Forwards or Backwards?

[W.I.F.T.S.]

There have been plenty of occasions where I've decided to do something that scared me and I've been pleased that I've done it, but the physical exhaustion and the trauma of doing it has made me feel even worse for quite a bit afterwards.

For example, I went up the Great Orme in Llandudno- a white knuckle ride for me, but a walk in the park for the two grannies sat opposite me! lol When I did get to the top I felt so exhilerated that I felt 'real' (rather than depersonalised) for the first time in years. Although, later on in the trip I got the first of my 'heart symptoms', which prevented me from going out on the speed boat.

I thought that I was ready to fly to Amsterdam, but I had one of the biggest panic attacks of my life on the way out there and ended up spending a whole day of the weekend in bed trying to fight off the urge to throw myself out of the window.

Yesterday, I drove out of town to my cousin's wedding and today my scalp feels so tense that it's as if I've got a band of steel around my head.

I know that if I don't challenge my fears that my comfort zone will become smaller and smaller until I'm completely agoraphobic, but am I the only one who suffers punishment rather than reward for daring to tackle my demons? It's so hard to keep pushing forward when I know that I'll be spent after my endeavours and prone to whatever anxiety can throw at me.

At the moment I'm particularly anxious and it's difficult when people say to me "don't make a scene" or "don't draw attention to yourself". In some ways I don't give a toss what people think about me: if I want to stand near the exit, puffing my cheeks out, wringing my hands and kicking my heels together, trying to calm down enough to sit with people for a drink, then I will do because I can't just do it. I either do that or I go home and don't do anything. On the other hand, it's really disappointing and upsetting that people's estimation of me is sinking further and further, when I'm doing so well just being there at all rather than stopping at home and, even better, I'm sticking around long enough to eventually calm down and sit with people. I guess that their take on it is "see, you built something out of nothing. Why couldn't you do that in the first place?".

I don't know whether they're worth wasting my time on or not. It does hurt me that they see my anxiety as a sign of weakness, rather than a sign of strength that I have the courage to attempt to overcome it. I can kind of see where they're coming from though. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn't understand what I was panicking about.

"I'm not panicking about sitting next to you for a drink. I'm panicking about whether I can control the urge to hurl the glass at you and whether or not I'm going to spontaneously combust by trying to hold that urge in!"

[nomorepanic]

Sometimes we think too much and don't do!

I say JFDI

x

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Very often I wish that I could just 'stop'. Maybe I could be someone else for a bit or sleep for however long it took for me to become chemically better balanced? I suppose the point is that if that happened then I wouldn't learn or grow from the experience of being chronically anxious and depressed and I'd continue to live my life accepting that there are any things that I couldn't do because they scare me.

I remember the story of the chick who was struggling to hatch from the egg. Someone came along and removed the pieces of shell, thinking that they were doing the chick a favour but, without that first struggle, the chick never developed the strength to survive and soon died.

I'm sure there are people who float through life and have a great time. Maybe they're lucky, maybe they're oblivious to any problems or maybe they're able to put a positive spin on anything?

Generally, I suppose it's been a bit of a blessing in disguise that I had my breakdown as it's forced me to come home to Cheshire and to get to really know my family for the first time ever. It's also helped to dissuade me from ideas of being an 'artist' and getting too heavily involved in drugs and all that stuff. Thankfully, I'm now more interested in doing 'real', healthy things such as football coaching and multimedia projects with the kids at the school where I work. I'm sure that I can get much more out of those activities and really see the progress that I've made rather than trying to persue ideas of being Ernest Hemmingway or Irvine Welsh. Who wants to get out of their tree all the time anyway?!! I really do think that a lot of kids are seduced by that Kate Moss/Pete Doherty/Keef Richards notion of getting as wrecked as possible to be cool....I know that I certianly was. I was such a pretentious oik, thinking that I was going to be a big name and a great writer/film maker in London. No wonder that so many people found me obnoxious!

If/when my body does finally relax and all the physical symptoms of stress start to disappear and the depressive compulsions (such as an urge to stab myself or to drive into oncoming traffic) no longer trouble me, I'm sure that I'll have a great time. I've got some great friends around me now and it would be fantastic to:


Be relaxed enough to drive all over the north west with my women's football team, playing away games.
Be confident enough to go to the short film festival in manchester with the kids from school.
Go on foreign holidays with mates or even to football tournaments abroad
work abroad as a coach during the school holidays
take the level 2 football coaching course
work locally as a coach during the school holidays. Getting some sunshine and some exercise, feeling like I'm making a difference, making some really good extra cash and climbing up the tree
feel confident and relaxed enough to go on a date
care about my appearance and really look after myself. feeling confident that I look good
have outings with the gym where I volunteer and meet new peopleI've actually just had a thought, which I'd better record for my own reference when I look back on my postings. Very often, having a good time is defined with me as having sex. If I went on holiday, to a club or whatever, I don't think that I'd really felt like I'd had a good time unless I'd pulled a woman. I guess that that's partly because I didn't lose my virginity until I was 22 and that door has always seemed pretty shut to me. I feel like everyone else is getting together with someone in those situations and that I'm not worth as much as everyone else if it doesn't happen for me too, which it invariably doesn't because I'm shy, awkward and never make the first move. Because I don't feel like I'm doing what everyone else is doing, that makes me feel even more conspicuous and out of place. I tend to only really let my guard down with girlfriends for some reason. I'm pretty tense even with friends.

Time for a bit of thought questioning! lol Is everyone else really doing it? No! None of my friends are, anyway, which often leads me to think that I'm hanging around with boring/uncool people. The reality of the situation is that the 'cocky' guys (who are actually fairly rare) are the ones who are pulling girls and they do tend to try it on with everyone until they succeed. Do I really want to end up with whoever will have me/is drunk enough? Do I want to be friends with a guy like that, when my own friends are decent, loyal and trustworthy? Sure, it would be exciting to find someone with whom I've got a mutual attraction, but I'm actually in the vast majority of people in not having women throw themselves at me, so there's no reason for me to feel like I'm the odd one out.