I’m struggling. With quite a lot of things. It hurts to
admit it and it hurts to accept it and it hurts to realise it. I have been and
am in denial about it all. I keep things close to avoid the questions.
There isn’t anything specific and I don’t know if it’s
because of work or because of realisations about work and the direction of my
career. I don’t know if it’s about where I feel I should be in life and where I
actually am. I don’t know if it’s because of money and I don’t know if it’s
just a good whack of depression which means none of it matters because my brain
is just being a monumental fart.
My anxiety comes and goes, but it mostly comes. My brain
whirrs and I have to set constant reminders and I have to write everything down
and I realised today I wrote exactly the same list with exactly the same pen in
word-for-word exactly the same order as a list that I wrote yesterday. I ask
someone a question, they answer, I reply, I ask them the same question again without
skipping a beat. I drive my finger nails into my fingers by curling my hand or I
press the nails into the palm. I have to keep my nails short now. If I have an
itch on my left eyebrow I scratch it twice, and then I have to scratch the
right one twice even though it doesn’t itch. I crack my left pointy finger
knuckle and then I have to crack the right pointy finger knuckle even if it doesn’t
need it. I like things to be symmetrical, even the kisses from David. He cannot
kiss my left cheek or left eyebrow without doing the other side. If he doesn’t I
get angsty.
I just feel sad. I feel empty. Maybe I even feel desolate. Barren.
Devoid. Devoid of any human emotion or feeling.
Years ago I went to yoga and I went every week and I got the
bus and after the session I had to walk a lot of the way home before the next
bus came and it felt GREAT. I trusted myself to be out, I went to a new place by
myself and kept going back, I walked in the dark by myself while waiting for
the bus home. And then I got so anxious I stopped going. Just, stopped.
Last winter I tried a pilates class and just before it started
I had an anxiety attack, cried in the lift, managed to suppress it through the
rest of the session, and had a massive panic attack afterwards. I have never
felt like that before. I could feel it ripping through my heart, coursing
through my veins. The sheer terror of I-don’t-know-what. It was absolutely
brutal and I never want to go through that again, though of course I have.
Last spring I did a reading at a friends wedding. I had been
asked months before but only in passing so I’d put it to the back of my mind. A
week before the wedding I had a text, oh by the way can you do this? So I did. I
don’t know how I did, but I did. I was an anxious wreck the day before at the
rehearsal, I was a wreck on the day of the wedding, I was fine in the church
until everyone else sat down and I was left standing. I wanted to run. I wanted
to scream I wanted to cry I wanted the ground to swallow me up and I wanted to
just not be there. At all. Somehow I managed to get the words out. I finished
it and I basically fell back into the seat, into Davids arms so he could
comfort me. I clenched my fists SO tight. I fought back big, heavy,
shoulder-heaving sobs of tears. I tried to keep quiet and I don’t think I managed.
It took me over a year to be able to listen to that song again.
I have closed off so much in the last few years. I’ve never
been popular and I never feel like I’ve had a friendship group and I never
particularly fit in anywhere or with anyone. I thought I had a best friend who
helped me through uni when I went back after a monumental mental breakdown. She
was one of the few people I actively kept in touch with. I used to drive to
hers to pick her up and take her places just to get her out of the house. She used
to dye my hair stupid colours. We went on a three-day girls only roadtrip
purely to be nerds and I got her shit faced on cider on the beach. She stayed
with my family. One day she asked me for my opinion so I gave it, and she didn’t
reply. In fact, she hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s been maybe two years now and
I still get hung up about it.
I stopped going to gigs as I fell out of love with it for
lots of reasons. The main one was late nights – I used to get up stupid early
to do a big fat commute to work in Nottingham and I just couldn’t do the late
nights + sedatives + getting up early + driving long distance. I also had
issues with friends dropping out last minute. David does not like gigs and I feel
bad for always asking him to come. Pretty much every time we’ve been to a gig,
we’ve had an argument after it. So I just stop asking him. And I stop going. It
also came down to financial reasons. Gone are the days of doing five gigs in a
week in four cities every three weeks. I feel like I’ve been excluded from
groups I used to gig with but I know that I am the reason I am excluded. I excluded
myself. I stopped answering messages. I stopped getting excited about seeing
bands I love.
I am still trying to reduce my reliance on social media. I hate
it. I hate that I always turn to it when I’m down and that it always makes me
feel worse so I keep on doing it in case I magically feel better. It never makes
me feel better. I have stopped using and deleted Tumblr. I have stopped using
Instagram for personal use, but I do use it for work on my work phone. I no
longer use it for work on my personal phone. The next step is to stop using
Facebook. It makes me feel so disconnected. Maybe I already am disconnected. From
everything. I feel lonelier than ever. I don’t have many friends and I never
see them. I feel like I’m too much of a wreck to be around people. I can’t
relax around people. If I’m not comfortable around you then that’s that.
I am 31 now. I am miserable. Not because of my age, but
because of what I view as failing. I am surprised that I have lived this long
and I don’t know where to go with it. The last time I tried moving out and
living on my own ended with a massive mental breakdown, dropping out of uni,
being dumped, and then being held up against the wall by my throat by my own
father.
I am 31 now. I have fucked up so much. I guess I have
another 60 years to fuck up. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be 32, 35,
40. Will I still be here? Will I still be on medication to help my brain? Will I
still need sedatives to calm the anxiety monster enough to let me sleep? Will I
still be living at home? Will I still be poor? Will I still be in entry level
work? Will I still be lonely and have no friends and shut myself off from
everything?
I am 31. My joints are seizing up with sitting on the bed to
write this. I feel emotionless as I haven’t cried while writing this. I need to
start doing yoga but I am too anxious to start doing yoga. I need to get back
to doing what I love. For me. Not for the benefit of anybody else. For me.
I am 31. I am the only me that I’ve got.
