The first real challenge

As I was coming to the end of CBT my therapist told me the real test of how well I was doing would be the anxiety I had when I was not seeing her any more, and not on meds any more, and seeing how I dealt with that. That test has now come and I don't think I'm doing very well.
The last couple of months have been really busy for me, I was offered a job in Oxford so started the process of finding somewhere to live in Reading with my boyfriend. We found an amazing flat, but the day before we were due to move in were told by the estate agents that the previous tenants were refusing to move out, and there was nothing the estate agents could do to make them. This led to three weeks of my boyfriend and I living in his room, in a shared house with six other guys, not ideal. The day after this I started my new job, which included a two hour commute each way. All of these things were not suited to making me less anxious, nor was the fact I'd not been able to get to the doctor so was basically going off my anti-depressants on my own.
After a week and a half or so of having no time to myself I started to get anxious, disliking being in the communal kitchen, not being able to settle to anything and wanting to be on my own. Stupidly I didn't recognise the signs, I knew I was anxious but I didn't think what that meant, and I didn't do anything about it. Surprisingly enough this made me more anxious, my boyfriend noticed, and I ended up kicking him out of his room so I could have a few hours to myself in his room, and we started spending less time on the communal kitchen generally, which helped.
Three weeks late we finally got into the flat, though there were still numerous issues with getting my stuff in, getting the furniture the landlady had left behind taken away, and after over a week in the flat we still have had no cleaning done, no repairs, only one set of keys and no bed. Still, we're not longer living in one room, and I am a lot happier now I've got all of my stuff, having access to my books and comics is especially making me happier.
However, I have still been anxious, and while I'm sure all the stress is not helping I don't think it's the only thing that is making me anxious. Another problem is adjusting to living with someone, which is very different from living in a shared house and spending a lot of time with someone. I went from having nearly every evening totally on my own, to really only having my commute on my own, and that doesn't count really, as of course I'm surrounded my loads of people on the train and bus. I've always known I'm an introvert, and like to be alone to recharge after social situations, but now I can't. Now I'm basically in a social situation all of the time, even if it's just my boyfriend and I. It's low-level, but it is taking it's toll.
Things came to a head last night. At the weekend by boyfriend had been due to go out with a friend, meaning I would have had the house to myself for the evening, but he got cancelled on and I didn't. I've been feeling odd for a few days, not quite the happier self I've been since CBT and meds. I've been irritable and strange feeling, but again didn't recognise it at what is must have been - an anxious introvert not getting enough alone time.
Instead of having a fun night out I was irritable and moody, and no matter how hard I tried not to be I kept slipping back to being in a bad mood. Obviously, this did not make for a fun boyfriend, who got annoyed, which just made me feel worse. Cut to leaving early from the burlesque night, after I had gone and had a little cry in the toilets, and feeling like shit on the journey home. It wasn't a full-on anxiety attack, but it was close. I basically refused to talk about it last night, which was maybe not sensible, but I also knew attempting to do anything other than take a diazepam and go to sleep would just make me a hysterical mess.
I'm ok this morning, I slept really badly and I'm exhausted and sad, but I can deal with that. My boyfriend has yet again been awesome, and I think we're ok, and I have a big bar of chocolate to eat, and a raft of work to distract me, plus I am going to get the house to myself this evening. I feel bad essentially kicking my boyfriend out of his own house, but I also am a lot nicer to live with when I've had a decent amount of alone time.
Though I didn't have a full-blown anxiety attack, I also basically forgot most of the stuff I learned in CBT. I haven't kept an eye out for the signs of anxiety, I didn't talk myself out of it, and trying to pretend it's not happening. I need to do more preventative stuff, such as making a concerted effort to have enough time on my own each week, but also I really need to do much better when I am in a situation that is making me anxious, even if that is just leaving the situation and calming down, rather than trying to pretend I'm fine, when I'm really not. Last night I failed the test, but not totally, now I just need to remind myself it could have been a lot worse, and up my self-care. I will be ok, but only if I am gentler with myself, and pay more attention to the way I am feeling.

OkCupid changed my life.

