Goodbye 2011

I'm ill on new years eve. I was originally meant to be working tonight but I swapped shifts with someone at work because I was going to go into London with a group of SA people from the support group I go to. I worked a 12 hour shift yesterday which wasn't the best idea with a cold and I just felt too ill to go out tonight. So I'm spending New Year's Eve alone. Which is actually okay, I don't mind too much. A least I have an excuse for staying home if anyone asks. Ironic though hat the one year I make plans I fall ill.

So I thought I'd update on the Christmas period now, seeing as I want this blog to take a new direction in 2012 - more focused on recovery than just a diary of someone with social anxiety. I'm not quite sure what my vision for this blog is yet, but I know I want to use it to document my progress in overcoming social anxiety so that it can help others in the future.

Okay got a bit sidetracked there; back to Christmas. The dinner out was not great; better than last year but not fantastic. I was quiet and felt a little uncomfortable. Though I think a lot of that came from not feeling like I could relate to the people there - they were all freshers whose lives consisted of little more than partying, drinking and attending lectures, and they hardly have a care in the world.
Things were a little better at our xmas eve drinks party. At the time I felt like it was going really badly but after everyone had gone home my mum told me that she thought I had done well (she's not all bad, contrary to how it might seem from my previous post!). I think I had just set really high expectations of myself - I envisioned flitting through the room from person to person charming everyone I came across, which of course wasn't the case. I don't go to those kind of events very often so it's not like I've had a lot of practice. A lot of my insecurities about attending these events are about the fact that I feel like I have nothing to say to people when they ask me how I'm getting on now I've graduated/what I want to do etc.

I've been working a lot recently. I've done a few 13 hour shifts which would be exhausting for anyone, let alone someone with SA. Overall this job has had its ups and downs. It's incredibly busy at the moment; the ice rink has been pretty much fully booked for the last week or so. I much preferred it in the early days when it was a lot less busy.

So with an hour and ten minutes to go until the new year I thought I'd reflect on how this one has been for me. What have I accomplished that I wanted to?

- Well, for a start, I finally ended my relationship for good, something I had been wanting to do for a long time.
- I graduated university; I can now tell people I have a degree in Theoretical Physics, which always makes me sound smarter than I really am. I'm not sure it was worth racking up £20,000+ worth of student debt for but that can't be helped now.
- I finally managed to lose most of the weight I wanted to (there have been times in the last few weeks when I've dipped below 9 stone).
- I started cognitive behavioural therapy and have met other people with SA in the flesh
- I've been working (even if it is only temporary) and have earned myself a bit of money for the first time in a few years
- I made a couple of youtube videos after a good few years of wanting to.
- I started running (and then consequently abandoned it because of the cold weather, ssshh!)

And what haven't I accomplished that I wanted to?

- I haven't really found myself a hobby
- I still am pretty directionless in life
- I haven't travelled yet
- I haven't committed myself as much to the CBT as I should have.

And finally what do I want to accomplish in 2012?

...

Hmm I'll have to have a think about that one. I'll get back to you tomorrow!

Angry Rant

Today was not a good day. I emailed in sick this morning because I've had a cold for the last few days and felt particularly bad this morning. So I thought I'd have a nice day of rest and relaxation. Instead I've spent the day being screamed at by my mum about how dirty and useless I am. Apparently because I left a few bobby pins and a towel on the floor in the bathroom that makes me a useless, disgusting slob. And now my mum says that I'm not allowed to stay in the house by myself in March, when my parents go on their skiing holiday. Yes that's right. My parents aren't going to let their grown 22 year old daughter stay at home by herself for 1 week. Yet they were perfectly happy to leave my 18 year old sister alone for 3 weeks in total when they were off on their holidays last year.

It's no wonder I have the problems I do, having grown up with such a verbally abusive mother. She can turn in an instant; one minute she's all lovely and caring and the next she flips out over the smallest thing and doesn't stop shouting for half an hour. I never know where I am with her. It gets to the point sometimes when I'm scared to even open my mouth in front of her because I don't know how she's going to react. And she's convinced herself that I was born this way, and that nothing she did in the past contributed. She's in complete denial in my opinion - it doesn't take a psychology degree to figure out that being told you're useless/stupid/lazy on a regular basis is going to have some impact on a person's self esteem.

