’t go today, I still won’t do all the things which the voices tell me to do. I must point out that I am not schizophrenic and that these are not “voices” in that sense, but rather urges – I find it extremely stressful and difficult to sit in someone else’s house for several hours without doing anything productive. And having to keep the mask on too. And the urges come thick and fast and make me restless and stressed and twitchy, unable to sit around doing nothing, wanting to be out of the situation, but feeling trapped into it for fear of people thinking worse of me if I go home after only a brief visit.
The exposure theory is fine in principle – that by putting myself into these situations, I will gradually relax and accept that it is ok to sit around and do nothing for hours on end and to just enjoy being with other people. The reality of it is that it just doesn’t work like that. I get home after a visit, absolutely shattered emotionally and physically, so it takes me a day of doing nothing to recover and then the guilt of having done and achieved nothing for several days means that I go into hyper-drive and can’t settle at home until I have written a “Things To Do” list and ticked as much as possible off it.
I haven’t talked about all the things on yesterday’s “Things to blog about” list. I can’t even remember what they all are now. At the moment, I don’t feel inclined to bother blogging about them – maybe they will be explained in future posts. But none of them are really that important right at the moment. Nothing is really that important at the moment. Except for more coffee to kick start myself into doing something today. Except that I don’t know what to do today.
And now the phone is ringing and I can feel the anxiety churning up my stomach, making my heart race, and the angry guilt weighing down on me.
