Powering Through Fear

For many years I've gone with the theory that if I avoid social activities, I will never get into the situation where I feel awful about things I've said, done, or looked like. That if I just don't go out, there's nothing to worry about, because I'm not going out and I'm not thinking about having gone out, or having to go out. For a long time, not only did this work, but it was what was best for me.

Of course the issue with only ever staying at home is that you don't get any positive reinforcement - and since I'm now getting to the point where I can even get my brain to hear the positive reinforcement (not quite at the point where it always goes in and doesn't go out the other ear yet), it's started to mean that going out is better for me than staying in. I'm wholly ready to accept that it's been good for me for a lot longer than I've been able to admit; but that's the nature of being depressed. I don't think I'm capable of things.

Now, however, I've a whole new kettle of fish to fry. Finally I've got to the point where - and there are many caveats here, so bear with me - in a (familiar) social situation with people (who I know and have known for ages, who know about my condition), with the freedom to come and go as I please (now that I'm not too scared to take taxis), I'm able to attend and enjoy social activities such as going to the pub, taking part in LRP, or other things that previously did nothing but strike fear into my heart.

The thing is, the fear is still there - only now in my determination to get better (largely focused around not being a useless and irritating pain in the arse to everyone silly enough to care about me), I sometimes ignore it. I charge in, head on, powered by adrenaline and my determination to prove to myself and other people that I'm still a person.

That doesn't mean I don't get scared.

In fact I would say I actually have worse reactions to doing social things now than I did when I just didn't do them at all. When I didn't go, I felt guilty, a bit useless, but fundamentally placated myself with 'it's okay, you're just not ready yet'. Now I know I can do it, and I know I can do it even when I'm otherwise feeling awful. It's not the motivation I should be using on myself, but to be honest some of the motivations I've use to get myself out of bed aren't ideal but at that point I had to do something otherwise I never would. I keep myself from self-harming by pointing out that it would hurt my mum too much and that I'd be an awful, hideous daughter. Never mind the fact that it used to release some of the hurt in my head and help me.

Anyway, the point is that these days I get nervous before doing things, but during them I'm generally okay. The time that hurts is afterwards. The best way to explain it is to use an example and since the need for catharsis is partly why I'm writing this post, I'll use this weekend as one. On Saturday I played an LRP event, where I was in charge of everyone and telling them what to do. I was comfortable with this until a large part of the story was all about me. I freaked, realised suddenly that I was being horribly arrogant and taking up all of the focus for the event, that I was making it all about me when really I should shut up and get to the back because no one wants to listen to my utterly idiotic drivel.

(You get the no holds barred version of my mental monologue, I'm afraid).

Somehow I got through and finished the dungeon. Then it was time for an in-character party. For my birthday this year my wonderful and amazing boyfriend bought me a gown. It's perhaps the most stereotypically feminine thing I've ever owned. It's silver and purple and absolutely beautiful. I was determined to wear it, no matter how scared I felt that everyone was going to be staring at me because I'm fat, ugly, and so short the dress trailed along the ground. Now there are two versions of how I feel about the party itself. Here's the first, more literal one:

I had some interesting IC discussions with people, including getting to produce some of the aspects of my character that don't usually come up when you're being chased by goblins/zombies/whatever, including a long political debate with someone my character hates, and generally I didn't make a fool of myself. I drank wine, but not so much that I was doing more than relaxing. I helped save one of my friends when she fainted (corset too tight) by carrying her out of the venue and making sure she was okay. I know I helped because her husband hugged me and said thank you (this is proof, my brain requires proof).

So that's the first version. Here's the other.

I turned up in that dress which everyone complimented me on because frankly it did say that everyone needed to be looking at me, and I have no idea why I did that because I know I hate being looked at because I am fat and ugly. I drank alcohol which I know makes me feel awful the next day and makes me act like a childish imbecile. The fact that I put certain aspects of my character across is irrelevant because everyone thinks my character concept is stupid anyway, in fact by staying 'faithful' to it I probably made it worse. I was loud, obnoxious, and generally an idiot. The only remotely good thing I did was helping my friend when she fainted, and frankly I should've just buggered off and left her other half to help her instead of assuming it was okay for me to do so. Oh, and on the way home I dropped my mobile phone which got run over because I'm an idiot and even though I noticed that it hadn't gone into my bag properly I didn't stop and check which meant the man that found it phoned loads of people from it who I would never ever dare to call because they don't want to be bothered by me.

That would be the second version. They're slightly at odds, only in my head they're equally loud. They are why yesterday I spent the whole day in bed, only ate when someone put a plate of food in front of me, and did a mixture of trying to sleep it off and staring at the ceiling not answering my boyfriend's questions about how I was.

Today, I've got an awful cold - largely due to not sleeping properly or looking after myself yesterday - and I'm still feeling pretty awful, apart from the times where I stop feeling anything at all (which are the ones that scare me - I'm rather used to feeling awful these days). More than anything now I feel guilty for whining and complaining because there are billions of people in the world and most of them don't become utterly pointless and useless sacks of meat the moment something bad happens to them (and even in this case when nothing bad has happened at all).

So that in summary is why right now I don't want to do anything social for a while, and why powering through fear is not necessarily a good thing. Hopefully it's managed to come across without two much self-targeted vitriol (bar the paragraphs which were made entirely of it as a demonstration), because right now I'm struggling to think anything else. I just wanted to write this now in the hope that it would make me feel better (I think right now it's just made me hate myself more), and in the hope that I could explain in a way that people would understand (I have no idea if I did or not).