Shields recharging

You know when you're playing a game like Halo (or most any similar game that came after it) and you get hit so often that your shields are gone and you have to hide somewhere safe to let them recharge, as any more hits will have serious consequences for you? That's how I'm feeling right now.

Within the not-too-distant past I had reached quite a stable, and fairly high, level of contentment. I had really come to accept a lot of things and I was actually quite happy within myself. I was in as good as place as someone like me could ever be in.

My recent relationship, and subsequent events I don't want to immortalise as I couldn't bare to look, has scattered everything to the winds. I am now in total disarray, questioning everything. I have once again seem a glimpse of how other people live and once again I am cowering in fear and despair. I have taken a step back from a lot of things in my life for now, some quite important things. But I feel I need to hide. I need to wait until those shields recharge. I need to get back in a place when I am once more happy inside myself, with myself, but it is going to be an empty happiness. The happiness of a recluse, shut off from everything.

The bottom of the spiral

Long time, no blog. The last few weeks of my life have been a bit of a train wreck. I haven't gone to the gym for three weeks, haven't been sober one night in the last two weeks. I'm not sure I can sink any further so it's time to think about getting back on track.

The girl I talked about in a previous blog...yeah we kind of got back together. I'm weak, sue me. Only things have come to an end again, and once more I am feeling completely unlovable and that I should just resign myself to being alone forever. Going out with her made me feel even more isolated than I felt before, but I've felt that before, only not as strongly.

Even though I know she is no good for me, I am still having problems dealing with it. It's like I'll put up with anything just to not be alone and that's a terrible thing to admit...but I suppose it's true. On a similar theme, it seems I just can't formally criticise someone or point out their faults even when they point out mine. It's almost as if I'll accept being walked all over rather than risk the chance of burning bridges. I'll also back to some other familiar ground, of wondering how much of this is "my fault" and how much "her fault".

Twirling round with this familiar parabol

Everything is different now. I'm sort of seeing someone, kind of. It's early days and I'd long forgotten what these early stages are like. I'm suffering a lot from anxiety and worry. It's like I've turned into a needy child, craving reassurance like mother's milk. If hours go by without me hearing from her I start to wonder if she is going off me. She doesn't help in herself, as she isn't always the regular contact type person. When she does contact me it is always positive and seems to lift my anxiety, but that anxiety gradually returns.

It's not just my separation anxiety, but spending time with someone normal, bring around them and listening to them talk - it all reminds me of my inadequacies. My insular, lonely little life filled with unfulfilment. It's akin to learning to like yourself and then someone holding up a mirror, reminding you just how ugly you actually are. One step forward, two steps back.

I was drinking at the weekend too and I'm shocked at the effect it is having on my mental health. My anxiety today was through the roof. Off the chart. Depression too, thoughts of worthlessness and despair. Wondering just what the fucking point is. I don't know if it is affecting me this badly because I don't drink for long periods of time, or if I'm just changing as a person, rotting away.

I'm considering going to the doctor to see if I can get some kind of anti-anxiety medication.

Velocity

It's that time of year again; it's not only coming but accelerating. In January I jumped off a very tall building and have been telling myself "so far so good, so far so good" but now the ground is in sight and it's coming up fast. I'm going to hit it hard.

There is an acquaintance I usually spend some of Christmas day with, or at least have lunch and maybe a drink with, it helps the day go by, helps me feel normal. I am standing still, though, and like everyone else he is moving and is now married and living with his wife and they are going away for Christmas this year. So for the first time in maybe 10 odd years I'll literally be on my own for Christmas. The longest day of the year.

I'm in training for it already, I'm regularly attending the gym and regularly not drinking. I'm back on the wagon so that the inevitable fall isn’t so bad. This year I firmly intend the entire day to drown in an alcoholic daze.

Although I suspect it's not just going to be Christmas itself that is the problem. I've kinda got involved-ish with a girl and I won't go into details but needless to say it's my usual modus operandi. It's another long-distance thing, another girl I've managed to woo with words. I've been to visit to her and mustered all of my efforts to fraudulently appear as normal as I can. To be honest I don't find it that hard to maintain normality for an evening with people I like and haven’t seen for a long time (I had a list of things to talk about pre-prepared on my phone's "To do" list that I referred to through the night so that I'd have something for when she stopped driving the conversation - there's a little tip for you).

For a week after meeting her I was in a pretty bad hole. Depression featuring heavily through my days and drinking through my nights. I felt like I was grieving for something but I don't know what. Meeting her made me feel normal I guess. Even if for just one night, and it was crushing me that I couldn't have that normality forever. In a way it was like I was playing a cruel joke on myself. A horrible bait and switch.