She threatens to throw me out of the house regularly as well. Once, when I was about 11 she actually pretended to call social services to ask for me to be taken into care and made me sleep by the front door all night. Honestly I would like nothing more than to walk out right now and find somewhere of my own to live, but right now I don't have the money.

I know we'll make up in a few days and I'll look back at this, cringe and feel guilty about having written all these horrible things about her, but really, whyshould I feel guilty? I'm always the one who ends up apologizing, when a lot of the time it should really be her. It's been the same thing over and over again all my life. I'm sick of it. My dad keeps saying that I just have to learn to accept that that's who she is and learn to deal with it, but why should I?? Just because she's the older one, why should that mean that I have to be the one to change to fit her moods. I wish she could see that it's her decision to be so angry all the time. If she just learnt to relax and let things go, her life and ours would be a hell of a lot more peaceful.

It's that time of year again

It's almost that time of year for our yearly neighbours christmas meal out. Last year was a bit of a disaster, here's a quote from last years blog post about it :

"About a week ago my family went to dinner with our neighbours; its a yearly tradition that we all meet and go to pizza express around Christmas time. My younger sister is on a gap year at the moment and is working with three others her age who were also at the dinner. So the majority of the time, the conversation was limited to the four of them talking about work, which I couldn’t really contribute to. Though even when something came up that I could have talked about I still didn’t speak up much. The only time I really spoke was when asked about my dietary habits - I’ve been vegan now for about 9 months, so I was quizzed about that for a few minutes after ordering my cheese free pizza. I hadn’t been around that many people for a while and found the whole thing pretty overwhelming."

And my private diary entry :

"Went out to dinner last night w/ old neighbours: did not go well. lots of ANTS (mainly about appearance)
- "my hair is a mess"
- "my skin is awful"
- "I'm fat"
- "I have nothing in common with anyone here."
- "they all think I'm strange"."

It's tomorrow night and I'm not too anxious about it at the moment. My anticipatory anxiety has gone down a fair amount in the last few months, but I'm still very awkward and shy when actually talking to people but I suppose that just takes practice.

I can remember vividly sitting there last year with this big group of people feeling SO out of place and like everyone was thinking bad things of me and feeling very self conscious. I think I uttered less than a hundred words the whole night. I'm desperate for this year to be better ... it should do because I have made progress (even though I sometimes don't believe it).

We also have our yearly christmas eve drinks party at our house. There's going to be about 30 - 35 people there. In a way I'm looking forward to that. I find that sort of thing a lot less stressful because I can move about the room and talk to more people for a shorter amount of time rather than sitting next to the same person all night stuck for something to say.

Group Therapy # 12 and Work Update

Yes that's right - 12. Out of 15. It's gone so fast - too fast for my liking. Only 4 of us showed up tonight, everyone else was either on holiday or ill. It was actually quite nice to be able to talk more and in more depth. We talked about things coming up for us in the next few weeks (for me it's a yearly xmas dinner with neighbours and then our xmas eve drinks party at our house that we host every year) and how to deal with them and as a result I'm feeling a bit better about how I'm going to cope with them.

Now for the work update. I got my first paycheck yesterday :) Though I opened it up at home and realised I had been paid the under 21 rate (more than a pound less per hour than for over 21s) when I should have been paid the over 21 rate. So I ended up with more than £100 less than I should have gotten. I was dreading having to say something to the manager about it because I was worried I was going to be an inconvenience or something. I was getting very depressed and anxious about the whole thing, having thoughts like "Why is it always me?" and "Nothing ever goes smoothly for me." But I managed to find the manager alone this morning and let her know, and she was very apologetic and told me that they'd roll the money over to my next paycheck. As soon as I had gotten that out of the way I felt so much better; like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Other than the wage problems work has been going okay. It's been getting more challenging recently because all the schools have broken up and so it's very busy now. And also all the uni people have broken up so there's a whole new bunch of staff who I'm having to get to know. I haven't really spoken to anyone new yet. Not properly anyway, I'm just sticking to talking to the few people I've gotten to know. Today was quite overwhelming to be honest; there were approx. 20 staff in and half of them I had never met before. I spoke about that in group therapy today and I'm feeling better about it now. I'm not going to put pressure on myself to make friends with everyone there, after all I'm not getting paid to make friends, I'm getting paid to serve customers! The fact that I'm even working is progress.

