Terror Moments

I keep having, recently, what I can only describe as "terror moments". It's moments where I start thinking about the Big Questions and I get stuck, sort of wrapped in this big blanket of fear. I don't know if anyone else gets these. I can be in a perfectly acceptable mood and getting on with things, then all of a sudden the thought pops into my head:

Is there life after death?
Do I just stop existing?
What made me?
What will happen when I'm just...not here.

And so on, with similar questions. It's kind of hard to write this out because talking about it is making me have one of those moments now. But I really want to get over these and I think there will come a point where I just have to face them, even if that isn't already.

I don't know if I can manage to carry on articulating this even. Maybe I will come back to it. Not losing this progress though so will post half a post. But my pulse has picked up and I've got that horrible knot of panic in my chest so I'm going to stop now.

I hope someone somewhere understands what I'm talking about.

Sticks and Stones

I'm sick of coming up against prejudice because I have a disability, or because I'm unemployed, or because I'm on benefits. I know people don't always mean to be disrespectful, but sometimes the remarks and quips like "oh, you're one of the people scrounging off my hard earned tax money are you?" really do hurt. Why? Because it implies that I like being like this. I'm not denying that there are people in the country today who are living like this out of laziness or because it's easy. I'm not. By making these jokes, even though they're jokes, you lump me in with people like that. I struggle as it is with the belief that I am not ill, that I am making this up, that I am in fact just lazy and worth nothing. By making those comments all you do is reinforce that belief that I am trying so, so hard to break down.

Not only that, but it means that the focus of my mind for the next while will be the state of my life as it is. I won't focus on the fact that I have a wonderful family, that my boyfriend is incredibly special, that for the first time in my life I have friends and actually believe that they care about me like I do about them. Instead I'll wake up and be overwhelmed by the knowledge that once again, I have nothing to do with my day. Or more accurately, I have nothing that I can do with my day. I'm not saying that I'm never lazy or that I couldn't try harder. I'm sure I could - but in order to actually properly heal, to truly get over the place that my heart and head have been in for the past decade or so, I need to do that at my own pace.

Please, when you want to make a joke, think about the fact that I'm already struggling with the knowledge that the coalition are revamping the benefits system; and if some MPs' attitude to those on disability benefits is anything to go by, I'm not going to do well out of this. Money is horrible. I live in a council flat - in an area where I feel unsafe, where I know that having a roof above my head is totally at the whim of someone else - where I am an hour away from my support network of my friends and boyfriend. I have £200 a month on which to look after myself. Of that, a good deal will go straight on bills. Once I've fed myself, paid bills and all the other sundries that an even barely tolerable life requires, I have no money left. Often I find myself using more than I have.

If that's taken away from me? I will have nothing. I will be forced to destroy the life I have made for myself here, the first beacon of hope that has been in my life, and move back to Norfolk with my parents. My independence, which is very precious to me as a shelf for my self-esteem, will be gone. I don't want to think about how much of this progress I would lose if the world crashed down like that. It makes my stomach churn and my hands shake.

Usually I try and use this blog to be optimistic. Or at the least to express confusion, rather than negativity. But right now? I'm just terrified. I'm sorry that I can't be more than that right now, but I suppose it's all the worse now that I feel like I've actually got something to lose.

Mask of a Thousand Faces

Hunched over, as if trying to curl into themselves, a girl bites nervously at her nails. Her eyes, watery, dart around restlessly as if trying to spot some hidden observer. One of her feet taps nervously and methodically; every now and then the movement is punctuated by a violent kick from each leg, as if she is trying to shake water from them. Her hands shake and she rocks gently, trying not to focus on anything at all.

A smiling, well-presented woman sits comfortably on the edge of a table. Nonchalantly, she swings her legs back and forth. She talks animatedly, perhaps a little too loudly, but with precise articulation. Impatient to be heard, she buts into the dialogue before the other speaker has finished, somehow carrying enough poise and charisma not to offend in the process.

Drone like, the automaton repeats the same motions again and again. Back and forth, it clicks at the keys and points and clicks round in circles. Time passes but not noticeably, as the monotony of the blank expression and unfeeling state continue endlessly.

--

I am many things, of which a great deal are paradoxes. I am confident, happy, cheerful. I am shy, terrified, sullen. I am rude and polite, loud and quiet, hard and soft, powerful and weak. All of these things are me, and I am all of these things. I may be some at times and others anon.

It is exceptionally difficult to reconcile such an infinite number of identities, and understand myself, and be comfortable with it. Sometimes it is like trying to be several people all at once. One day I would like to allow myself to be all of the me there is, however many I might comprise.

