Support Group

So what’s new? Well, Wednesday evening I went along to a new support group that’s just started in my local area. I had intended on going last week but sort of decided against it at the last minute. But I made it this week and I am so glad I did! There were only 4 of us including the organiser which was nice as it wasn’t too intimidating. It took me a while to get the courage to walk in, I actually walked past a few times without going in (half because of nerves and half because I wasn’t actually sure it was the right place – we were meeting in Starbucks and as there’s quite a few of them around these days it can get confusing!). Anyway everyone was really nice, and we just each talked a bit about ourselves and our experiences with SA. It was still busy in Starbucks when I got there which surprised me as I thought there wouldn’t be that many people there, and there were a few times when I felt myself becoming paranoid that people could overhear what we were saying and would think we were a bunch of freaks. But I couldn’t hear what anyone else on other tables were saying so I reasoned that other people couldn’t hear us either. Anyway I would highly recommend anyone reading this to find out if there are any groups local to you and try and go. I was SO nervous on the train there - I could feel my heart practically beating out of my chest, but once I got there and actually walked through the doors it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. And the feeling of achievement afterwards is really amazing J

And I discovered that one of the girls at the meet (a girl around my age) is actually going to be in the same therapy group as me (starting in exactly one month now I come to think of it). So that’s a huge relief that I’m going to know someone.

In other news, I didn’t make it to the vegan festival after all, I was still too ill L That was kind of depressing because I was strangely looking forward to challenging myself with that. But the BIG news is that I have an interview next Wednesday for an internship at the British Red Cross in London. I bought an interview skills book and am working my way through it at the moment. So we’ll see how that goes....

Aaaand I'm ill again

I have a cold again. I felt fine yesterday morning, but then as the day went on I started feeling more and more blocked up and got a scratchy throat. Then this morning I woke up and could barely breathe. This is so irritating. I obviously caught if from my mum as she was ill last week, but at the time I thought I'd be fine so didn't make any attempt to stay away from her. I really hope I'm okay for the vegan festival on Sunday, I'll be so annoyed if I'm too ill to go. Fingers crossed :s

Finally A Breakthrough

I’m feeling good right now. I got up this morning and headed into town to hand out a few CVs to shops, because well I basically want any job right now. I had a list of 5 places to go to and I only managed 2 but for me even that is an achievement. I wasn’t even sure I was going to manage one. It was the first time I’ve ever done that so obviously I was terrified beforehand. I had my headphones in listening to music on the walk in to distract myself, and I literally had to keep shouting in my head “STOP IT” to myself every time a negative thought popped into my head. It worked though. I’ve attempted to do this a couple of times in the last few weeks but never worked up the nerve to do it, I always ended up just walking straight past the doors. I bumped into one of my mum’s friends on the way back to my house as well, and chatted for a few minutes. I was fine at first, I asked a couple of questions about her son as it’s A level results day today here in the UK, and he just got his results. But then she started asking me about how I feel being back at home and I just kind of gave a non-committal “It’s been OK” response. A few more questions like that and she got this look on her face like she realised that I wasn’t going to say much more, then she just asked me to say hi to my mum from her and we said goodbye. As soon as my back was turned I started beating myself up about it. I need to come up with some responses for when people ask me about my life and what I’ve been up to as I can’t really tell them that I spend about 80% of my time in my room and have only met up with a friend once since I’ve gotten back.

Anyway I’m not going to dwell on the bad today. I felt soooo shit this morning I can’t even put it into words and now suddenly I feel the complete opposite. It’s an achievement and even if nothing comes of it and I don’t get a job I still pushed through the anxiety and accomplished something. I’ll go in again tomorrow morning and target the shops I didn’t manage today.

Still Here

Argh, why am I so good at being inconsistent??? Probably because I havn't had a lot to write about. Am still job hunting. No luck yet but will keep trying.

I'm trying to create hobbies to fill my time. I've just started the NHS Couch to 5K program, and am 2/3 of the way through week 1. My mum very kindly bought me a new pair of running shoes as my old ones were literally falling apart and had to be thrown away, and I bought myself some proper running kit so now I feel vaguely like a real runner. I have to get up early in the morning and run though as I'm still self conscious about it (I went at 6am this morning), but I guess in a few weeks I'll get used to it and then I can start challenging myself to go in busier times.

I went to salsa last week as well. My friend cancelled on me again (she didn't want to go to the actual lesson just the freestyle afterwards and was making everything very awkward so in the end she just decided to give it a miss), but I still went and had a good time :) I'm going again tonight, provided I'm not utterly exhausted from getting up early today.

