Fortifying My Enthusiasm

[fortify-enthusiasm]

Hello again. It has been a long time. I can't remember how long, but that doesn't matter. I have an update on my progress. Although I'm still depressed, I am functioning better and I have a better perspective than I did before. I cut off 2 toxic people, both were using me and others to see to their own needs no matter the cost. I only want friends who are considerate to others and don't just care about themselves. I've managed to read some books, pass my exams, and make a career pathway that I'm looking forward to. I now have goals and more structure in my future. However, the two most harmful times of year for my self esteem are Christmas and my birthday. No other times express quite so bluntly how little people actually care about me. My birthday was a few days ago and I spent the whole day crying alone on my sofa. The urge to move to somewhere miles away is really strong and is definitely on the table for my future. I have aspirations now and I won't let them go for anyone (as long as I have my partner with me ❤️).

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I forced myself to go to yoga today and tried not to cry the whole time for no reason. I hid it well, though as no one noticed. I probably won't go back just because I got told I'm not doing it for the right reasons by the teacher and I really don't think that "trying to function/do new things while being drowned by crippling depression" is an incorrect reason to be there, but I'd rather go somewhere less elitist and more accepting of new people.

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What do you do when you tell your friends about how you've been feeling and they just shrug and pretend you didn't say anything? I understand some people don't know how to respond or react to this information, but what happens now? This was me reaching out and trying not to 'suffer in silence', but it didn't make any difference. It doesn't matter to them. "Oops, if I pretend to have not heard you, I don't have to deal with you." The worst fear when finally reaching out to someone is being rejected, but rejection just doesn't quite fit this. It's more like total indifference. It almost confirms my thoughts about being not worth a single thought to anyone. I think I need new friends. I have very little support from them and I don't think that's normal. Is it?

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Sometimes friends mean well by saying "You know you can always talk to me about it", but it's usually not the case. Being left on 'seen' when you finally do reach out just adds to the feeling of worthlessness and makes it more difficult to try again with someone else.

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I can see why people sometimes say "I feel invisible". I'm right here, yet I feel like I'm intruding if I participate. It's as if the people around me are comfortable enough with me to not feel the need to include me in any conversation, but haven't checked to see if I'm okay with that.

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I feel like if I asked my family and friends right now "do you appreciate me?" they would respond with "for what?"

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Sometimes I feel so tangled-up inside, like several strong emotions are trying to come out at once.

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It's becoming increasingly difficult to cope with all the political unrest I seem to be surrounded by every day. I go on the train, someone is declaring their views loudly with someone down the phone who disagrees. I go to the bar, the bar manager is loudly declaring their views to a punter who disagrees. I go to the shop, the tills are held up by a conspiracy theorist declaring their views to the cashier who isn't allowed to vocally disagree. People I know are strongly opposed to topics that they know very little about. I tried keeping off Twitter, but I don't want ignorance to be my coping method. What are the other options?

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I just couldn't do today. Part of me can't comprehend how I didn't move for 12 hours. The entire day has just gone by and I've just been lying here like a rock.

My partner is wonderful and supportive. They are the only reason I battle through my moods some days.

I'm stuck in my own little cycle of wanting to do things, making plans, then not doing them and either wondering why or making up false justifications. Sometimes I need another me to get me out of bed.

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As someone who is deeply in love with their partner, I absolutely cannot understand the concept of cheating on them or hurting them in any way. How could I ever damage the most precious bond I have ever formed with someone? I have seen friends break up with their partners because they're now interested in someone else, leaving their partners in ruins. How could you do this if you claimed to love them? How did you just stop loving your partner? How could you throw someone away for a stranger? Were you ever in love in the first place?

My friend has just broken up with her partner for no reason other than he couldn't be changed enough to fit in with her idea of the perfect couple: he wasn't rich and didn't have high ambitions. She changed his looks, his style, his hair, his diet, his clothes, what interests he was allowed to talk about, and his physical activity, but she couldn't make him ambitious enough and he didn't have enough money to pay for her, so he gets the boot. Only after he buys her some jewellery and she gets to stay in the flat with all the furniture, he can go and live with his mum.