An awful lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I'm a little overwhelmed by it all but also trying to settle into a rhythm of living. Which is difficult when life itself doesn't really have a rhythm at all. Most days I have nothing to do - I suppose I could say that my current "job" is to get better, but really that's about as helpful as saying I'm a lazy arse who's sponging off benefits. Sometimes the weeks go quickly and I feel like I've achieved nothing, and sometimes they go slowly and painfully. It's a very strange place to be because there's no real plan for how to get from where I am now to being able to work. It's that lack of direction that is most difficult. So in the interest of reminding myself how I am actually doing better in ways I just don't notice, here is a list of the things I have done/achieved in the last week.

1. I went swimming.
2. I have eaten a healthy breakfast each day and remembered to take every single medication I'm on at the same time.
3. Although I haven't had great nights' sleep, I have been going to bed by midnight and getting up around 9am every day.
4. I have sorted out all of my money problems to the best of my ability.
5. I have been keeping my flat tidy, not perfectly so, but it's not a tip.
6. I have been doing clothes washing.
7. I have only neglected to have a bath once or twice in the last few weeks.
8. I have written and run a 3-day LRP event.
9. I have acknowledged that it's okay for me to want to celebrate my birthday, and organised it.
10. I have survived being on my own for 90% of the time, and being away from my boyfriend.
11. I have made my parents proud of me.

I have to stop on that last one because it made me cry, but I think the ease with which I wrote all of those should prove a point to me. Enough said.

Home Sweet Home

It's purple, though with my terrible camera it's quite hard to tell. There's a new duvet cover, we got curtains up, and all sorts. I'm basically all moved in - the main gaps in my inventory now are a cooker, but I'll be making do with my microwave for a very long time because cookers are so expensive. I managed to plumb the washing machine in myself today. Never done that before, but it was quite simple. And yes there's all sorts going wrong here like yet another pipe is leaking (not badly) and it took them a while to fix the door but it's getting there. Money things are a bit arse over tit, but hopefully those will get sorted soon.

This is mostly a post to say hello, I'm alive, this is what I've been doing. Normal service will resume as soon as possible. Oh, and here is a gratuitous living room shot. Boyfriend did not come included with the flat.

Silencing Myself

Many people internalise a critical voice. For most people, this voice is the voice of someone from their past; a very demanding parent, an abuser, some sort of important figure from the person's life who has had such an influence that their voice is present and critical of all that they do. I have one of these, and it has very high standards that it expects me to meet, and critiques and analyses everything I experience and try. It has a black and white view of the world: I either succeed, or I do not. There is no try.

It would help me to have this voice go quiet, so that I can do things and be proud of them and not analyse everything I do with intrinsic scrutiny. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to silence yourself consciously without simply causing yourself to be all the louder. Because my critical voice inside me is me - or at the least the person that I think I should be - and so it's not only hugely difficult to shut it up but I also feel like I ought not to do it, like I should be trying to embrace and accept this part of me instead.

Because this has such a huge effect on how I deal with things, nay how I even exist from moment to moment, my psych is considering putting me onto a new form of treatment (on top of my psycho-dynamic therapy) - Mindfulness. Google it and you'll find that it's a meditation-based technique based on a Buddhist teaching. It looks interesting. It also looks like the sort of thing that I've tried in the past and failed, mostly out of trying to learn it myself from a few websites. But I'm excited about it, and we'll see how it goes.

Breaks and Guilt

After my pretty bad day on Monday, yesterday proved to be very profitable with the boyfriend and I going to the flat and finishing off all the decorating. Here is a gratuitous shot of the living room now that it is no longer salmon pink:

Isn't it lovely? The blue is awesome. It's a bit more slate blue when it dries fully, but it's really calming and cosy all at once. I am also very pleased with the horrible 70s stone in its new white form.

However, I am not actually here to blog about my flat, exciting though it is. I am here to blog about the pretty weird day I've been having. After speaking to my mum last night she advised me to take a couple of days off before the busy weekend (where we are driving up to Norfolk, filling a van with all my belongings and moving me in etc). So I'm trying to do that. Only I feel very guilty for having days off, because there's a bit of my head that says "well it's not like you go to work like everyone else, what have you got to be tired about" and so on. What that means is that I just don't relax very well.

This in turn creates a circle of guilt, because by not relaxing properly I am letting myself and those close to me down. (I'm aware that much of this may not be logical; I am trying to preserve the thoughts as they appear in my head because then you can see the place I have to work from). This makes me feel worse, relax less, and then we link round into the beginning again.

I've signed up for a study into the helpfulness or otherwise of online support groups for mental illness. It involves joining a forum and participating to get help and advice. I'm really not sure how to approach it, at the moment, and I keep getting thrown by the fact that I read threads where people have low self-esteem and think to myself "but people are awesome, all people - even those that have bad qualities are still really complex and interesting and worthy people, how can you not see how wonderful you are". A small voice in my head crops up at this point and wonders why I can't apply this point of view to myself.

Still, we'll see how it goes. If nothing else I will at least be able to tell myself that I contributed usefully to the study.