Well, what a great response to my launch into the blogging
community! To be honest, I was a nervous
wreck for the first few minutes after I posted it, until the responses started
pouring in. I’d spent quite a long time
contemplating doing this anonymously (hence my picture on here is a drawing,
rather than a photo). I had many reasons
for this, first and foremost being my apprehension about the reaction I would
get from my nearest and dearest. Being
completely open and honest with someone who has known you for years seemed much
more daunting than laying myself bare for some faceless reader on the other
side of the world, especially as I had previously remained largely silent about
my problems, perfecting the false smile and polite, mindless small talk to
avoid even acknowledging, much less addressing, the sinister shadow lurking
around me. To put it bluntly, it felt
like I’d been brazenly lying to them for the past decade. I thought about a half-baked compromise,
whereby I would blog as myself, but not publicise its presence to anyone I
knew. I swiftly came to the conclusion
that this would have been largely counter-productive, as any negative
recriminations would be further compounded if one of them stumbled across it by
accident, especially if I was as frank as I had intended to be by doing it anonymously
in the first place.
I was also concerned that I would not reach as many people
as I would have liked by not utilising social media. I use both Facebook and Twitter, but tend to
keep Facebook more for “people I actually know”, as I tend to put it. Putting the link up on there was the most
daunting part, as I knew that old school friends, my parents and my in-laws
would see it. Let’s face it, these were
the people I needed to open up to the most about it, and I was going to find
doing it in writing a hell of a lot easier than I would do talking face-to-face
with someone about it. If I’m writing,
no-one can tell if I’m crying at the same time, and I can continue to
communicate coherently without my words being punctuated with sobs and snatched
breaths. I can get my point across
without worrying about the other person’s immediate reaction too much. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not so much
that talking about it upsets me. The
tears are more... relief, really. But
once I start to cry, I start to worry that I’m garbling my words and not making
sense, which then leads to what I’ve started to call “the crumple” – I get
myself into such a state that I physically can’t talk, and I’ve yet to find any
way to bounce back from that short of a good sleep. Anyway, I feel I’m drifting from the point
here. I needn’t have worried. Every single response I’ve had has been
positive and supportive. I’m thrilled
that a few of my friends have even volunteered some of their own
experiences. I’ve only spoken to a
couple of people who’ve seen this face to face since then, and I didn’t
crumple. In fact, I actually had a
whacking great big grin across my face!
I’ve also had a great response on Twitter, largely thanks to Time to
Change retweeting my link, which has helped me reach a wider audience. I almost doubled my number of followers
within the next day.
I must admit here that I’m finding this post a lot harder
than the first one. The first one was a
mad rush of stream of consciousness typing, but I’m reading back and reviewing
this one more thoroughly. I’ve been
working on it for days, to be honest.
Because of the overwhelming response I received, I’m aware that people
are actually going to be reading this.
Writing is something deeply personal to me, and something I’m very proud
of. I’m not quite sure whether I’m more
flattered by the praise about the subject matter I’m dealing with here, or the
quality of the writing. Both have made
me determined to persevere with this, but not as much as knowing that a few
people took a little comfort in my words.
When I first sat down to write this, that was my main goal, and opening
up about myself was more of a coincidental bonus. I’ve also not slept all that well in the last
week, so I don’t quite feel like my brain is firing on all cylinders. The first couple of days I was buzzing so
much from the blog feedback that I could barely sit still, and kept running over
ideas for the next post in my head.
Those have mostly made it into this post, but I’ve got a couple of ideas
for future ones as well – I just wanted to make sure I thanked everyone for
their support before getting into anything too heavy! Anyway, I’ve barely got more than a couple of
hours every night this week.
Other than lack of sleep, my main concern this week has been how sodding cold it is! When I'm struggling to get up in the morning already, the added factor of the cold makes it that bit harder to motivate myself out of my lovely warm bed. Temperature always seems to have had quite a bearing on my mood. It's largely self-perpetuating as well - odd as it may sound, I tend not to really register that I'm cold until I lose feeling in my hands or feet, by which time it's a nightmare trying to get warm again. As I get colder, I'm less inclined to do anything to warm myself up. I think the part of me that constantly bitches at me, telling me I'm a useless, worthless and generally horrible person, thinks I deserve to suffer in the cold. I've become more aware of this, so I've been making an effort to ensure I don't get too cold in the first place. I'm currently sat here with a furry/fleecy blanket round me, taking regular breaks from typing to warm my hands up again, fuelled by copious quantities of tea. I'm lucky enough to have a proper fireplace in my house, but I'm not too good at lighting it myself, so that doesn't tend to get done until my husband gets home from work in the evening.
Generally speaking, I think I've been doing a lot better this week, and I attribute much of that to the blog. I've had something positive to focus on, and it's made the hard days seem that little bit easier, as I think "well, at least I have something to write about". I had a lovely roast dinner with my family on Sunday, which always perks me right up. I think an excellent meal with plenty of conversation, with people you truly love and care about, is hard to top in terms of feel good factor. I took my car for MOT on Tuesday, which was quite a big thing for me in terms of independence. It was nice just to get out of the house and feel I was doing something productive, really. She didn't pass, unfortunately, but I'm off to the in-laws this evening to have a look at the couple of bits that need fixing. I also had my second session of CBT, where we started looking at activities I've been avoiding, and I have an exercise to do this week where I try to tackle some of the less intimidating tasks, and log how I feel about them in terms of a sense of achievement, closeness to others and enjoyment. I'll be interested to see what I find out through this one, and look forward to reporting back in next week's installment.
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