Hello, I'm new, this year is tricky.

Hi, I don't know how to do this but I'll try round up who I am and what's going on Slight smile

I'm 29 and live in Cornwall. I have always been known as the 'quirky' child. Refusing to talk all the way through primary school yet chatter away at home. Being terrified of people, feeling painfully shy and out of my depth all the time and yet obsessive over the few people I felt good around. I wanted to be babied forever not walking and feeding myself. I have always had phases of sadness and anxiety and not always known what the problem was. I would go through phases of funny interests that would consume me and to this day I have a very much 'all or nothing' personality. I had little ticks and repetitive cough noises I would make that drove my mother mad for a couple years. I have always been obsessed with touch/textures. Even now at 29 I still like to dig things up under my thumb nail and pick at things with edges. I have long hair that I like to bring up to my face and breath in. My brain never stops analyzing myself, it's like being frustrated all the time and not knowing why everyone else seems to know how to be normal.

I work full time which I'm very amazed at myself and proud of. When I started at my work place 9yrs ago I was 19, painfully shy, awkward, anxious and unsure of myself.

I really pushed myself to become like everyone else at work and try to hide when I couldn't cope with sudden changes in rotas and plans. If someone says something is going to happen a certain way and it changes I just loose all sense of perspective and obsess on how stressed it makes me and what should have been. I force myself to smile and talk to new people and on the phone (even if I have to hide in a private room to do it!) I guess you could say I latched on to a colleague and he has helped me more than I could ever let on. He is one of life's kind people who listens to the quiet ones and includes everyone. I would not have come so far without him but I know that my dependency and favoritism of him may hurt in the long run.  

So here we are Covid-19. It sucks. I'm more stressed than ever and it feels irrational. I have gone through personal trauma, grief and financial issues in the past but this year has pushed me to the edge of my mental health.

I am lucky to still have a job and make money but I have been redeployed and have health issues. I feel like I have been ripped from an environment I worked so hard to become relaxed, safe, happy and competent in. It took 9years and some amazing people but that workplace was my stability in my life and the one constant I had. 

Now I am in a new job role, with new people in a new building and I hate myself. I can't do it again. I listen to everyone chatting and smiling and being normal and I get frustrated that I am not like that with people. I become so down and withdrawn and I get trapped in my head and then I get mad at myself more because I know it's all my fault. Who would want to get to know that?! and yet the people I know well and trust I have the best laugh with but that took years to get there!

I'm a mess at the moment, I am really struggling to not feel like a loser alien. Ive probably missed a lot out but I've moaned enough. Anyone else finding this year difficult? Thanks for reading if you made it through this far x 

Parents
  • I hear you, Mate!

    I had to adapt to the first Lockdown. It was okay then. But then, my brother came home from Uni (he graduated with a 2:1 in Software Development at the age of 31) and suddenly things weren't so rosy. He is forever telling me to keep the noise down and said, in a text, that it was making him 'Angsty.'

    We are going to sell our house and land - the family home, worth quite a bit - but I have to look towards living somewhere to rent; for the time being.

Reply
  • I hear you, Mate!

    I had to adapt to the first Lockdown. It was okay then. But then, my brother came home from Uni (he graduated with a 2:1 in Software Development at the age of 31) and suddenly things weren't so rosy. He is forever telling me to keep the noise down and said, in a text, that it was making him 'Angsty.'

    We are going to sell our house and land - the family home, worth quite a bit - but I have to look towards living somewhere to rent; for the time being.

Children
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