Nothing much else to say I'm afraid :s thanks for reading :)

edit

totally forgot to mention that I'm volunteering at the London Vegan Festival this Sunday. It's a pretty big event with people from all over the country travelling to it. I'm getting there in the morning to help set up and then I'm stewarding for 2 hours after that. I'm not too nervous about it yet (am actually looking forward to it a tiny bit). The organiser sent out a list of all the people volunteering and info about what you'll be doing and for some reason I find it really reassuring to see my name written down in a specific box for a specific duty. Takes some of the uncertainty out of the day I suppose. Anyway it's going to be a big challenge for me, but I thought that by getting there early to help set up before loads of people got there I could ease myself into it rather than arriving in the middle of the day and walking into a room full of hundreds of people.

August?! Already?!?!

We got back from our cruise a few days ago now. I can't quite decide whether it went better or worse than expected. A bit of both I suppose. Not surprisingly, me and my sister didn't meet any other young people, although we did spot a few here and there we never spoke to any of them. Actually that's a lie; we were assigned to a table of 8 with another family with 2 sons, one of them 22 and the other 16, but after the first night the older son never came down to dinner again. His family kept having to make excuses for him like "oh he doesn't like dressing up for dinner" and "he likes to eat earlier". And then after a few more nights the whole family stopped coming down, and the waiters told us that they had asked to be moved to the earlier sitting. So we spent the second half of the holiday just the 4 of us sitting alone at a table of 8, which was fine by me as it meant no having to make awkward small talk with strangers. My mum on the other hand got pretty upset and annoyed by the whole thing as the waiters wouldn't see if there was anyone else who wanted to join our table as apparently it would mess up their entire system. So there were a few embarrassing incidents surrounding that whole incident involving my mum storming out of the restaurant on one occasion with the rest of us rushing to catch her up :s Other than that the rest of the holiday went pretty smoothly. The food situation was fine as well. I was so nervous the first night we went down to dinner because I wasn't sure who I was supposed to talk to about my diet but I just told the waiter I was vegan when he was handing out the menus and from then on everything was fine; I got given the following day's menu every night so that I could choose in advance what I was going to eat.

I havn't done much since getting back. Was going to go to salsa again last night but my friend cancelled on me at the last minute because she had someone collecting her bike that she had sold on ebay and she hadn't cleaned it for them yet :s I could have gone anyway as my mum was also going with her friend but it's never much fun going without anybody your own age, so I didn't go. I'm a bit annoyed at myself for that as I was looking forward to it and I could have used it as an opportunity to challenge myself.

The job hunting is not going too well. I've just been applying for simple waitressing jobs as I really don't feel I'm up to getting a "proper" job yet. I have had some responses but somehow or other nothing ever comes of them. Either they'll call me and catch me of guard and I'll panic and not pick up or they'll email me saying call us and of course I never do. I'll keep applying anyway ... maybe one day I'll find the courage to answer my phone.

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I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I tend not to delve too deep into my feelings on this blog (at least I feel like I don't anyway). I always start off my posts with the intention of writing about deep stuff but then I always end up rambling on about really superficial crap that no-one really cares about and totally glossing over the important bits like how I've been feeling. I hope that makes sense.  For example, ever since getting back from holiday (and for the last few days of the holiday come to think of it) I've really not been in a good place, I can feel a huge wave of depression coming, way more intense than anything I've ever experienced before. This morning all I could think about was how hopeless everything was and how I never wanted to leave my bed and I was even in tears at one point, but when I read back my post I don't sound depressed at all. I read an article in the newspaper over breakfast about a woman who killed herself and her two children because of post natal depression and it just got me thinking how much easier everything would be if I had the courage to ... well you know... I can't even bring myself to type those words. I never would do anything like that just so you know, I have way too much hope to end it all. I have an almost irritatingly overactive imagination and am constantly dreaming up scenarios about how my life could pan out, like becoming prime minister or a world famous actress, and the silly thing is that part of me believes that those things aren't totally out of reach. I suppose that trait can only work to my advantage in the long run.

Anyway I want to become more open in my blog posts so I think I'm going to try a bit of free writing maybe. I censor what I write way too much and sometimes end up totally rewriting whole posts and I want to get out of that habit. I've read other blogs that use free writing, notably Mr Shy and Timid, and it's always interesting to read. I'll give it a go either later today or tomorrow.