Honestly, I don't want to be friends with her anymore. Some of the influences she had on him were positive: he now has an idea of what he wants to do as a career, he's fitter, and eats healthier, but I don't know how he won't develope trust issues after this. How can he not feel totally and utterly used? She couldn't possibly love him if she could leave him for such a trivial reason. She claimed to want to marry him, what happened?

I'm definitely biased in this post, sorry, but this is a topic I struggle to understand. I'm all for people being polyamorous, but not without the consent of all parties involved.

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I'm unproductive today. To be fair, I am ill. Bed sheets and hot drinks are my friends today. Concentrating on my work is daunting. I've been thinking about trying out audio books to get myself into the right mindset for studying again og øvede min dansk med min danske ven, but my head feels like mud.

I'd love to be wrapped up warm in blankets, listening to my coursework being read out to me so that I can work it out in my head and write notes later.

This is a kind reminder to take a moment to appreciate 2 working nostrils when the chance next occurs.

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A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 6 (final)

6. ‘I’m too hard on myself’

This could be a summary of everything I’ve said so far in this series of posts. I am too hard on myself. I make things more difficult than they need to be just by being demanding. This stems from my upbringing, focusing mainly on what I don’t want for myself and what I don’t want to become. Making myself tread carefully so that I’m not associated with things that make people say that I’m lazy, things that will make me snap impatiently, things I that will offend me easily, things that will make me shut away and hide on my phone, or things that will make me hate myself for not having read.

That fine balance between “encouraging” and “demanding” is what I’ve been focusing on recently in this topic. I want good things for myself as well as for others. I don’t need to put myself last to achieve that. I want to get better at certain skills, and I don’t need to bully myself when I’m not practising to do that. I want to work on all the steps mentioned in this series without overloading myself and shutting down or burdening others with my self-inflicted workload, and I can do that by myself and by accepting help from others, without feeling like I haven’t really achieved anything. Others generally want to help me with things like this, and if they don’t, then that’s fine also.

I’m not doing badly; I’ve only just started. If I really am too lazy to do anything, then how do I explain this massive series of posts I’ve made today to myself? I am my own worst enemy in my own head, but it doesn’t have to stay that way and I can clearly see that there are things I can do to improve my life, health, and my relationships with others.

Dear me,

If you’re scrolling through this again: read it, listen to yourself here, and stop looking for mistakes.

Thanks,

Also me.

[fortify-enthusiasm]

A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 5

5. ‘I don’t read books’

There are many reasons or excuses I have for struggling with this one. I’ve only recently got the right prescription glasses for the words to be in focus, for one. The letters still bounce around the page caused by a bit of mild dyslexia though, for another. It’s like being on a rickety train while going through a tunnel of different coloured lights – very distracting and almost impossible to keep my place.

I also have a somewhat short attention span; I’m guessing caused by being addicted to my phone (part 4). If I do manage to smash out a paragraph or page of a book, then I’m likely to forget what has happened when or if I ever pick the book up again. I think I’ve read the first 21 pages of a book I’ve been wanting to read for ages at least 10 times and I still couldn’t quote anything that was said.

Replaying the same song repeatedly helps me concentrate, I’ve found. I does potentially ruin the song though, as I will start listening to it with more focus when I become distracted with whatever I’m supposed to be doing and I’ll hear all the little patterns or sometimes mistakes in the music.

I have no real solution to this one. I can only strive to work on my concentration levels, my maturity around books, and allotting an appropriate amount of time for myself to sit down, put my phone away and get reading.

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A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 4

4. ‘I’m addicted to my phone’

Aren’t we all? Probably not. I am. It’s the first thing I do in the morning and generally the last thing I do at night. This impacts the quality of my sleep and the level of energy I start the day with (tying in with part 2).

Steps I’ve already taken to address this issue are:

·         Turning off most of my notifications.

·         Putting large chat groups on permanent mute so that I can look at them at my own leisure, rather than look at it with every new message.

·         I limit what social media platforms I talk to people on. This keeps notifications somewhat organised when they do come through.

·         I block personalised ads whenever I can.

