Today, I’ve not left the house – I can’t, I’ve needed to go out and run a few errands, but I just can’t leave.
I’ve done a fair bit of work, and caught up on Blogging stuff, but today I’m a prisoner of my anxiety.
Just the thought of stepping out sets my heart racing and my head spinning, I feel sick and nervous, I feel so terribly isolated and NEED some kind of human company, but that need just isn’t as strong as the sickness I feel about crossing the threshold. The postman got me to take a parcel for next door, my hands were shaking so much at the thought of opening the door to him, I struggled with the lock, the signature I gave him was a random squiggle.
I couldn’t wait to slam and lock the door just to stop the way I was feeling.
It flared up again tonight, when the neighbour came to collect the parcel, I’ve got such a sweet, chatty neighbour who will stand talking forever and I am trying harder to engage with him, but I just felt so rude quickly closing the door. The world was spinning and I wanted to get off.
I have days like this, I don’t open the curtains, I just want to be in a bubble, I don’t want to talk to people, I just want to hide.
Weirdly though, it seems to make the Video Blogging I do better, there’s an illusion of confidence, despite all of me wanting to curl up and hide, I can at least easily pretend to be a normal functioning adult when I put a camera in front of me. I can do that fairly well, when I was a best man over 10 years ago, my leg was uncontrollably wiggling as I made my speech, but I aced it, people laughed, and it went well, despite it going against every fibre of my being having a whole room looking at me.
Tomorrow, I *have* to go out, I *have* to collect J and I’ll *have* to do something out of the house to keep him entertained for the next few days, what? I’ve no fucking clue, but I have to be in full on Dad mode, because, well I don’t want either of my kids to grow up like me. I have to give them the illusion that I can cope (I can’t), and the illusion that I know what I’m doing (I don’t).
Anxiety is a strange beast, it really is, sometimes I feel like I can take on the world and everything it throws at me.. Other days, I struggle to lift off my duvet. I try my hardest to make plans and have things ahead to look forward to, but on my worst days, knowing that I have ‘stuff’ upcoming makes it all so much worse and I want to cancel everything, but then I feel isolated and alone – it’s an odd dichotomy.
Either way. I don’t like how things are now. At all.
I had no idea you suffered with anxiety too I’ve watched your vlogs and seen you chatting in twitter I know you’ve been to blogging events all those things scare the loving hell out of me (well the big events do!) it’s funny how it affects is all differently. I don’t know if you’ve written about it before? Maybe I’ve missed it! Can totally relate to this post and these feelings it’s so tough to pretend you’re ok and can do things esp to your kids when inside you’re fighting that taking off feeling inside! Hope you’re ok at the moment x