Alora Fane

I thought I should make a quick note of this. It went okay! Can't say I've done much else this week though.

So yes, I had my second counselling session today. Last week's was stressful, mostly due to issues with the trip - my card being rejected on the bus, most notably - and because of that I was anxious in the days leading up to this one.

Thankfully the app you can use to buy tickets on worked for me this time (it didn't accept my payment methods last week, even though other things did), and after spending all morning tense with anxiety about it, the bit I was most concerned about was over in like five seconds.

Not that the rest was without anxiety. I went in my discord briefly last night (with some embarrassment afterwards since I wasn't exactly in the best mental state at the time (as if I ever am!)), and linked to the ∞ Agoraphobia Wikipedia page ∞, which I read through myself and was surprised by how well it described what I experience. I've kind of been assuming I have that for a while, but of course I've never been diagnosed. Maybe worth exploring though.

I didn't have any anxiety about the counselling session itself because being vulnerable isn't something I struggle with (I feel like I'm unlike others in that regard), though I pretty much blurted out my whole life story to give some context to where I am and why, and started worrying afterwards whether I'd said something 'wrong' or repulsive in some way. Or maybe I was more aware than usual of how I probably shouldn't be as metaphorically naked as I generally am, so I felt something like shame about exposing myself so openly this time? Something like that?

Either way, I learned that she got into counselling because of mental health issues of her own, though I was wary about asking further since I know it's not her role, and she might be more guarded about all that than I am about my issues. Though it's a strange situation, where one person bares everything while the other just... doesn't. I don't know. I'd prefer it to be two-way, though I know that's not How It Works.

She also knew what deviantART and Patreon were - a first for a counsellor/therapist I've seen, and the sort of thing that makes me glad to have a younger one for once - and has an interest in art. Though then I felt weird about that in case I said something about my own approach to art and interpretation of others' art that might have bothered her (I've tried hard to learn stuff like anatomy, but a lot of artists don't, so I worried about coming across as insufferably elitist in a way that I also worried about in a recent post about my approach to music).

I've also been thinking about how it's strange that I talk to people in situations like that as if they'll agree with every view I express (eg alcohol is a blight on society). I wondered a lot on the way home what it must be like to be a counsellor for someone whose worldview you massively disagree with, and how much her own story and views diverged from my own. Hmm.

The trip back was more anxiety-inducing than I expected because I regretted not going to the toilet before beginning the 40-minute bus trip. So that was fun.

Also, from watching the other members of my species (I think I'm a human or something) on the bus, I felt both less odd because they all had their quirks, and more odd because even though it was a busy day, I didn't see a single person who struggled to figure out how to pay as if they're not used to it.

I won't be seeing the counsellor next week because SHE HATES AND HAS ABANDONED ME WAH WAH. Either that, or she's off on holiday. I'll try to plan to meet up with my friend instead so then I can have some kind of Weekly Personal Development Quest or whatever.

I barely slept last night due to anxiety about what amounted to no problem at all, and after the three-or-so-hour trip, I felt so exhausted I spent several hours just lying in bed. I knew a couple of people have commented on ∞ the long post I wrote a couple of days ago looking back at Memody: Sindrel Song ∞ - plus there are some other things I want to reply to - but... tired, thrown off. I'll hopefully get to things either on the weekend, or - if I use that to try to relax - on Monday.

Though I'd feel bad about it if I did try to relax considering how poor my productivity's been lately. Partly it's due to the unusual outings, but I'm also quite creatively lost at the moment.

...I was going to write more about that here, but ehhh, I'm really tired, and I mostly just wanted this to be a short (ha) note about today's counselling session. Maybe I'll write another post early next week with some thoughts about what I'm (not) doing with my time currently. What I should be doing, would like to do. Etc.

For now, I'm going to get back to composing some music which probably won't be of any interest or value to anyone but me, but it's been half-finished and on my To Do List for months so I'll be very happy to finally get it out of the way!! (It's Ramble 34, because I tried to do more of those a while back but didn't stick with them for long enough. Maybe I should put some of the older ones on that YouTube channel I have...)

4 COMMENTS

GrayNine35~1Y

I'd love to be able to hear the other Ramble compositions and for them to be in one place - right now some are buried on the site, only being linked to in one-off blog posts, while others are on SoundCloud.

capnbunnypaws11~1Y

Hello! May want to look into Avoidant Personality Disorder. It's what a good friend of mine has and he, at times, has very similar thought patterns to you. He's currently in therapy for it.

I have some degree of social anxiety/agoraphobia as well, only I'm not in therapy yet. Planning to at some point, maybe!

Tobias 1115~1Y

I checked back through my blog archive, and it seems I've been writing about Avoidant Personality Disorder for 7 years now. There's a tag for it and everything!

I keep wondering whether it's actually what I have, though. I think so, but I've not been diagnosed, and the people over in r/AvPD report issues I don't have, like being afraid of opening up (whereas I overshare, as seen in this blog).

Whatever I have is very frustrating, though, and AvPD is a convenient way of describing it. Seems it's becoming more well-known these days, too?

Generally, with most illnesses, you don't need to have all the symptoms for it to be the case. It tends to be a spectrum, some symptoms could be severe while others are just not there at all. Every brain is different and things can affect each person in their own way, just like with medications and side effects.

For example, I have Social Anxiety myself, yet I can function without anxiety in some areas (like grocery shopping) but if you ask me to talk to someone on the phone, I can't do that at all-. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't mind the phone, yet he gets anxious from talking to people face-to-face. Brains are weird.

Your best bet is probably to talk to a specialist. I think the clinical psychologist is the one that does the diagnosing? However, I'm not sure how it works over there, I'm in a different country.

And I definitely agree that it's becoming well known, as well as mental health as a whole. It's a lot easier to learn about this now a days than it was in the 90's or even early 2000's. I'd say it's going to become a lot more widespread in the future, hopefully.

For example, I have Social Anxiety myself, yet I can function without anxiety in some areas (like grocery shopping) but if you ask me to talk to someone on the phone, I can't do that at all-.  My husband, on the other hand, doesn't mind the phone, yet he gets anxious from talking to people face-to-face.  Brains are weird.

Your best bet is probably to talk to a specialist. I think the clinical psychologist is the one that does the diagnosing? However, I'm not sure how it works over there, I'm in a different country.

And I definitely agree that it's becoming well known, as well as mental health as a whole. It's a lot easier to learn about this now a days than it was in the 90's or even early 2000's. I'd say it's going to become a lot more widespread in the future, hopefully.