I've written on here about my quest to get more friends, including posts about Girlfriend Social and living a more fulfilled life, but I haven't yet written about the site that has made a really big difference to me - OkCupid. I don't really feel the need to explain how OkCupid works, but I was attracted to it mostly because it's free, but also because it has a reputation for having a huge, and fairly young, number of users.
I joined on a whim, but got quite into writing my profile, and fairly quickly went from lurking on the profiles of cute people without messaging them to actually writing and replying to messages. Lots of the people who I messaged didn't get back to me, but I've found myself being much more ok with that than I'd have ever expected. I've not historically been great with rejection, this is linked to the social anxiety thing of thinking people are just pretending to like me, but it's a lot easier on the internet. So a few of my messages get ignored, or conversations fizzle out, because it's online it feels very low-stakes, there are always more cute people to message.
The next step of OkCupid improving my socialisation and confidence was actually meeting people for dates, or kind of dates, I spent a lot of time trying to work out if I was on a date or not. I met up with four people over the course of a few weeks, including a couple who I've seen since as friends, and every time it was much better than I was expecting it to be. The first time was nerve-wracking, even meeting someone for lunch was a huge deal to me, but I've enjoyed myself so much. I've been a bit starved for female companionship, and OkCupid has changed that so much. I've had conversations about make up and feminism! I've sat by the Thames talking about having a changing sexual identity and being poly! A few months ago I didn't know anyone who I could do these things with, and perhaps it's ironic that a dating site has helped me find some really good friends, but I'm ok with that.
 There have been some not so great moments too. I've spent some time not having my profile available for men to see, because I was so bored of getting either one word messages, or at the other extreme, constant requests for threesomes and long, sexually explicit fantasies. They used to upset me, but I'm getting a much thicker skin now. I've also worked out that the appropriate response is snarky reply, followed by blocking the guy, and it is always a guy.
Not all of the men who have messaged me have been like that though, many have been perfectly nice and it is not their fault that I've been generally uninterested. I have met up with one guy from the site, and it's was the most date-like date that I went on, so I have been using it in it's intended way. I've had a couple of conversations where people have expressed surprise about me using a dating site mostly for friendship, but I've found it pretty easy to carve out my own little niche. Not only have I met plenty of people who are interesting in pursuing friendship if nothing more comes out of the date, but I've also met people interested in more, despite the fact I'm in a relationship.
Though I didn't know when I joined there is quite an impressive polyamorous community on OkCupid, possibly helped by the fact you can set your relationship as 'seeing someone' while still using the site to meet people, and I've seen quite a few couples who both us the site, and link to each others profiles. Not only that, but it's fairly LGBT friendly (though could do with more sexuality and gender options) and with users able to add questions there is the oportunity to show a preference for ethic non-monogamy which affects your matches, increasing the chance of meeting like-minded people. It's because of OkCupid that I've met other poly people, been more confident in talking about my own polyamoury and been to a poly-friendly club night. Again, more unexpected, but amazing, benefits.
I know a lot of people who read this post won't be surprised by anything I've said, I'm preaching to the converted to some extent, and there will probably be people reading this I've met through OkCupid. That just provides more evidence of how great the site has been for me, it has changed my life, and for the better, in expected and unexpected ways. So, OkCupid, I love you!

A natural progression.

