Loopy, Lonely and Lost

Things are going okay. I’m having snatches of my mood lifting…an hour or two here, an hour or two there. To be honest, most of the time I’m feeling reasonably cheerful. It’s interspersed with bursts of absolute panic re: everything but – horrible as those times are – at the moment, feeling okay is taking up more time.

I had another counselling appointment on Friday. If I’m being perfectly honest, it wasn’t particularly useful. I had a lot of difficulty understanding what she wanted me to talk about, and even more difficulty actually talking. I can’t find the proper words. Everything feels like either an understatement or an exaggeration, and I just sort of sit there, casting my mind around for something I can say without having to clarify it or follow it up with “…sometimes” or “I think” or “I’m not sure that makes any sense”. She keeps asking for explanations, too. That doesn’t particularly bother me – obviously it’s best if she actually understands what I’m talking about – but the more I try and fail to explain properly, the more frustrated I get with myself. It’s like there’s a brick wall in front of me every time I speak, or else a switch that flicks in my mind and stops my thoughts from reaching my mouth. When I speak to her, I feel more than ever like I’m being vague or making strange comparisons or just saying the wrong things in the wrong way…I listen to my words and I don’t think I‘d be able to get it, if I didn’t have access to my thoughts too.

I suppose she must be good at her job because, unlike with pretty much everyone I’ve ever tried to talk to about this, talking to her doesn’t immediately make me want to throw myself off a cliff. There’s only time for two more sessions, anyway, so I might as well keep going. I suspect that maybe it’s the fixed, short-term nature of the thing that stops me from panicking: it doesn’t matter what happens, because soon enough I’ll never see her again.

I went to my friend’s party on Saturday night, too. It went reasonably well. I was alright. I spoke and laughed and it was all okay, although I kept getting distracted by the sky (I don’t know what it is about night skies. They feel weirdly significant, and I tend to get lost in them easily). The people who were there who I knew already were lovely but kept asking where I’d been, why I hadn’t been in touch…why we hadn’t spoken for six months. I don’t know where that time has gone. It worries me that half a year can pass and I’ve done nothing and not contacted my friends and not really noticed anything. I worry that a whole lifetime could pass that way.

The people who were there who I didn’t know were a bit of a problem, too. Well, not a problem, as such. I just get annoyed when, within seconds of my reaching a place, people are grinning at me and laughing and talking at me in that way that feels like they’re prompting me, trying to get me to say something ridiculous. And then, a couple of hours later, they were listing the funny things I’d said (apparently several entries for their Quotes of the Day), and casually telling me I’m “a bit strange”, as if it’s a completely obvious and uncontroversial point. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice people. I just tire of everyone’s first impression of me being exactly the same (a friend once introduced me to his girlfriend as “Laura. She’s crazy”, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been introduced to friends of friends and they’ve raised an eyebrow and grinned and said, “yeah, I’ve heard all about you”, and later, “[our mutual friend] told me you’d be like this!”). I don’t even really understand why it happens. I mean, I’m not that weird, am I? There are definitely people weirder. It just saddens me a bit, and sometimes makes me feel more like free (and slightly bewildered) entertainment than a friend.