Go away, why don't you want me?

Being depressed makes me push people away. I have probably done this a lot my whole life when I'm struggling to function. I find it hard to manage being around people; even the thought of the effort required to meet friends is exhausting, having to put on the happy mask. At the moment I am just finding people so irritating to be around. By now I don't have many friends anyway and most of my family is completely self obsessed so there is not a lot of effort needed to avoid seeing people if I don't feel like it.

I felt very let down by my friend who is probably my most friendish friend. As in, she knows more about me than my other few friends, I see her the most (which isn't much) and I don't have to put on too much of an act around her. She has always let me down really. I went through a period some time ago of wondering if I should break up with her because we saw each other loads and then when she met her partner, she started cancelling our plans every time there was a chance she could see him. She's pretty self absorbed too. She likes to always get me to tell her how I am and my news at the start of our meet ups to free up the space for her to spend the rest of the 90% remaining time to talk about herself. Often it doesn't bother me because it's a welcome distraction and I don't feel like talking about myself anyway and she's too nosey about what having DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) is like, how things are going with clinical psychology...and always, always...what caused the DID and often I don't want to even think about that stuff. But sometimes it just bugs me that she does that thing of getting my bit over and done with. She actually recently told me that this is what she does so she can feel free to talk about her own stuff, not that I hadn't already figured it out. But clearly she thinks that's fine. 

But yeah, I had a big birthday and she was the only non family member I invited but she didn't come in the end because she wanted someone to give her a lift and then leave the party half way through to bring her home so that her dog wouldn't be alone. My sister was organising it and was not so patient with her as I would be... she sent me a text saying: “I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was her birthday party, I thought it was yours!” In the end my friend was getting so stressed out about getting home by 7pm and driving me up the wall needing to know exactly how I was going to arrange it, that I told her if it was too much trouble I didn't mind her not coming and we could meet up another time. So she didn't come, but I did mind after all. I felt offended that her dog is more important than her friend actually. I mean, she leaves her dog all day to go to work Monday to Friday. Just because it was on a Saturday, shouldn't have meant she didn't come. 

 

That was months ago and we still haven't caught up. She sent me a text in February saying was I free on the 20th March at 2.30pm because she could fit me in for an hour coffee date. I just felt pissed off about that too. Why do I have to be slotted into her schedule that way? I'm clearly very low on her list of priorities. I cancelled that date in the end because I didn't feel up to it but I said could she give me 'some dates' when she's free. I saw her at a wedding recently and she said she'd try to get a couple of dates to send me. I just thought: “Fuck off. I'm not your charity case.” But I just said: “OK” because I also like her and want her to be my friend. I decided long ago that an unreliable, self absorbed friend who I enjoy being with when I do manage to see her is better than no friend. I may change my mind about that. 

 

But having been avoiding human interaction for months, with a friend like her, it's very easy to see how little effort she puts in to meeting up with me. It can be surprising how easy it is to distance myself from people; I mean, it highlights how people just don't really seem to notice. I have been avoiding everyone by not arranging to see people and not initiating contact with people. But then I feel lonely because I see that people don't appear to miss me either. I get angry that it's been so easy to remove myself from the lives of my friends and family. I feel like I wish they would have made more effort to notice me. But then I don't want to see them anyway, so what am I complaining about? For instance, I woke up today (Sunday) alone because Adam is away and I felt sad that the people who know Adam is away are probably out enjoying the good weather without me even entering their minds to wonder if I would have liked to spend time with them. 