I still have that underlying feeling of depression. I don't think that's going to go away until I figure out what I'm going to do with myself next year. I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually.

Trying to Fight off Depression

I can feel depression creeping up on me. I'm halfway through my temp job at the moment and I'm starting to worry about the future again. I don't know what I'm going to do after it ends and I'm terrified I'm going to have another 6 months of crappy unemployment and depression. I've heard back from a few people I emailed about WWOOFing but they've all basically said that there isn't much to do in the winter so I should contact them again later next year if I'm still looking. So it looks like that plan is going to have to wait for a few months at least. I'll keep trying though. Someone will want me eventually.

I'm going to get my paycheck tomorrow :D I can't wait!! Everyone was actually getting paid today but I've had a day off so I'll get mine tomorrow. I'm probably going to have to spend half of it on christmas presents which I'm a little resentful about (yes I know I'm selfish :P ).

I've been slacking with my therapy again for the past week. I had had a good few weeks and felt like I was really making progress but then I stopped for some reason. Maybe that's the reason I'm feeling depressed now? I think I've let work get in the way; I keep telling myself I'm too tired and that I'll do it tomorrow, but of course, tomorrow never comes. Even today, on my day off, I haven't done it. My parents have gone away for the night (they're picking my sister up from uni and are staying the night as it's a long drive for them) so the conditions are perfect.

I'm going to do it before I go to bed. I'm going to have a nice relaxing bath, read a book, do my therapy and get an early night so I can get up early for work tomorrow.

Anxiety Free Shopping Trip

I went into town today to pick up some bits and bobs and I felt NO anxiety at all. Not one bit. Zilch. Nada. That’s a huge deal for me. A few months ago I was spending an age worrying about what I was going to wear and making sure I looked okay (even if I was popping out to get bread and soya milk), and then spending every second out of the house feeling like I was the centre of everyone’s attention . But today I didn’t even care, I just shoved on some clothes and left the house. Even when a shop assistant came up to me and asked me if I needed any help I asked him where an item was rather than just saying I was OK then looking for it myself, which I don’t think I have ever done before. I didn’t even think about it, I just did it. And supermarket anxiety seems to be a thing of the past (touch wood). I remember when I was at uni, I would get really panicky if I was food shopping by myself; my heart would race and I’d feel like everybody was staring at me and judging me. Not today though. I was a lot more relaxed and calm when paying as well, able to interact better with the people at the till. I think it’s something to do with working in a customer service job. When you’re serving hundreds of people a day, you start to realise that cashiers really couldn’t care less about you; all they’re thinking about is how long there is left until the end of their shift. At least that’s what I do :P

WWOOFing

I've started emailing various farms about going to WWOOF with them. I mentioned WWOOFing a few months ago in my blog but haven't done anything about it since. Well the desire to do it is still there, and seeing as I'm finally going to have some money (1 week til pay day!!!! :D ) it's become a realistic goal.

I know my parents wouldn't approve of this kind of thing; going and working on a farm in exchange for food and board, but really it isn't their decision. I need to be more independent from them and stop letting them dictate to me what I should/shouldn't be doing. I think I'm just going to organise it without their knowledge and tell them when I've sorted it all out. That way they can't stop me.

Longer Work Update

Last night as I was leaving work I passed the security guard on the way out. Normally I would just put my head down and walk past quickly, but something came over me yesterday and I just felt like being friendly – I said goodnight in quite a chirpy voice, then he looked up and smiled and said goodnight back. I felt like skipping all the way to the station after that J That’s how I want to be; just being friendly and talking to people without constantly building it up in my head and analysing afterwards whether I said the right thing.

