I just got home from a meeting. A meeting I had been feeling anxious about for months. So anxious that September was a blur of panic attacks and tears. I was talking through research I had done over the summer. I am confident the work I done was thorough, and I didn’t feel ill-equipped with my reports. Rather, I just felt overwhelmed and unable to vocalise what was in my head (yes, I rehearse my presentations and no it doesn’t help). Eyes on me make me want to clam up, I stutter and stumble and generally regret the sounds that come out of my mouth. I feel a push-pull between wanting to impress and wanting to disappear.

I end the day feeling exhausted; tired from using my energy to remain calm and not relive my awkward moments. I spend the following hours and sometimes days hearing the voices from the interactions that caused me unease. And I talk back to them; I chastise myself for not being clever. I say hurtful things to myself. I wish I could go back in time and say to people “I promise I know what I’m trying to say, but it’s not coming out well.” At times it feels hopeless, I wonder how long before I can be eloquent. Or if it will ever happen at all.

But I’m back home now. It’s October and all the autumnal things that make me happy are on the horizon. I have a couple of days off (and I have promised myself not to fill them up with work or writing) and I feel secure. In truth, I know I probably didn’t sound as foolish as I felt in my meeting. When my head quiets down a bit I might begin to feel content with my performance. But right now I feel the need to hideaway.

On the plus side, I saw that I’ve been published on nuhafoundation.org an hour ago. Yay.

Give That Horse A Rest

Wow. It’s three months until Xmas. So I have been an alumna for seven months (officially). It’s been a rollercoaster year for me.

Next week I am giving a small presentation on some research I have been doing infrequently over the summer. I’m nervous.

I was also due to be starting my college course, but I am not. I missed my enrolment and induction, then got back in touch with my tutor and administrative department to negotitate a later start date. They arranged one but I decided against pursuing another course this year.

I have rereferred back to counselling (so I feel a bit weird to be studying counselling too!). I was due to start that last week but I’ve been experiencing agoraphobia, so I have been working from home more often. I decided it was time to shake myself out of my funk so I took a bus to counselling. It was noisy, crowded and busy. The movement around me hurt my head and my eyes. I could hardly breathe at moments.

When I got into the counselling office I felt nervous; I normally do when meeting new people. But I am glad I went. Once I start talking I forget how afraid I was an hour earlier.

I spoke for forty minutes pretty much non-stop. This is the most I had shared with anyone this year!!! I realised how much I had isolated myself from people. Also, as a blogger, I write about my feelings a lot. But there is a type of self-censorship I use here. Even when I talk about depression I feel like I’m putting on the socially acceptable mask of depression (you know, the one when I tell people I’ll get through it rather than the one when I tell people that it all feels hopeless?).

I felt like I had taken a load off my mind.

I’m returning to college in two weeks. I received my joining instructions yesterday and you know how I was excited that the college reduced the fees to my course? Well, they’ve gone back up again.

So my plan to pay off my loan this year may not happen unless I sell a lot of my freelance writing. We can but hope.

But I’m looking forward to it.

I’m taking this month off blogging. I’ve been feeling unwell and I need to switch my brain off for a bit. I feel weird blogging about it, but I hear keeping readers’ updated is good practice.

August plans

• I’m on holiday – This week I am going to North France and later on Yorkshire
• My niece is due in a couple of weeks
• I’m viewing a flat (to buy!)
• I’m searching for a second job

On the first Monday of every month there is a Twitterchat at 20:00 around the subject of care experienced people. The Twitterchat is curated by the lovely staff at conversationsforcare.org. For those of you new to Twitterchats what happens is that @convos4care tweet questions and people reply using the hashtag #careconvos. The hastag makes the conversation easier to follow for people not on Twitter, and allows for all the conversations to appear under one URL twitter.com/hashtag/CareConvos.

I don’t talk too much about my new job, because I have been doing it less than two months and I’m feeling self-conscious about my abilities. This Twitterchat is invaluable to me, it made me feel less alone and helped me meet people with similar jobs and experiences. If you are care experienced or have an interest in widening access to education for care experienced people I’d recommend joining in.

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