My phone is incredible. It’s what I was hoping for in future phones when I first got one somewhere in the early 2000s. It’s not a top of the range phone, but it is perfectly adequate for my senseless scrolling, video watching and interesting things finding. Without my phone, I’ve lost contact with my friends, family, business acquaintances, local businesses, and new people I have yet to meet. I also lose my language learning app, my photos and videos, and my schedule for work. I might gain a bit of peace from the addicted buzz going through my brain, but I will also gain a powerful wave of anxiety over what I’m no longer paying attention to.

My solution to this isn’t to just bin off my phone or to block everyone and everything, but to limit my exposure time, rest my eyes and to pay more attention to the things around me. I often comfort myself with a little white lie saying something like: “Well, I don’t follow celebrities and I never look at my phone when someone’s talking to me and I’m not on my phone all the time, so I’m not really addicted to my phone, am I?”

Yes. I am. I’m on my phone generally more time per day than anything else that I do. I consider that to be an issue and I will be working on reducing that time to something I consider to be more reasonable.

[fortify-enthusiasm]

A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 3

3. ‘I get easily offended’

I don’t mean in the response to being called nasty names or fighting sense, but rather situations such as ‘being accused of something I didn’t do’ or ‘being dismissed like I mean nothing’.

I have self-esteem issues that feel it when someone treats me like I’m unimportant, even when I technically am because I’m not necessarily involved in whatever is going on. I think nearly everyone likes to feel important – it would make my whole day if someone acknowledged my work or something I’ve contributed to a group. Even if they just give me a brief mention, I will most likely take it to heart and remember it for years. This also happens when people disregard me in the same way. I will be hurt and even if I address it with the person who caused it, it will take me a long time to recover, even if I never show it on the outside.

I get offended when people brag about things that they may or may not know I don’t have (non-materialistically), which is understandable, to be fair to myself, but it hurts a lot when it’s something like “having a loving and close family”. They might not even be bragging, but to me, they might as well be. I get jealous of happy families and close friends. I don’t hold it against the person who says those things, but I do get jealous. I do have a family (parents, stepparents, a sibling, grandparents [not including the family I have made with my partner]), but it is broken and there’s no love for me there, we’re more like acquaintances. I do have friends, but I could never tell any of them that I love them. The idea of telling anyone except my partner that I love them is such a foreign concept to me that it nearly makes me nauseous. My emotional barriers are far too strong for that kind of interaction. They would never say they love me either, because I truly believe that they don’t, I think they like having me to talk to at a nice, comfortable “friend” status distance. I have never asked, however, and I probably never will, because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable.

As I mentioned in part 2, I was bullied both at school and at home when I was young. Therefore, ‘name-calling’ has little to no effect on me. I consider whatever argument the other person may have with me invalid the second they resort to personal attacks on me. Ok, yes, heard that before, moving swiftly on.

Being easily offended, for me, is an issue I want to work on because I think it’s the root of what is causing me to not reach out to people and express my ideas to them. That fear of them saying the wrong thing and setting me off until they never talk to me again is there ready to bite as soon as the opportunity arises. This segment could be called “fear of rejection” or “emotional damage”, but this is about how I react, not how others react. I can only speak for myself, and I don’t want to try and put horrible, untrue words in the mouths of my friends, just so I can validate my offended stance.

[fortify-enthusiasm]

A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 2

2. ‘I’m a very impatient person’

It’s not completely true that I’m in denial about this one. I am very impatient in a lot of situations, but then I’ll have all the patience in the world in other situations. I know my impatience towards my friends and my partner is a problem and I think about possible things to help often, but I’m not a robot on the wrong setting, I’m an emotional human with issues.

I snap at my friends and partner. I don’t mean to, and they generally know that. I nearly always apologise or explain myself afterwards, sometimes sparking a debate on whatever issue set me off, if there is one. Sometimes I snap for no obvious reason – that person has irritated me simply by existing in my presence. Why? What did they do that I’m not over? Snapping at people can feel good sometimes, like being sarcastic to people that are antagonising me or my friends, but why am I doing it to people who haven’t necessarily done anything to deserve my wrath?

I do try and use my impatience for positive reasons occasionally: I try to talk through any issues I have with people at the earliest convenience. I refuse to have bad feelings fester and I get them sorted out a.s.a.p., or if my boss has made a mistake on my paperwork, I will correct them immediately and not take “I’ll sort it later” as an answer because I know I will be stood there again in a few days with the same issue and so starts the anxiety of feeling like I’m pestering or being annoying. Obviously, a good manager would take me seriously and fix the issue then and there for both mine and their sakes, but those are rare gems.