I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for four years. We've not lived in the same city for most of that time, I've has two distinct periods of mental illness, there's been family problems and deaths, we're both had periods of unemployment or being unhappy in our jobs. Despite that we've been happy. We hardly argue, we talk all the time, he really is my best friend. To be honest we act more like a lovey-dovey couple who have been together a few months.
However, in the past few months there has been a big change in our relationship. It's never been a jealous relationship, in fact it has never been explicitly monogamous and one of us checking out another person is by no means a big deal. In fact, it often leads to jokes about how my boyfriend has a 'type', it's very easy for me to tell in a room of people who will catch his attention, he can do the same about me. Early on in our relationship he made out with another girl, when my boyfriend told me he was really worried I'd break up with him, but I really didn't mind. I can get jealous, very occasionally, but was not at all in this case, it just isn't really something that happens to me.
Although this incident was not repeated I think it stuck with both of us. A few months ago I turned 26, marking 10 years since I had any kind of sexual or romantic contact with a woman. My boyfriend has always said he wouldn't want to stop me experiencing this side of my sexuality, but for some reason this began to seem more urgent to both of us. Our relationship was clearly not going anywhere, but neither was my desire to be with a woman. I had also said I wanted my first time having sex with a woman to be just me, not a threesome, which my boyfriend respected and understood. With some discussion we moved from an implicit agreement I could have sex with a woman to an explicit one.
I joined OkCupid, which has been a revelation. I met up with a couple of people, meetings that turned out to just be friendly but also made me feel a lot more confident about what I wanted. It was around that time that my boyfriend and I had a discussion about fairness, about how I could sleep with another person but he couldn't. We also talked about what would happen if I met someone I really liked, who I wanted more than friendship or sex with. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but suddenly it seemed like the obvious thing to open up our relationship, to stop being at all monogamous.
He also joined OkCupid, both our profiles are very honest about our non-monogamy, and discussing people we're talked to or met through it has become part of our regular conversations. I've also done a lot of reading about polyamoury and non-monogamy, the internet is excellent for this, and it turns out I know a surprising amount of people who are ethically non-monogamous. One of these is possibly my closest female friend, she has a husband and a boyfriend, and is a real inspiration to me. We've talked quite a lot about her non-monogamy, and mine, and it's been really interesting and helpful. In fact everyone who I have talked to about non-monogamy has been, I feel like I've learned so much in the last few weeks.
This is the part that is hard to write, because I am very aware of respecting other people's privacy. All I can say is that my boyfriend and I's non-monogamy is no longer theoretical, and the whole experience has been both better and easier than I was expecting. There is no jealousy or insecurity, and for everyone involved there has been good communication.
I understand that my boyfriend and I are at the start of this journey, and though it has been overwhelmingly positive so far there are likely to be bad times. Already things have happened to change the dynamics we thought we would have - I mentioned that there is an explicit agreement we can both sleep/ have relationships with other women (he's straight, I'm not). This was because he didn't think he would be able to cope with me having sex with another man, this has been tested to destruction and disproved.  So that's changed, in fact I have a date with a guy this week. It works because even before being non-monogamous we're very honest with each other and we communicate well.
I feel very positive about the way things are going, excited even. Non-monogamy is not for everyone, but I think it is for me, and I think it is for my boyfriend. I'm beginning to feel like a recent convert trying to get everyone else on board too, that's not what I'm doing, but I do want to talk about my experiences, and I'm just lucky they've been so good so far.

Learning to be an ally.

I've been thinking a lot about being a better ally recently. As a queer person and someone who has mental health issues I have one especially important ally - my boyfriend. He is not homophobic, he is not dismissive or scared by my mental health problems, he supports me constantly and knows when I need to talk and when I should be distracted with tea and Netflix. A lot of these things don't necessarily make him an ally though, not using homophobic language makes him a decent human being, it's coming to Gay Pride with me or talking to me on the phone during an anxiety attack that makes him an ally.
I think this difference is important. I read a wonderful blog post on it a few years ago, which sadly I can't find now, about how being an LGBT ally is more than just not actively being homophobic, it's about taking the next step, such as campaigning alongside LGBT people, or explaining to other straight people why their language is not acceptable. Importantly, it's about doing this because it is the right thing to do, not because you expect the LGBT (or black, or disabled, or sex worker etc) person to bow down at your wonderfulness.
I'm on both sides of the fence, I have allies, and I try to be an ally. I really think it is something you have to work at, you don't just wake up one morning and go 'I am an ally'. However, it is also not that difficult, so here are some simple steps:

1 - Listen. Listen when minorities talk, and pay attention to what they say. Resist to urge to interrupt them, and remember,what they are saying is their lived experience, a trans* woman talking about transmisogyny is not discussing an abstract experience, she is talking about her life. Listen to what you are told, and think about it.

2 - Educate yourself. If you are in the majority or the oppressor you should not expect the minority/ oppressed to be responsible for educating you. If a word you don't understand is used look it up, Google exists. Go further than that, read blogs and article, follow people on Twitter. I've only recently started reading sex worker blogs, the amount it is possible to learn in just a couple of days is amazing, and when people have put so much effort into making information available it would be rude to ignore it.

3 - Think. Think before you speak, think about what you are thinking. Why do you think mentally ill people are dangerous? Why do you need to know the state of a trans* persons genitals? Or how exactly two women have sex? This might lead down some unpleasant trains of thought, you might have to confront some pretty awkward things about yourself, I have in the last few months, but I think I am a better person for it.

4 - Step back. Sometimes the most important thing an ally can do is step back and shut up. Let the oppressed person speak for themselves is they are able or willing to. I might call out another white person's racist joke, but not if there is a POC in the situation. A good phrase to consider is 'nothing about us, without us'. It's used especially within disability rights groups, but is useful to remember in other situations, for example a conference on women in society, attended only by men.

