it's been six months already

It appears that blogging keeps me sane. I don't like missing a day, it makes me panicky and stressed. This might not be entirely healthy. But I am off my Prozac which probably explains it.

I decided that I had to just come off it and see what happens. I can always start it again if I feel I need to and at least now I'm less worried about asking for more. But I like knowing that my feelings are all my own again and nothing is being fiddled with.

I think the blogging helps me to organise my thoughts in a way that I'd tried to do by writing them out before. But that never seemed to work for me, and I never seemed to be able to keep it up. This way, where I know people are reading what I'm thinking, encourages me to keep sharing.

I've had a couple of people get in touch to say that this blog is helpful to them in small ways and that fills me with joy. I know it's hard to keep going every day and I know it's hard to understand how other people are really feeling.

I think that being able to share some of the things that lead me to my way of thinking and what the procrastination really is can only helpful. My procrastination is the big curse of my life, but I'm much more aware of what it is and how it's actually a way of helping me. It's just a false friend and I need to learn to conquer it.

Because who needs a friend who helps you get into more trouble but makes you feel comfortable about getting there. Even if I never learn to "just do it" as some of those terrifying really organised people advocate, I do want to change and learn and grow. I'd love to at least get better at the whole organising thing!

The one thing I have noticed is that my sense of humour seems to be coming back to me. I use humour as a defence mechanism and always have done, but having not had a reason to just let loose and have fun I've not been just my usual self for ages.

And it's always when something comes back that you realise that it had gone in the first place. A bit like when I had my breakthrough at the end of last year and spent the night dancing around to very loud music (on my headphones). I realised that in the 6 months since I'd moved into that house this was the first time I'd blasted music and just danced.

I'm a dancer in my soul. I used to do ballet as a child and all the way through my teen years I danced in my bedroom, singing into a deodorant bottle pretending I was on stage in front of a massive audience. I still let loose and sang and danced whenever I had the house to myself right up until when I had madam. Then, obviously, I was never alone.

But I would put the music on my headphones as I walked her round for her afternoon nap in her pushchair when she was tiny. And I found myself dancing around the aisles of various shops mouthing the words only I could hear. In fact I'm doing chair dancing even as I type this!

And when she got big enough that I couldn't even have that headspace whilst she had an afternoon nap (and she stopped going in the buggy by the time she was 2) I danced at night when she was in bed, before I went mostly. I would put my headphones in and some slow songs on whilst I got ready for bed and then by the time I was upstairs and putting my pyjamas on I was on to the fast stuff and a quick dance before bed.

Sometimes that quick dance round my bedroom would last a couple of hours!

And then we moved house and somehow, with all the stress of moving and then himself coming home and then leaving again I lost that bit of myself too. All those little bits of yourself that you don't even know were the things that you needed to keep your sanity...

And I lost them. I lost my sense of fun, my music, my inner voice, my sleep patterns, my vague sense of cleanliness, my hope, my confidence. Just little bit by little bit. And I didn't even notice them going until they were lost. And I was in a café crying because I just didn't know how I was going to get through.

And then I was picked up by my friends, who hadn't known how bad it was. By the medical profession who helped me find that even keel again, by the Citizens Advice Bureau who showed me how to start. And by my parents who'd been worried but hadn't known how to approach me (I can be very stubborn).

So, as it is six months since I started on the road to being me again I guess it's time to start being me. No drugs. Just me.

Hello. How're you?

I survived

Yesterday in my post I explained how nervous I was feeling about the meetings I had to get through, so I figured you may need a progress report.

 

Short story. I was indeed making mountains of molehills. I dropped off the stuff I had to at the CAB and went and had lunch with my dad. He cheered me up no end when he told me he'd ordered me the glow-in-the-dark wellies I'd fallen in love with the other day. Dads are great sometimes, well, mine is!

 

And then I went to see my counsellor. We had a nice long chat about the stuff I had achieved since our last meeting and then talked about the things I'd been putting in my own way that stopped me from doing all of it. I told her just how in love I am with the flylady website and how, even in the very short time I've actually been doing it, I've started to feel like I've gained some control.

My counsellor is now going to go away and check out the site for herself to get some de-cluttering tips. She did tell me that I was counselling myself really but as I have been prescribed the sessions we might as well keep going. I do think that having someone who can break down what I'm talking about and help me analyse my feelings is really helpful though.

 

For the first time I actually talked to someone about how miserable I'd been in the first year at sixth form. How I keep a distance from people even within a group. 

I even began analysing why I don't throw things away. I was wondering why I keep things of no value, why I can't just get rid of everything, why I feel attached to it.

It worries me that if we value ourselves by our possesions and I keep things that are worthless, what am I saying about myself? I already had made the connection that I spend all the time talking about madam so that I don't talk about me. 

My college tutor asked me if I wasn't important enough to be worth the time and I was genuinely stuck for an answer. I know that I am just as important, but I don't want the attention on me as I'm unhappy with myself.

 

Ok, enough with my introspection and whining about myself. I'm going to finish with a positive as I'm trying to keep that promise to myself of telling myself good things. 

 

So here we go. 

 

I taught someone to crochet yesterday. I was patient, calm and clear. I have passed on a skill that makes me happy. I gave someone the gift of a new hobby. This is a good thing about me. 

 

What's a good thing about you?   

why so blue?

I'm feeling a bit nervous today as I've got a meeting with my counsellor this afternoon and I haven't actually done all the things she asked me to do. I have done some of them and I've done stuff that wasn't on her list. But (probably needlessly) I'm now worried about what she's going to say.

 

She's probably not even allowed to be mad at me, as I'm in the early stages of counselling... 

 

There's this overwhelming urge I seem to have to please people. I didn't even fully realise I had it until I started this process of recovery. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's a pain when you know you haven't lived up to (your own idea of) other peoples expectations. This is when the voice in my head starts. The negative thoughts that drive me to hide away and pretend the problem will dissolve itself away as if by magic. There are so many things I wish I was stronger about, this is one of them. 

 

You see, that right there, that's me telling myself I'm not good enough. Again. I am trying to be more positive about myself, to focus on what I do well, to stop beating myself up all the time. It's a hard habit to break when you've done it for so long though. And everyone does it. Everyone has those little moments of self doubt where they need a bit of a hand to get over a hurdle. But if you do it all the time it's exhausting and damaging.

 

You know, I'm actually doing it right at this moment. By writing this post I'm avoiding dealing with something else I don't want to deal with.

 

I need to go and drop some stuff off at the Citizens Advice as they've been having a look at this whole "we're going to evict you because your house is untidy" malarkey. But my mum is one of the volunteers and, today, guess where she's working? Now, she knows all about what's going on, she's my mum and she's a lovely person. But I just don't want her to be the person that is helping me with this (and before you ask, no, it's not against their policy for volunteers to help their family members). I'd much rather the anonymity of a stranger. It's weirding me out. It's me doing this again though, as I don't need to see an adviser really, just to drop things off. She's likely to be busy with someone else and therefore I won't even see her at all. But I'm finding excuses again.

 

So basically today is going to be crappy because I am avoiding things in my own inimitable syle. Joy. 

I am slowly working myself to a standstill and then I will be worse off (again). So I'm off to the CAB where I'm probably not even going to see my mum and then I'm going to the counsellor. 

 

Oh, and I get to go to my new craft group after I've collected madam from nursery :-) 

 

There is always a good point if you look for it hard enough!