Steps

I’m not sure what happened but something finally spurred me into action and I finally made it to the doctors at the end of November. It was a year ago when I went to re-register with my GP here and I remember it being Christmas time and lying to my mum about where I’d been. It was yet another year before that when I realised that I am not able to cope alone and even if it’s only a placebo effect, the medication that I took before seemed to help and I had my most productive and happy time in 20 odd years when I was taking it. The doctor didn’t ask much, it didn’t seem as though they had any of my records from when I was at university but I took one of the old boxes with me and she wrote me a new prescription for the same one.

It has been about 6 weeks since I started back on them and I think it is helping. Although they tell you it takes 4-6 weeks to take effect, I noticed around an hour after I took the first one that I felt different. It could be placebo, but my pupils were dilated and I felt energised by it like a (recreational) drug. It was almost as if I needed it. It’s difficult to know how to feel about that. I have long suspected there is something wrong with how my brain works. I know that there isn’t a very strong case for SSRIs being effective but I feel better for being on them again (despite it adding another monthly expense I can ill afford).

My general mood has improved but I still have the deeper underlying sense that life is meaningless and a crushing sense of alienation. I have been so isolated for 3 years now, it takes its toll. I still think about suicide, it seems like the only sensible thing to do sometimes. There isn’t really any reason that I want to be alive besides not inflicting the grief on my family. It’s bearable for now though. Maybe there’s still some hope for me.

Ages ago I joined a Social Anxiety group on Meetup but I’d never been to any of them since it seemed like a lot of the people in the group knew each other and I was afraid of being the new person. I did make it to one in December though, we were planning on going to a Christmas thing in the Arboretum. Only about 6 people were meant to be attending but the weather got so awful (after I’d already gone out..) that only 3 of us actually turned up. It went ok, I didn’t really say a lot but the two people I met seemed quite nice. I might go along to the next one and see how it goes. The thing is, I always feel as though I’m putting on a performance by trying to appear normal. If you are a dark, miserable person like me then you cannot “be yourself”.

The loneliness has been getting to me. I want to write more about this but it’s late and I haven’t been sleeping well. Hopefully I will remember to write more than one post every two months this year. Let’s hope 2016 is a good one.