I may as well update you all as to how my work is going, seeing as it's my first day off for 5 days and I've nothing else to do. I pretty much worked constantly from last Friday the 2nd until last night. I had a 13 hour shift on Sunday which was SO tiring but I got through it and it turned out not to be as bad as I thought it would be. When I first saw the rota and saw I was working 5 days in a row I literally had no idea how I was going to get through it, but I managed as I always do. I'm very glad to have a day off today though.

The work itself is pretty easy. I'm mainly in the cafe, serving hot chocolates, mulled wine and mince pies etc. but when more people are needed we head over to the skates area and It can get really busy (and I mean really busy) over the weekends and during the evenings. At it's busiest, there can be 200+ people all turning up for a session at a time. Then when the session is over they all want hot drinks so it gets seriously manic in the cafe. I'm really having to learn to project my voice and beckon people over to the tills. But it's not so bad. In a way I almost prefer it when it's busy as it makes the time go quicker. I was in during the day earlier this week and there was a lot of standing around doing nothing. But that actually turned out to be quite a good day as I got to chat to a couple of other people working there.

The people are generally really nice. I'm finding it easier to talk to some of them than others though. I go all quiet and shy around the managers, even though some of them are the same age as me and I know I'm probably more intelligent/interesting than they are. It's just an authority thing I guess. Also I find it really hard talking to the loud, confident, "cool" ones. I'm getting better though and it is still early days.

I do still get anxious before I go in every day, though it has been reducing day by day. It tends to be worse if I'm working the evening shift as I've had the whole day to think about it and worry myself. If that does happen I'll just get out my therapy sheets, write down all my negative thoughts and analyse then in a rational way and I always end up feeling better.

The fact that I'm working has given me a big boost to my self esteem. I don't feel so useless and a waste of space anymore now that I'm actually doing something. I know it's still a month away but I'm not looking forward to having to return to the job hunt after this one is over. I've really got to start thinking about what I'm going to do. I'll have earned a bit of money by then at least so I'll have a few more options than before.

Tired

Urgh, I am sooooooo tired right now. I worked a 12 hour shift today, 9:30 am til 10pm. I have to get up tomorrow again to go in for 9:30 but only working til 4. It's going okay. I'll write more about it as soon as I get a chance.

That was completely pointless I know. Meh

Goal : To be Socially Confident

Just a little exercise from the book "Does Your Life Need a Laxative?" by Fred Broder

Identify your goal

To be SOCIALLY CONFIDENT and a GOOD CONVERSATIONALIST.

Why is this important to you?

I want nothing to stop me being who I want to be/doing what I want to do. I want to have good relationships/friendships and I want people to look up to me and admire me.

How badly do I really want it at this point in my life?

I’m sick of being scared all the time. It’s something I know will take time but I want to start working on it ASAP.

Evaluate how realistic/achievable this goal is at this point in time:

I don’t have a lot of other commitments right now and don’t have to worry about money/bills etc. so I’m in a good place to do something about it. I’ve made progress in the last few months so if I keep it up I reckon I could be “cured” of my SA within about a year.

Level with Yourself as to what sacrifices are required to achieve this goal.

I’ll need to sacrifice free time every day to go over my therapy handouts and do exercises.

I’ll need to sacrifice my PRIDE and learn not to care what others think of me if I mess up. I’ll have to put myself into uncomfortable situations and sacrifice my COMFORT and SAFETY.

Be honest with yourself as to your ability and willingness to pursue this goal.

I sometimes still feel like something is holding me back (most likely FEAR) but I am willing to do the work if I know I’ll get results. I’m already learning that there’s no gain without pain. I don’t want to live like this anymore and I know that this is the ONLY way I’m going to change, so I know this is something I have to do. I’ve proved that I’m more capable than I think in the last few months; who knows what I’ll achieve in the future.

Decision Time: Do it with all your heart, postpone it or drop it.

I am going to pursue my goal of being socially confident and a good conversationalist WITH ALL MY HEART. I am going to take every opportunity to stretch myself and push my comfort zone, because I know it’s the only way I’ll see results.