Well, it didn’t work out exactly as I planned.
I couldn’t sleep on Monday night, only really had light sleep as I kept waking up. I was feeling far too tired and I was feeling rather anxious. If I’m too tired I can’t fight the anxiety as well as I could on Friday so it was causing a problem. My attempts to manage the tiredness didn’t work and eventually I admitted defeat and rang the shop up and apologised for not making it.
Fingers crossed, Friday will be OK.
Finally, there is some good news!
I have a plan and I think I’ve just about made it to tier three. Just so you know, before I moved away from home I made a plan and tier one was moving away from my home town, tier two was to get out and about to be fit and ready to make it to tier three… going into voluntary work! Yes, after many delays and what I consider to be off schedule I have finally gotten myself a job in a charity shop. It’s been a good three months since I applied and I didn’t know what to do about trying to push things along when the manager was off at the same time I applied. I’m now on it though and as you saw on my Facebook status message on Friday, I was feeling very pleased with myself for once.
I have been having cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) since late April I think. I think some of the methods are working now thanks to some of the progress I’ve made. Yes, I had CBT a long time back but I was never able to follow up as I’d just be stuck back at home before and got nowhere. Now I’m able to remember what is being said and am less dismissive of my ability to follow. The CBT has basically been about looking at what causes the anxiety and then challenging it. Mostly this is through the use of diagrams and brainstorming. I’ve gradually been able to think through some of what I’m thinking and it’s lead to this next step being taken in my life. I had been set the task of not phoning the shop, but to actually make myself be present. This was proving to be tough for me, even though I had been into the shop for an informal chat before. The thoughts going through my head were those of "have I left it too late?", "Am I being too inconsiderate?", "Am I nagging?", "I should know what I’m doing but I don’t". My first attempt failed as I was on the bus and as the stop came up to get off I found myself routed to the seat. Now, I could have forced myself off if the bus fare made me, but the fare I pay actually extends to the city centre so I could stay on until then. This allowed my mind to tell me to stay on and calm myself down and eventually forget about going. Which I couldn’t really do as so much as I wanted to as eventually it would come back to me and I’d be kicking myself for not doing it.
I gradually talked this over with my therapist and we looked at the effects of the anxiety and how to counter it. What helped this time was that I forced myself to walk to the chemist (I needed to go anyway) and after that I’d walk the short distance to the shop. I nearly turned back but this time I was telling myself that I must go, and that my thoughts were irrational and that I didn’t like it when others were irrational so why should I allow myself to be? So I was able to make it this time by being stronger before and using what I had been taught, along with my "scientific" side that was telling me to look at what I was thinking. Yes, that is indeed contradictory I realise that, but that’s what’s been so odd about me for a while. I was able to make it to the shop, ask what was going on and then just like that, I had been offered two shifts starting this week. I was a tad nervous and missed a joke being made, but I think I got away with it. Sure, I keep looking back at that, but the overall pride with getting through means I can put it aside.
Now I shall see how long it takes to get to tier four which is where things could get complicated: part-time paid work and education/training. I’ll probably need some career advice before that and there is one thing I’m worried about. I may be told something I don’t want to hear, yet I know that I am probably going to hear it. That the job I once felt I could do is well out of my reach now, because of my past problems with anxiety. Am I truly prepared for it?
I must warn you before I start that with this post you could say I am rather being cowardly. I’m hoping very few people read this blog though so it’ll be ignored by many people I know. If you are the person/people involved and you’re reading this, I am very sorry for not being straight with you in the first place.
As you may know I’m a bit lacking in the social skills department. Yes, things are improving very slowly over time but I still have my quirks. Seeing as I do naff all with my life at the minute I never thought I’d use a social network like Facebook. There’s not really much for me to post and while I know what it’s there for, I’m not sure what contribution I could make other than the odd “hello” and “how are you doing?”. I did join it eventually as I’ve made some friends through RLLMUK and the meets. I did originally have great apprehension about joining Facebook as I thought I might be found by someone from my school days. Why? Well I dropped off the radar to everyone who knew me and with good reason. Well, a good reason for me anyway, I didn’t want to admit I was a complete failure and that the anxiety and following depression had taken things over so much. I didn’t want to see the smirks on certain people’s faces as I told them what had become of me. I didn’t want those who really hated me enough to be able to get to me. I never felt like I had friends so I thought no one wanted anything to do with me. It was the reason I rarely left the house on my own, so I could avoid bumping into everyone I knew. OK, I left the house on my own to go into Sheffield for college and other stuff but my home town was off limits.
I had been on Facebook since November and I hadn’t had friend request from anyone I knew. At the beginning of June though, someone found me and at first I was shitting bricks. Yes, I know all about blocking people, yet I didn’t feel like I could. I felt, seeing as someone was interested and went out of the way to find me, that I should reply. I was also thinking this could be the stupidest thing I’d done online. I was potentially opening the floodgates for others and I’d be exposed to attack. Why would anyone want to contact me after so long and why now? Is there an ulterior motive to wanting to contact me? I didn’t see myself as someone that anyone who knew me would want to know anymore. In the end I did accept, answered the initial question of what I’d been doing and passed off a vague line about what I was doing as work. I don’t want to lie, so I neither told the whole truth, but I didn’t lie either. No catastrophe happened and life goes on as normal.
There is this strange, niggling feeling I’m getting though. As I said, I had now opened the gate to allow for anyone who knows this person to see me on their list and remind them I exist. Yet, I find myself not being relieved at the complete lack of others trying to contact me. I find myself feeling quite sad that they aren’t. I’ve searched this person’s friends list and looked at the profiles that I can, reminding myself of those I knew. I also find myself edging towards the “Add ### as a friend” button for some of them that I didn’t have bad memories of. Yet, I just don’t know what to say to them, I can’t think of how to start it and I’m still afraid of the responses. It’s been so long ago now that I just don’t know what’s going to happen and as you know I don’t like the unknown.
Is there some kind of bizarre longing of acceptance that I’m wanting from those that knew me from the past? Am I really wanting there to be someone out there that wants to know me from my past? I wanted to be left alone and now I don’t, what is going on in my head?