After a silly bout of social anxiety, and once my flimsy excuse for staying in was no longer valid, Ark and I went out to a local meet to see some friends. I won't lie about it, not to myself or anyone else: it is really hard for me to get out of the house to do anything. I will say, “I'm going to go out to this event,” or “I'm going to so-and-so's house to hang,” but at the last moment I'll have some excuse not to go. It isn't that I don't want to go, but for some reason, I panic. I don't like people. I may like these people, but I don't like people as a group. I often don't have the mental/emotional capacity to deal with them, and I get claustrophobic if there are a lot of people around. If I'm feeling particularly shy, I will hang around Ark and let him do the talking, choosing instead to observe and listen. Alternatively, if I'm feeling manic, I will chat up the nearest person, me with a shaky voice and twiddling fingers and bouncing legs.
Regardless of the social events, if I do too much at once, I will be drained for days and require recoup time. Pushing myself out the door takes energy, and being with people takes energy, and coming home and winding down takes energy. (Yes, I said winding down takes energy.) Sometimes, after an event, I'll come home feeling super charged with energy, and I won't be able to sit still.
I had been working on it, getting better at mastering my anxiety and managing to get out for events sometimes two or three times a week. But it's been getting harder. Actually, doing everything is getting harder.
I had to admit to myself that something is probably wrong with me on a chemical level after having a second anxiety attack at work. It's not something my coworkers need to see or be around, and I don't like feeling this way. When asked recently what was wrong, all I could come up with was, “I'm just sad. All the time.”
I wrote about being afraid of admitting that I have depression before. I'm still afraid of it, but I think I'm coming to grips with it. I need to see a doctor and I'm hoping that will help me make some sense of it all. I know now that this is more than just my normal winter blues, and I have to take action if I want to get through it.
Blogging helps. I know this isn't poly-related, but this is also kind of a personal blog, and nothing has been going on poly-wise worth talking about (I know! Happy poly! Who knew?!), so I thought I'd drop this update while I had the time and energy to put it out.
A lot of changes will be happening 2012. I can feel it.
