PERSONAL

6

1,289

Venting about being an anxious, bumbling fool - Edit: improvements

2 years ago - Edited 2 years ago2,478 words

I've hinted in posts over the past few weeks that my mental health's been worsening lately, largely because I see the imposing mountain ahead of me - having to run a Kickstarter, and socially engage more than I have probably ever - and how insurmountable it seems, so it and the game might flop and I'll have to change my whole life around, which I believe I can't cope with, etc, etc. I've also mentioned that I needed to try and see a doctor to get treatment for my mental health again. So I've started the process on that... but... ugh.

First, it took ages to even contact the doctor, because even though they have an app they recommend you use, the ability to send text messages using it is disabled whenever they're fully booked on a given day, meaning you have to message during the narrow window between like 8am and 8:30am or the button to do so literally isn't there. And I kept missing the window, or coming up with some excuse why 'today's not a good day'. So that was a pain.

I've also had some ongoing but more-disgusting-than-interesting issues with an ingrown toenail, so when I finally did get through I asked about both the mental stuff and that. I had to send them a photo of my ugly, diseased toe, which was just delightful to take and to send! I was prescribed some cream for it, but told I had to pick up the prescription in person, and of course I'd have to exchange it at the chemist in person too.

I've done that kind of thing before, but not since before I had brain surgery in 2018. So what would be some trivial errand for most people, I had to treat as some challenging mission which evoked a lot of anxiety that took a lot of effort to push through.

While I had no fixed appointment time or anything, I decided I'd go around 1pm-ish. This meant I achieved very little all morning due to something I've written about before, but which I googled about this time and found articles calling it ∞ waiting mode ∞, talking about how it's a form of executive dysfunction - failure of the frontal lobe, the ego, to take control - and/or that it might activate specifically for things where our 'status' might be affected one way or another (eg interviews, health checkups); for me it's anything involving social interaction, as I hold a strong belief it'll go badly, I'll look a fool, and that'll have negative consequences in the long run. Any hypothetical solutions to this 'waiting mode' paralysis seemed like more effort than I could muster.

Because of that, I ended up going a couple of hours earlier than intended, around 11am... and I wouldn't say it went well. At the doctor's surgery, I had to ring an intercom and a nurse came to the door (COVID rules), and I asked about why prescriptions aren't just sent digitally, and "I need to take it to the chemist, right?", and she looked at me like I'd asked whether humans eat food (because everyone should just know this, right?). The chemist's shop was tiny, and there was one person at the till and another apparently waiting, though I didn't realise that (he was looking at items on a shelf) and cut ahead of him; I apologised and backed away instantly, but still. Then when my medicine was finally given to me, I was asked for my address, and I misheard due to a combination of anxiety and wearing ear buds I'd forgotten to take out, so I blurted out a garbled mess like "my addr- you want- should I- do you want my address??", which got a kind but pitying "please tell me your address, sir", which I then did while giggling like a lunatic due to embarrassment.

SIIIIGGGGHHHH.

Every damn interaction I have goes as awkwardly as this, which adds evidence to support negative thoughts I have about not being meant for this world, that I should just hide away and never interact with anyone, then I do hide away and never interact, so my skills rot further and further and when I'm forced to do anything, things like this happen... It's a self-sustaining cycle.

I was paying particular attention to how the physiological sensations of anxiety are literally like being drugged up, so you can't think straight, the world feels fuzzy or vaguely spins, words come out you don't intend, or vice versa. Manifested behaviour isn't exactly as intentional as would be ideal. The results of a biological system that was useful during our evolutionary history being completely inappropriate for modern life. Ugh.

So after wasting the morning due to that 'waiting mode', I came back feeling exhausted and defeated and wanting to just crawl back into my hole, embarrassment that I am, and couldn't do anything all evening either due to depression.



Obviously the only way to really overcome this would just to get more used to going out into the world and doing things. Again. Which is one of the reasons I was hoping mental health treatment might help.

Regarding my mentioning that to the doctor, I was given a couple of short surveys - assessing the severity of my anxiety and depression - with questions like "I have been feeling on edge and unable to relax: A) some days, B) most days, C) all the time, D) not at all", or whatever. Even though I spent a lot of time with psychometric tests while getting my psychology degree - and have even written my own for fun over the years - I hated this. I've spent years with these mental issues, so I already understand what they are and what I need; I don't need some set of vague, generic questions that don't even properly capture the specifics of how it affects me (avoiding things because they'll make me anxious means most days I'm not anxious, for example) to reveal what's up. I suppose the main purposes of it are for the majority of people who've never thought much about their mental health - as I hadn't before, well, I did - and also to determine whether or not I'm actively suicidal and they'd have to call the police and throw me in an asylum or something. So I knew I had to give answers that suggested I was ill enough to need treatment, but not so ill that I'd be 'punished' for it. I hate that. The lack of opportunity for genuine communication.

I probably erred on the side of caution though, and I was just told that I might want to look into a local mental health service (charity, maybe?) for relatively low-grade issues called Mind...

Which I've been to before. For many months, across two distinct periods. The first time was, I think, when I saw a female counsellor around the time I was deciding to give up making Flash games; that eventually led to me attending uni at age 25, though I met nobody and dropped out after a year. I think I went back to Mind after that and saw a male counsellor for a bit before going to study Psychology at age 27 (which of course led to finding out I had brain cancer, which then took me back to games dev).

