________  ________  ________
   2018-03-25                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   One of  the most  difficult things  about  /        _/         /         /
social anxiety is the desire to participate.  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
It'd  be easy if you  just  didn't want  to,    /        \/        \/    /   \
then anxiety  or not  who cares,  but people   /        _/         /_       _/
are  generally  social creatures  and people  /-        /        _/         /
with anxiety are largely  no different,  but  \________/\________/\___/____/
with  anxiety  you   face  two   significant
problems;  the first,  obvious  one being  a reluctance  to  participate. That
mental barrier that knocks you  back before you even begin,  prevents you from
even entertaining the idea of doing anything social and, to be honest, in some
cases  helps you  cope without them and keeps you  in comfy spaces and a comfy
mindset.

   The  other,  less apparent one is the incessant, unwelcome  mental feedback
that  arises  when  you  do  overcome that  first  hurdle  and participate  in
something  social.  Joining a  club, chatting  to  someone at  a  show or even
casual, innocuous things like posting on a forum or joining a chat room brings
in its wake waves of savage self-hatred tinged discomfort. Everything you said
was stupid, everything you wrote was wrong, everything you wore was ugly.

   Everyone around you hates you.

   You don't belong.

   Anyway that's where I'm at right now. Good times.

   It doesn't help that I  feel like I've got no place to retreat to lately to
try and deal with this, work is consuming me and weekends are an uncomfortable
crunch of  mental exhaustion  and  trying  to outpace depression and my  usual
coping mechanisms (ie. alcohol and pain  killers) are unsustainable so for the
most  part  are out of  the picture.  I feel like all I'm  doing right  now is
existing. Occupying  space. I know I need to fix it but I just don't  have the
energy so I just let every day carry on like the last.

   I've got  a long break coming up but in the back  of my mind is the what-if
dread that it won't be enough,  just a longer weekend that once over will just
leave me back to the grind of the day-to-day.

   I don't know what to do.

   Back in 2000-ish I had a kind of mental break, depression got that bad that
I just buckled  under it and went under for probably two or three years,  just
sleeping all  day on my mom's  floor, doing  not much more  with  my days than
watching TV, eating and breathing.

   I guess the "grown up" thing to do would be to get off my ass and talk to a
doctor about all this but, circling back  to  the start of  this post, there's
that barrier I have to push  through first. Either  way I  hope  to whatever's
listening that I can figure out how to  deal with  this  before something like
that happens again.

   Anyway, Debbie Downer out, stay real. End of fuckin' file. <3



EOF