4 - Listen. Listen again, keep listening. If someone calls you out for being racist or sexist or whatever, listen to them and look at what you said or did. It's very unlikely they're calling you out to be abusive, this goes back to point three - think about what has happened and why. If you're going to apologise do so in a heartfelt manner, understanding why you are doing so.

I'm trying really hard to follow these steps, I know I wrote that they were simple, but sometimes they aren't. It isn't nice to examine your behavior and realise you acted badly, but it is worth it. I have so much more to learn, and there is so much more to this topic. I found this blog post good, more points for me to think about, and more for me to learn.

The 'Equal' Marriage Act.

Today should be a really happy day for me, The Equal Marriage bill has received royal assent, and is now the Equal Marriage Act, it's all official. I'm bisexual, if I wanted I could now marry roughly half of the people I'm attracted to. I always said I would never get married at all unless I could marry either a man or a woman with equal ease, and that a civil partnership didn't quite cut it. But.
There are so many buts.
Firstly, I could now marry a man or a woman, but if I were already married I would have a Spousal Veto if my partner were trans, if I did not want my partner to have gender reconstruction surgery they would have to divorce me in order to do so. I think this sentence the link above sums it up pretty well 'This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. "I don't want to divorce you, but I'm going to veto your rights until you divorce me." I've not seen any major press coverage of the spousal veto, but then then of course I haven't, not when one of the major charities pushing Equal Marriage are Stonewall.
Stonewall are possibly the largest LGB charity in the UK, does that acronym look odd to you? That's probably because you're used to seeing LGBT or QUILTBAG or GLBTQIA or something else that acknowledges the presences of the trans* and queer people who were at the forefront of the Stonewall riots that Stonewall takes it's name from. They use the name of one of the defining moments of queer history, but don't address the problems and discrimination of the very people who started the riots. Other people than I have written amazingly about this, Stoptransphobia is a good place to start.
The main thing that has been bothering me increasingly, and especially today, is that so much campaigning has been poured into equal marriage, and I worry now it will just all drain away, but there is so much more to do. I can't even feel happy because I am so sad and angry about the appalling state of trans rights and disability rights in the country at the moment, about the huge stigma mental health carries, about how we are apparently in a 'post-racial' society, or the worsening state of LGBT rights in Russia. At least it's not just me, there's this amazing article, and this piece in the Independent.
The Equal Marriage act is something that could potentially make a huge positive difference in my future, and I know I should be happy about that, but it's not enough for me, I want everything to be equal, and truly equal, for everyone. Now I just need to try to feel angry rather than overwhelmed, and try and change more things for the better, while reminding others that just because it's now possible to marry someone of the same sex doesn't mean everything is perfect for LGBT people.

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf

Self-care and me.

I've been reading things about self-care recently, as I've been preparing myself to deal with my anxiety without therapy or medication, which I do feel ready for, but only because I feel like I have good support structures in place. A lot of those structures come from CBT, I am able to recognise when I am getting anxious, and the ways my thought-patterns are affected, and I have coping-strategies for once I am enxious, in case I am not able to prevent the anxiety before it develops.
Self-care seems to be talked about in two different ways, by professionals, and by people practicing it. This is what NHS Choices has to say about self-care, but a lot of what is mentioned is not really what I think of as self-care, as it is often day-to-day stuff, eating well, exercise etc, which I do try to do, but what I really think of as self-care is what I do when I feel my anxiety coming on or am having a really bad day.
For example, I find it really different to read the news, I often find it overwhelming, depressing and frustrating. Though my anxiety is mostly social I do sometimes get the endless worrying over events, feeling that I cannot do anything about them, and then feeling worse because I feel so powerless, I become paralyzed by worry. There are several ways to deal with this - I don't read the paper, especially something like the Sun, Daily Mail or Metro. I will back off Twitter if I feel I need to, for example EverydaySexism is an amazing, inspiring project, but sometimes is just too much. This post of the 60 happiest dogs on the internet can seriously help too, if I need cheering up.
Another good thing for my anxiety is colouring. Most sites about self-care will mention yoga or meditation of some sort, I find meditation either boring or not helpful, sitting with nothing to do makes it too easy for my mind to fixate on whatever is worrying me, making the anxiety worse. However, colouring in can be used in a therapeutic manner, it is a fairly simple, repetitive task, that requires just enough attention for me to think about what colour to use next, not that I am an awful person or everyone is just pretending to like me. My mum bought me a few colouring books for Christmas, I spent the other day avoiding Twitter and colouring in ladies in pretty Victorian dresses, and felt so much calmer afterwards.
I also find taking care of myself, as in literally doing nice things to my body, to be very helpful. I imagine masturbation would be an obvious thing, I like to put on face masks, do my make-up even if I'm not going to leave the house, or paint my nails pretty colours. Olivia Singer, a writer for XoJane and XoVain, writes a lot about beauty as self-care, and I am so on board with it. I do also find buying pretty things makes me feel good, but self-care can look like an excuse to be totally selfish, whereas an at-home facial is free and makes me feel cared for.
The official sites that talk about self-care are useful, but seem to talk about looking after yourself as a duty and a necessity, I tend to think of emergency self-care as more of a luxury. I don't need to spend an hour giving myself glittery pink nails, but if I'm doing that instead of being upset at the treatment of women in society I'm doing better. Especially if afterwards I'm feeling well enough to start being angry rather than upset, and to donate to a women's charity or sign a petition.