My impatience with myself is both negatively and positively (I suppose) impacting my mental and therefore physical state as well. Negatively, my mind is in constant battle with itself – my laziness (mentioned in part 1) vs my impatience:

“I don’t want to get up today.”

“Get out of bed now because you’re going to waste the whole day otherwise. Why haven’t you done anything yet?!”

It’s like watching parents fight. At least one of my parents may be directly involved with my level of impatience, but I’m not going there in this segment. Generally, this battle ends with me doing nothing all day, but then having a near breakdown with frustration later that night. I will often do something small that takes next to no effort to appease this never-ending battle of brain voices. We all know that it is too insignificant to count as “doing something” that day, but it’s often the most I can manage. “I got dressed today but didn’t go anywhere”. Yes, it’s something I did, and it felt good to be dressed, but no, it didn’t solve anything and it’s not a big enough achievement for me to celebrate.

My impatience can potentially be a positive thing for me because it can (very rarely) be the kick up the arse that sparks motivation. If I can shut myself up by going outside the front door, then when I’m at the front door, it’s easy to take a few steps forward and go for a short walk. Oh look, something interesting to look at! Isn’t the fresh air nice? Oops, it’s been 30 minutes. It was my impatience that got me to start this blog and I’ve already written more than my pessimistic mind thought I would. Take that, negative voice in my head!

To conclude, my impatience is predominantly a bad thing, and I am working on it, but if there are situations that the impulse to be impatient is too strong, then I should aim it at myself and constructively, not snap at others because they’re there. I am the one with this issue, not them.

[fortify-enthusiasm]

A summary of things I’m in denial about: Part 1

1.    I’m lazy

2.    I’m a very impatient person

3.    I get offended easily

4.    I’m addicted to my phone

5.    I don’t read books

6.    I’m too hard on myself

 1. ‘I’m lazy’

I’m not always too depressed to move. I’m not always too tired to do anything. Sometimes I am just being lazy, but ‘lazy’ is such a negative word.

I was always called lazy as a child, even though I never thought I was being lazy. “Did you not finish your homework? You’re so lazy!” I was bullied at school and at home relentlessly. Even if I did find the time to finish my homework, it would be poor quality and not show the right amount of understanding as concentration is a delicate thing that can’t be implemented well when I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. I’m not lazy.

I learnt to resent the word, even when it really is the most accurate descriptive word for my state of being at the time. I came up with any reason to explain away my laziness: “I don’t have the energy” is always my most common one. Yes, I do have the energy if I try to put it in, but I just don’t. I always thought I had an invisible brick wall just stopping me from doing the things I want to do because a whole day would go by, and I won’t be able to explain what I did that day - “I just didn’t move.” It never made sense to me. I always put it down to my mood. Even if that was true, if it was time to go to work, I’d suddenly activate and get moving. Why does work matter more than the things I want to do? Surely that’s the wrong way around? Is it fear of consequences or letting others down? Probably at least partly.

The truth about me, in my opinion, is that the self-motivated, successful, confident person I imagine myself being in my mind can happen (again!) if I stop being so lazy. I’m not trying to deny my low mood or anxiety and whatever other undiagnosed mental health issue I might have in my head, but I know that laziness is one of the biggest reasons why I don’t do the things that make me happy and that is an issue I need to conquer.

How does one stop being so lazy? The best solution for me that has worked previously is to absolutely force myself to do some form of exercise. Exercise provably increases a person’s health and mental wellbeing. Sometimes my brain likes to wallow in sadness, depression, and over-thinking-based self-pity, but if I can force myself to shower, get dressed and go for a 30-minute walk, those negative voices fade to whispers and my outlook on life improves so much. Hiding under the sheets is warm, cosy, addictive and ultimately is one of the main things stopping me from going outside and living.

My nasty brain voice often calls me lazy to make me feel worse than I already do, but honestly, it is right sometimes. I need to make sure I’m working on that more than I am doing now because nothing will change if I don’t “put my arse in gear” and get out of bed.