I am a Worrier

My Mum and her fiancé, Rob, have just gone on holiday to Cornwall for 9 days. This is the first time they have been away since my last relapse that put me in day hospital for two weeks.

Even though I feel better in myself, I feel vulnerable and a little afraid. My Mum is my main support, she knows everything that happened and I feel comforted knowing she is around. Now that she is not here I feel lost and worried that without her around I might deteriorate again, she was the reason I stopped self-harm and the suicidal idealization. I worry I will succumb to my thoughts of these things that are always present.

When my Mum isn’t around, I begin to crumble and lose the grip I have gained on my life over the last month or so.

 

To have faith…

To have faith is to defy logic. It takes faith to think positively. It takes faith to believe that there is a loving God who cares deeply about our pain. To believe in life, the universe, or yourself after numerous failures is to have courage. Faith is an act of courage. It is choosing to get up in the morning and face our fears and believe that God will help us. Faith is choosing to believe that even though we may have failed one hundred times before that we can succeed the next time.

Courage Summoning

This morning I summoned all of the courage I have to go down to the town on my own for the first time in months, if not a year. I intended to visit a new ceramics shop that I heard was looking for someone to work part-time. I was nervous but I thought that a part-time job in a quiet, niche shop would be perfect to get me socializing and working when for the last few months I have isolated myself.

I got up washed and dressed, put on some make-up to make myself feel a bit better and armed with a CV I left the house. The weather is miserable today, the sky is overcast, a misty and hazy rain is falling but the birds are singing and a strong fresh scent fills the air. The rain is hardly noticeable as it falls but soon a sheen of moisture films over your face and clothes, I dreaded my make-up running or smudging and the heavens opening in a harsh downpour. I wanted to make a good first impression to the shop workers.

I plodded along down the road rehearsing what I would say to introduce myself in my head until I had memorised it word for word;

“Morning! I was just passing by to ask whether you have any job vacancies at the moment?” Blah blah blah…..

I hardly saw anyone on the way down which was a blessing because I find it very difficult to socialize spontaneously, I have to know I will be socializing to be able to prepare. I was on the road that lead to the shop when I decided to slow my pace to lower my heart beat slightly, wipe the moisture from my face and any smudged make-up. I neatened up my clothes and carried on to the shop.

I stopped in front of the shop window and admired the pottery on display, all of the work was Mediterranean in appearance with bright, warm colours glazed over the ceramics. There were two signs in the window, one to give details about the shop and another entitled; “WANTED!” and asking for someone to work Saturdays between 11am and 1pm to hand leaflets around the town. I stepped up to the door to read that the shop was closed on Mondays.

I was devastated. I had summoned so much courage to walk in public on my own, to go into a shop and ask for work but it was all in vain. So, I turned around and walked back home. I stopped in our local Londis and bought a drink, mumbling greetings to the owner and fumbling around my handbag for my purse and with clumsy fingers counted out the money I owed.

Now I’m home and I’m disappointed. I have lost all hope and faith in everything, I was so optimistic this morning! I wanted to achieve something today but I haven’t. It may only be 10.45am but I am disheartened. All that effort and courage I put in has come out fruitless.

 

Attention seeking

I have come to the conclusion that I’m just an attention seeker and that is my primary mental illness. The depression, anxiety, OCD and others are just a byproduct of the attention seeking.

I remember as a child when I felt ignored I wanted to be hurt. I used to wrap bandages around my arm when I went to school so someone asked what I’d done. I made up stories to cover for my injuries. I tried to break my bones, to hit my head, to fall over just so I got attention.

Now I’m older, I find watching programmes where someone gets hurt, I feel jealous. I want to be that person who gets hurt. I see people care about the person that gets hurt and I want to be them. I see people rush around to help someone, and I want that.

Sometimes I get an urge to fake an illness, I convince myself that I’ve got it then I want it to happen. An example of this is seizures. I woke up one night with symptoms of a seizure and now I want to have another one.

I have always had an urge to commit suicide if I’m in a high place, or near a rope, a blade etc. When I see a programme where someone kills them-self, I get jealous and want to do it myself.

I don’t understand what any of this means, I’m disturbed, I want to be someone else, I want to be dead, I don’t know. Maybe I want a punishment. I genuinely don’t know. I’m so pathetic.

The demon of OCD is rearing its head

Years ago when I was at secondary school and seeing the counsellor there, she mentioned my habits and suggested that I had OCD. I never went to the GP to get formally diagnosed and just put it down to “one of those things”. All through the various treatments and therapies I have been in, I have never mentioned it again.

Recently though, I have become more troubled by the different symptoms I have. I have always had a need for things to be in an order, even if to other people my things seem messy, I have put them there because it feels right for me, and I know where everything is. I have learnt to live with this and I no longer find it too much of a problem for me. But my excessive list making and re-writing has become a problem. In one day I used nearly a whole notebook to write and re-write lists comparing prices, sizes and information about wire I need for an art project I am hoping to do. I have continued the list and made more lists everyday. I have yet to order any supplies because I am still making endless lists. Over the past week, I have spent hours upon hours sorting through what I need and what choices I need to make whether it be colour, material, thickness, length or price. Once I’ve found multiple websites that are selling what I need, I create a table in Microsoft Word or Excel comparing every product each company has to offer and converting every measurement to make sure I have not made a mistake and then I calculate the cost of post and packing with the price for each item and the price per meter or equivalent. I’m sure other people would have just had a list of what they wanted and gone onto a website offering a decent price and ordered it already. But I can’t.

I am uncomfortable with spelling and grammar errors, I understand we all make typos or in quick thinking we miss out a letter or punctuation mark but I get distressed. I was just looking on an OCD website to see if they had any advice but they had a spelling mistake on one of the pages so I had to go off the site.

I get irritated my objects not lined up, balanced or equal, everything has to be placed around the right way.

But mainly it’s the lists that are really bothering me at the minute. I know that even when I’ve spent all afternoon and evening on this list, I will still not get to a conclusion and order my supplies.

These lists are ruining my life.