Overcome social anxiety

I’m a conservation volunteer for the National Trust For Scotland and although I’ve been going to the planning meetings for many months now so far I’ve avoided going out to pub afterwards with eveybody. Until last night when after consulting with my new bible “Overcoming Low Self-Esteem” I decided I had to do it. So I filled out my little form, convinced myself it would be fine and fun to go, and then I actually went, even though there weren’t many people I knew at the meeting that night.

I’m so glad I did it because it was fun and everybody was nice and now I don’t feel like a total freak. I also put myself down for the croquet evening in May. I deserve some sort of prize for this. Maybe I’ll reward myself with double guinea pig hugging tomorrow.

Lately I haven’t felt like talking to anyone at all. Even writing on here is hard. I did make myself go to the Scottish Breeds Dog Show on Saturday though, which I was nervous about, but they had so many lovely dogs. I want one. Probably because then I can have a friend who isn’t actually human. I went to another conservation weekend and made an effort to talk to people there.

Generally I just feel blah. blahblahblahblah.

Yesterday I went to talk to someone I knew at my fascinating Quantitative Zoology lecture. Normally I would just stay sitting on my own on the grounds that she would much prefer it if I didn’t inflict my presence on her. But that’s the bad bad voices speaking so I ignored them and we had a nice little chat.

The guy I’ve been seeing at the university counselling service said some really nice things about me yesterday when I went to talk to him. He said I was engaging, funny (in a good way), warm-hearted, and well balanced. He also said that the way I dealt with conflicts in the past was very mature and sensible. It made me feel all happy to know that at least I have some things to be proud of.

The instructor at my taichi class used me as an example in front of the whole class the other night. Of course as soon as he said that I completely lost co-ordination of all my limbs. The humanity. The good thing is I didn’t even worry about what I did afterwards and haven’t been going over the humiliation in my head over and over again. However this might be because the trauma was so great that my mind has had to surpress all memory of those few minutes, and in fact a few years down the line I’ll completely break down when I realise the horrible reality.

The Good
I have been scampering along on a steady line lately, talking to more people in uni, keeping in contact with lots of people from high school and primary online, and actually phoning people up on the phone. I’m also planning to go and visit a friend down in Oxford, and I just spent the weekend on a conservation volunteer weekend with a bunch of nice people. This is good

The Bad
I have been having some problems lately with a certain friend who doesn’t seem to be talking to me due to a certain incident. This does not make me happy. In fact it makes me very upset so I made an appointment at the counselling service and ended up crying for the entire preliminary session. Well at least they decided I would benefit from additional sessions I guess…

Ach. Today bad. My friend J just left from an emergency visit to see the guinea pigs. She was upset due to unfortunate circumstances with her boyfriend (the one who kissed me at her birthday party – I didn’t know btw). Firstly I haven’t spoken to her in ages, things seem to have changed since that party. I feel bad because I can’t stand it when I think people don’t like me. Especially when people don’t like me after starting to like me. And then I’m rubbish to talk to anyway. But all her other friends were busy. And then there’s the fact that I’m depressed and haven’t really talked to anyone for a week or so. So add that all together and it probably didn’t go well.

I don’t know what I was supposed to say anyway. Something that women say to each other when they’re upset, but it’s all a mystery to me. Of course I think he’s a terrible choice for a boyfriend and that she’d be better off without him, but that’s not any of my business. I decided ages ago that I had done more than my fair share of showing her what kind of guy he was, and that from that point onwards she could decide for herself what she was doing. I just felt like I was supposed to be saying the magical thing that would satisfy her. I think maybe I was supposed to say what an idiot he was?

I can’t talk to her properly with these wierd paranoid feelings in my head at the best of times. I like sleeping so much. There’s no thinking when you’re asleep.

Whinging concluded.

I am forcing myself to write Happy New Year messages to everybody I know. I finished the mobile phone people earlier today, and am now struggling through the bebo people. After this it will be onto the facebook group.

Yuck Yuck Yuck. I’m just writing “hi how are you?” 50million times over!!! The humanity… well I think it’s time to use my old standby: nonsensicality

For I have been very good and brave. This evening I made a phone call to a friend who’s coming to Edinburgh for Christmas and now we’re going to meet up tomorrow for coffee. Normally I would just have pretended not to get the message with her phone number until it was tragically too late, but I got a hold of myself and made the damn call.

I’ve been putting off visiting the lady who lives below me to give her a card and present for a few days now, but I finally forced myself this morning. And some little kid answers the door takes the card and present and shuts the door in my face! I did go deliver it at least, but it’s hardly in the spirit of Christmas not even saying hello. Damn! Now will I have to find some extra reason to go and say hello without even delivering a present?

I went to a party. It didn’t go well. I ended up wandering around country lanes in the dark for an hour and a half. At least I didn’t cry!!! I’m not sure if this is progress or not…well, ok, it’s pretty pathetic. I didn’t know many people there well and my “date” decided to spend the evening with other people, so I was freaking out a bit. So I retreated to the outside and wandered around in the dark. I did call one of my friends on my mobile though to say I was upset rather than condemning myself to being alone. That’s a step forwards.

One thing at least I can be positive about: I looked gorgeous!