I've arranged to meet her again just before Christmas so I'll see if I can muster this sense of normality again or be faced with the fact that it was a fluke. I'll also see if I fall down a hole again afterward. I know it will be harder this time around, not only because my "To do" list was almost exhausted, but because I plan on telling her we can't really meet again. There are lots of reasons, not all of which I'll tell her...the main one is that there are reasons that will make any relationship between us too hard for both of us (she knows these reasons but it's something I can't really go into here, nothing related to my Aspergers). There is also the distance element. Plus the fact that I know she hasn't really seen the real me, and I think maybe I can quit while I'm ahead.

I also had to cancel my work's Christmas party to go and see her so that's that decided too. I just hope the meeting doesn't fall through due to the bad weather we're having at the moment.

I was telling a work colleague about this girl, the same one that gave me the previous ill-fated advice over my love life. He was frustrated about my negativity concerning this relationship, but he doesn't really understand. He asked me how old I was, and I told him. He asked me what I was doing, but I didn't understand so asked him to elaborate. "What are you doing with your life? You should be married with kids by now." No. He just doesn't understand.

It's good to think - but not too much

As I was reading this news link I was thinking about it being related to autism before it was even mentioned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11340881

Butterflies and rocks

In my head I see the conversation we have in situations I lack the courage to engineer. I wait like a coward instead. Wait for the situation to occur naturally, of its own will as I lose mine and remain silent like a coward instead. You walk off to your life, I walk back to mine.

Ho, ho, horrible

My anxiety levels have been through the roof today, all day. My flat looks like the only gift I got this year was squatters. I honestly can't remember the last time I did the dishes, and the only thing with more dust than the cans and bottles on my floor is the vacuum cleaner. I'm living off takeaways and alcohol as each day is as without structure as the last. Getting up later and later each day, starting to drink earlier and earlier each evening. My deep depression has now turned into absolute anxiety.

I'm back at work for two days which is a strain to be honest, and then it all starts again until the New Year when I'll have a whole new batch of people to lie to about how great my Christmas was.

Piecemeal we die

Things are not going so good right now. Nothing major; no-one has died, helicopters do not need deployed and my DVD player is working fine. In fact I can't really put my finger on one single thing, it's just the culmination of lots of little things. I think this is what doctors refer to as depression.

The venue I go to at the weekend has now closed down so it's a major blow to a lot of things in my life. My routine, the fact that if I ever left the house at the weekend then 70% of the time that was where I went, I could fit in there, there were interesting people to watch, I liked the music...they had a pool table. What am I going to do at the weekend now? The only other pubs are those ghastly ones that play dance music and are populated by "lads" in this stupid uniform they all have at the weekend where everyone wants to wear the same clothes. I'm going to have to find a new pub now, form a new routine.

There is a nice music festival that happens around this time of year that I always go to. It's local so I can walk, have a drink and just chill. I checked the internet to see when it was on this year...this weekend! So I missed today's event totally but I'll go to tomorrow's. I just hope the weather is fine. I am supposed to be going to someone else's BBQ but I'm going to cancel that. I'll have to lie about the reason I can't go because;

a) they will want to come with me to the festival
b) I'm a horrible person

I'm actually writing this at work right now. Something else I'm hating in my life. I work too much, I care too much...I spend time running after people who don't care, do sloppy work and have no attention to detail. I shouldn't care as much as I do but I can't help it. I should be like everyone else...do a bad job, enjoy myself at the weekend then come in on Monday to find out some schmuck gave up his weekend to fix my work. I should be out and about at the weekend relaxing and doing what I want, or doing nothing. Not at work the whole time, I never seem to get to rest.

I have stuff I need to do for other people but haven't yet done. I always tell myself I'll do it at the weekend, then I spend my weekend in work and don't feel like it. I start to go for long periods with my phone off, I stop checking my e-mail. One of these days I'm going to buy a sandwich board that says "LEAVE ME ALONE".

I can feel myself slipping away. Giving up. Resigning.

My kind of normal

This morning I had what most people probably consider a normal morning; I had a shower and breakfast. Normally I only shower in the evening, and before I was diagnosed I have to admit I'd only shower every other day. My unusual morning routine was, unfortunately, not quite as it first seemed.

Truth be told, I'm quite depressed at the moment. Last night I got home from work, put the water on for a shower and readied my tea….well, it was a microwave curry so there wasn't any readying. Instead of showering or eating I just drank instead. I drank until I passed out.

I woke up about 6.30am, then drifted in and out of sleep. I got up at 8, turned the water off (it had been on all night), had a shower and had my microwave curry. None of it made me feel any better though. I don't think the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach was hunger. The shower didn't really make me feel awake and fresh either. In fact I felt like a child, woken up at 5am to be hurried and fussed to get to the airport for a cheap price flight. Out of comfort zone and disorientated.

When you have Asperger Syndrome life can often look bleak. Walking around and dealing with people, listening to them talk about their happy lives and happy relationships knowing that you can never have that. That's not for you. Look but don't touch. The world is not your oyster. It can be hard to deal with and depression is never too far away.