Avoidance

The last few weeks, I have thought that I am getting ‘better’; crying less, doing more, coping. My one true aim only became explicit to me when I wrote the last post. There has been one thing and one thing only that I have been doing: avoiding.

I thought that my depression was becoming less of an issue; that I was finally dealing with some of my problems and working through them, but this is not true. My small attempts at confronting my anxiety and making it through difficult situations, have only been a distraction. I make myself get out of bed, I make myself eat regular meals, I wash, I clean the flat, I go on walks. I do not think. Perhaps, this is ‘normal’. Most of the people around me, and certainly my family, deal with their problems in this way. Ignore it. Do something else. Occupy your mind.

I agree that this is helpful, sometimes, as a way to prevent anxiety reaching an intolerable level. It proves useful in keeping the emotions in check and at a manageable level. However, living like this does not genuinely help me. I am stuck in a no man’s land of no future and no past. Each day comes and goes and passes much in the same way and the same will happen tomorrow.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I cried myself to sleep the night before, finally feeling some of the sadness and pain that had been howling alone in the dark, not listened to and not felt. I had dreams of friends abandoning me at a hospital and family members leaving me there. They walked away without looking back as I called out to them not to leave me. All day I was on the brink of tears, sometimes giving in and letting them fall accompanied by some pathetic noises.

However, I kept bring my new card into play. I went for walks, I retreated to my bed, but watched a film rather than just lie there thinking, I started doing some hand washing at 10 o’ clock at night. Avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. I was conscious of it in a way I had not been before. I thought the avoidance was a sign of improvement. The tasks that I was completing throughout the day were trivial, but in comparison with a few months ago, they seemed to be something.

But I cannot remain like this. The sadness, fear and dark thoughts are beginning to penetrate my mind.

When I first read about Virginia Woolf’s suicide, I thought that it was strange and irrational to kill yourself before a bout of depression, for fear of it. Over the last few years I have begun to understand. You can feel it coming. You know it is waiting for you, a shadow in the dark, waiting to pounce on you and drag you under.

I do not know if I can manage that again, but how can I move forward with my life if all I concentrate on is day to day tasks and, above all, avoiding feeling anything?

I have been refusing to make decisions about anything. In ten weeks’ time I will be leaving this flat, but where I am going, I do not know. I have been avoiding updating my CV because then I will have to actively apply for jobs, which again involves making decisions about my future. I have been saying that I will go back to my parent’s house to visit for weeks, but something has always come up, which has prevented me. I have even convinced myself that I want to go, but the preventative factors have been out with my hands. Really, I know if I go back there I will not be able to continue these avoidance tactics as successfully as I have been doing. I have managed to avoid almost all real conversation and discussion since I have been here. I have definitely avoided confrontation. When I go back there, I will be confronted with all the problems I had when I left. The problems which I have made no attempt to resolve. I can go to therapy at the moment, because I know it will take weeks to get to any kind of unstable ground. I don’t know what I will do when I get there.

Today, instead of writing this post, I cleaned, I went for a walk in the pouring rain. I avoided.

I must face up to the facts. I am as lost and alone and afraid as I ever was. I need to accept that I am the person who is responsible for my life. I have decisions to make and I must confront them and make them. I could continue on like this for years and years. I may still be alive, but I will not have been living. To live, I must take risks. One of those risks is letting myself think, another is allowing myself to feel. I have proved that I can exist. I am terrified by the prospect, but now I must live.