That includes my mother, who contacted me the other day to see if she could call round for coffee but I was going out to the shop and didn't want to see her. I said that Adam would be away at the weekend so maybe the two of us could go out or she could come round then but she didn't respond to that and Sunday afternoon is upon us. And she knows about the depression now yet it still wouldn't occur to her to even let me know if it didn't suit her and send a text to see how I am doing. Yet, I'm glad not to have to see her and if she did text me to ask how I'm doing, I'd feel annoyed and wish she'd mind her own business. So no one can win with me can they? And in all honesty, if I felt motivated enough to go out and enjoy the sunshine too, I'd do it on my own because I much prefer my own company to anyone else's at the moment. Yet still, I feel so painfully alone too. What do I want from people?! If they make an effort, I feel annoyed, often patronised and intruded upon and I wish I could shut myself off from the world and live like a hermit. So I do that and then I feel lonely and resentful of the same people for not caring. 

I don't know what's going on in my head. I want relationships but when they are there I want to run away from them. Is this all to do with having an attachment disorder? I am pretty sure that I do have an attachment disorder but I only really saw how it played out with my feelings about my clinical psychologist and in the past, with Adam. I thought that nowadays the main issue with me not having friends was not a lack of wanting friends, but a lack of the skills or normality needed to develop friendships with normal people. Perhaps all along I have been ambivalent about even wanting relationships with people. I know a part of why I tend to back off when people are wanting to be friends is because I feel like if I let them get to know me any more than they do, they will start to find out about my mental health problems and this sadly, does scare some people away. But maybe it's not just that. People cause pain and I have had too much of that, so I try to protect myself from pain by avoiding people. But as they say, no man is an island and attachments and relationships are seemingly a human need and that's where the loneliness comes in I suppose. What can I do? Alone, I'm lonely; not alone I'm angry and defensive.

Quick update on the 'not believing I have DID' issue

I know I only posted yesterday but I just found this writing which I did last week and didn't post for some reason so thought I would put it on as a brief update on my status with regards the whole separateness from alters I have been experiencing lately. I try not to post too often because I think people will get sick of me and stop reading, but at the moment my confidence is pretty low about my blogging skills in general and as I have convinced myself that no one is reading it anyway, I guess there is no harm in me posting as much shit on here as I feel like! So here goes...

I have been out of my phase of not believing I have DID since last week! Great news! Although I'm not sure if it's just a temporary glitch in the what I thought was going to be permanent 'phase', so I am desperately trying to make mental notes about what I have been experiencing this week to remind myself that the others are still in there. It's real alright, even if it feels unreal. I need to remember that. 

I don't know what the trigger was that brought me out of it, but I don't know if it's a coincidence that two things occured at work this week which took a bit of pressure off me in terms of stress levels. One was getting an interview over and done with that I'd been dreading and the other was a date for training that I have to deliver being changed to one month later on than I had planned it for, given me more time to prepare myself. This has temporarily eased the pressures on me. I am still under huge pressure but I guess even though small changes were enough to cause a temporary sudden relief, which maybe gave me more head space to cope with 'others'. I don't know if that's the cause, but I welcome them back, even though they bring both emotional and physical pain with them. It's just reassuring to know I wasn't lying about them before (does that sound weird: that someone might wonder if they had lied? Don't people always know if they are lying? Is it just another DID thing: being so changeable that you don't know what's real or not?).

Just to update on the update, since I wrote that about a week ago, I don't know where things stand now ie if I have gone back into the phase or not. I guess time will tell. I am still planning on talking about the rest of my last therapy session on Monday but seeing as my next therapy session isn't going to be until Friday this week, there isn't any rush to get it down on paper (or text I suppose).

Over and out

Social anxiety and fear of being touched

This evening, in an attempt to be a good colleague, good friend and a normal person, I attended two social events. The first was a work barbecue, the second a house party at Pou's. I only go to things like this because I feel I 'should' and there's always a part of me that hopes I might enjoy myself, but invariably I don't. Why are social situations so difficult?

It doesn't help is that I think I look like a freak and so am constantly paranoid that other people are judging me in this way. I try to tell myself that I don't look any worse than a lot of other people and that if I just had confidence in my appearance I would blend in but I don't really believe this. I feel so so so so ugly and fat and conspicuous. So if the occasion requires any kind of dressing up, that's a sure way to send me into a state of anxiety in itself. Today was a barbecue so we went for the tartan shirt, skinny jeans and heels combo. Shan likes it when I wear the tartan shirt, especially if I dress it up with a necklace. It's like lesbo meets princess and she gets a kick out of that somehow. Anyway, given that it was more of a casual affair for me I felt slightly less anxious in that respect.