I have... mixed feelings about Mind. On the one hand, it's great there's at least something out there to help people in need, but...

The building I went to was fairly small, cosy; more like a person's house - or a set of flats/apartments - than somewhere clinical. The counselling I had was on the second floor - or first, if you consider the ground floor number 0 - and there was no waiting room, so I just hung around awkwardly in the corridor feeling like I was doing something wrong. Nobody else was ever waiting, though I heard muffled conversations from other rooms that I think were counselling.

On the ground floor, there was a drop-in room where anyone could attend to just talk with other people who were struggling. A great idea in theory, but... every time it seemed to be full of... people I'm probably going to be annoyingly offensive about in some way or another, sorry. People with severe handicaps; the sort whose curses meant pretty much nobody would tolerate their company except as a form of charity or virtue signalling. The sorts who when they talked, you could instantly tell there was 'something wrong with them'.

The counselling itself was... well, counselling isn't therapy. It's just talking, mostly, with someone who's not even necessarily trained in psychology. Both of the people I talked to were fine. They didn't try to cure me, but that's not even really what I wanted anyway. I just wanted to take the edge off my isolation, which it did help with.

They also offered group things, which I went to, but everyone else in them were women old enough to be my mother or grandmother, whose issues related to not being assertive enough around their husbands or at work. They also offered activities like finger painting to help ease nerves, which... sigh. My relationship with art is on a very different level to that.

So just being there made me feel like... well, am I as much of a pitiable, helpless dreg as the other people going here? Do other people perceive me like I perceive them? Am I arrogant and delusional for seeing myself as 'above' them in any way at all? I mean, I'd like to think I'm intelligent, competent, moreso than most people even, at least in my chosen domains... but am I wrong? Am I just a potato-brained fool who others would only ever see with pity at best and outright revulsion at worst, because I've avoided the world so much that my ability to interact with the other people in it has rotted into mush?

Meeting actual friends who liked me while getting my Psychology degree was such an immensely different experience. Being a peer helped me feel like an actual person. We could help each other through our struggles, but we could also complete work with some highly-assessed level of competence. I didn't feel worthless.

Of course, things ended terribly with the person I'm thinking of as I say that, and she's ghosted me forever now, which continues to hurt. But I suppose after having had that, then going back to Mind, which is full of the profoundly dysfunctional, being essentially talked down to by a not-even-necessarily-qualified counsellor... There's nothing uplifting about the thought at all.

I wish I'd just not made the stupid decision to do solo Flash games dev instead of braving getting a job when I was in my teens or early twenties. I avoided some anxiety in the short term, only to create a whole lot more in the long term. I'm in essentially the same position now, so can I do any better? Or am I just too old now, and the mental habits are too firmly set? I don't know...

(Though if I hadn't taken the path that I have, I likely wouldn't have got my psychology degree, or found out I had brain cancer, so I might have just dropped dead one day for no apparent reason.)

I'll at least look into Mind again, because it's better than doing nothing, I suppose... But sigh. I feel like I'm just treading wavy water, up and down, peak and trough, never really getting anywhere. I wish there was somewhere I could go for more highly-functioning minds who happen to be struggling in one area rather than across the board (though maybe it's a joke to suggest I'm highly-functioning in any sense, all things considered). One of many things that might be available in a city but isn't here in this sleepy seaside town where old people come to die.



I'm writing this now because I'm in the waiting mode state again, as the government sent me a message telling me I have to get yet another damn COVID jab this evening. Even though it's still many hours away, of course I can't do anything at all until it's out of the way! Plus considering how 'badly' yesterday went, I'm dreading making a fool of myself again, and that's eating up more mental energy than I'd like.

I thought about just not going, not because I have any beliefs or concerns about them injecting me full of devil spunk and nano-communists or whatever, but because it's not exactly within reasonable walking distance, meaning I either have to brave the buses or - as a 34-year old man - get a lift from my mum (I can't drive). I'd been thinking since I haven't been on a bus in months or years, and it'd be wise to do that again, I should... but I feel so beaten down by yesterday that I'll probably just end up going with my mum, and I'll use the car journey to talk with/at her about what I can and should do next to break out of this yet again.

I at least went for a short walk today, which was fine. It was quiet, barely anyone around, and I said 'hello' to a couple of people who greeted me first. So pathetic as it is, that's something, which I should make a habit of doing regularly. I used to go out for like two hour-long walks a day! I used to do so many things that I'm so out of the habit of doing that they've turned back into enormous obstacles... Sigh.

If you've read this and a lot of it seems ridiculous or pathetic to you, you should be grateful you don't have to endure being cursed like this! I certainly wish I wasn't.



Update: I went for a vaccine booster thing. It was fine! The last one I went to had this huge room with tables lined up and people at all of them, which I was expecting again this time, but instead it was just me and a couple of friendly nurses in a little room, so that was entirely fine. I was slightly awkward, maybe, but nothing anxiety-inducing at all. I felt comfortable, even, as it felt similar to the hospital experiences I've had many times now for my brain cancer. Worth keeping a mental note of.

I also felt better, more human, more alive, just being outside in the calm, sunny air for a change, with a few people and animals going about their business around me. I really need to get out more. Being a complete hermit wreaks havoc on the mind.