Despite this minor advantage, I still hated almost every minute of it. I think I am the kind of person who people like to talk to if there is no one more interesting around. This works well for me in the office because I can chat to people every now and then when there is no one more interesting about for them and it means there's not a lot of pressure on me to converse (which I often don't feel like doing). However, when involved in a group of more than a few, I have no hope of being listened to or engaged with. This makes me feel like an inferior human being, which I believe I am anyway, so it just confirms it to me... hating self so much just now.

Thirdly I have some stupid hearing problem where I can't hear what people are saying if there is any background noise which means it can be almost impossible to join in a group chat in a noisy setting.

Fourthly, and probably most importantly, I feel like an alien. I feel like even if I looked stunning and people were interested in me and I could hear them... I'd still be hating every minute of it and wanting to run away home and hide. I just don't feel like I am on the same planet as anyone else. I can hold a conversation for a few minutes, but it's all fake. It's not me talking; it's the part that acts in this social manner in order to blend in. Inside I am panicking that any second they are going to realise I am a fraud; a freak, crazy... that I don't belong here.

I want to be able to be myself, but who am I? I want to have friends but I will never be able to make friends with anyone normal because all I have to give is this facade of normality which can't maintain for more than a few minutes. So I am trying to look like I am enjoying myself; wanting to enjoy myself; wanting to be able to engage meaningfully with another human being but also wanting to run away and be alone; feeling so far from the lives these people around me seem to be living.

I think part of all of this is growing up so separate from normal life; because of the church/cult (whatever you want to call it) I grew up in. You are physically and emotionally separate from others in the world. You are taught to be in the world but not of it... and that's just how I feel. I'm here, but I don't belong here. At least when I was in that church I felt like I did belong somewhere else. Now I don't have any other setting in which I do feel I belong. I am an alien altogether.

I sometimes resign myself to the silence. I sink back into myself and watch the world around me: smiles... laughter... bonds of friendship... I see people enjoying life. I wonder if I will ever smile genuinely or laugh truly, not just out of politeness. Will I ever feel the bond of friendship grow? Will I ever feel that life is something enjoyable? I see people enjoying a joke and it contrasts with the dark images in my mind of things that haunt me constantly and I wonder how there can be any hope for me to feel happy when I can barely imagine what that might be like.

My main feelings throughout the evening were those aforementioned, with a few moments of less discomfort/mild positivity when engaging one colleague who seems to talk more to me than others do (but I fear this is more to do with her own insecurities socially as she's always quick to drop me when someone else shows an interest in her) and then a few interjected moments, when I was aware of my feelings of physical attraction to the same girl and a slight moment of panic that Shan would try to act on those feelings and then guilt that she (Shan) was thinking about what she wanted to do with the girl who was so innocently sitting with her leg pressed against mine.

Pou's house party was posibly even more uncomfortable and when I was leaving, Pou tried to get me in a group hug with her new boyfriend (who I only met today for the first time) and her. There were arms around me before I could think of a way out and I freaked out and told her I couldn't and that I had only just met BF and that she should know that I don't give hugs. I don't often hug her and have more than once asked her to please stop trying to hug me/touch me. I feel angry with her because I have explained that I find physical touch so horrible (Yes, I am aware of the complete contradiction between this and the last paragraph: but my mind is full of contradictions) and she knows that I have DID, so why then does she feel it OK to force me into a hug with a man I have never even met before? Afterwards I felt guilty for refusing and that I had made a scene and should have just done the fucking ritual, but then, on the other hand... it's my body and I don't want to be touched so why should I have to do it just to please someone else? Better late than never.