Positive proof

Last week something that I had been suspected would happen soon did - I officially have one session of therapy left. In other words, I have officially made enough progress that my therapist and I no longer thing that I need weekly Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to manage my social anxiety. I will have one more session, in 5 weeks time, to see how I am managing my anxiety on my own and make sure that I am doing ok. I'm still taking anti-depressants and have a written list of trigger warnings and ways that I can try to prevent my anxiety becoming worse in bad situations, but other than that I will be managing my anxiety on my own.
This is obviously a really good step for me, I've known I've been doing well for some time, and that I have the skills in place to hopefully carry on doing well, but it is still a big step. I liked having someone to make plans for conversations or social situations I would be finding myself in, and I liked having homework, I work well when under instruction and now I am going to have to try to motivate myself to carry on trying to make new friends and leave the house for social situations. However, I still have this blog, which I hope will be enough inspiration to push myself, until eventually I don't need to try to be sociable, I will just do it.
The next step is stopping my anti-depressants, something I will obviously need to talk to my doctor about. Luckily I have been really really lucky with my doctor, she is really good, she listens to me and has given me really good advice, so I know that she will take into account how well therapy has been going, and how much better I feel I am managing at the moment.
I don't think this will be the last time mental illness will affect me in my life, it's already the second documented, treated time, and I'm only 26. However, I am lucky that my body reacts well to medications and that I have had really good doctors and therapists so far. If, or when, I have a recurrence of anxiety or depression, or a first occurrence of something else, hopefully with good treatment I will be able to recover in the way I am now.

Not so happy Father's Day.

This is one of the times of year I feel unusually awkward and defiant - the run up to Father's Day. On one hand I feel the need to prove that I don't care about it, it's just a day. One the other hand, there is the awkward conversation when someone asks me what I'll be doing for it, do I just blurt out 'my dad's dead?' Do I saw he 'passed on'? That conversation is never going to go well, and that's before I get to the really sticking point, my dad didn't pass on, he chose to kill himself. Not the best subject for polite small talk.
This blog post got me thinking about Father's Day, and fathers, in a slightly more critical sense. My dad was not an especially good father, the very fact he chose to remove himself from my life pretty much shows that, but that's not the only reason. I spent a lot of time being very angry at him, and also trying to prove that I didn't care, I didn't need him anyway. It's only in the last year or so that I've started to admit to myself that I do miss him, we got on very well, all my geeky interests are inherited from him, I used to borrow his 2000AD comics and watch Star Trek with him. If he was still alive we would have a lot to talk about, I'm sure he'd have loved A Song of Ice and Fire for example.
I feel that society expects things to go in a certain way, at least traditionally. I didn't go to my graduation, and one of the reasons was that there would be no family to be there in the photos with me, my mum had had a baby a month before and had no childminder, and of course my dad wouldn't be there. I'm pretty sure I'll never get married, and if I do it won't be a traditional wedding, there's no father to give me away, no father-of-the-bride speech. I hate talking to people about my family, for example boyfriends parents, there's no easy way to answer the 'and what does your father do?' question. The worst thing is that I don't even care about the way things are supposed to be, I know all about the importance of fathers to daughters being to do with how women were either their father's or husband's property.
Perhaps the worst thing is my own fault, the total erasure of my father from my life. Maybe it's just his manner of death, and if he had died in an accident it would have been different, but my mum and brothers and I don't talk about my dad. My older brother looks exactly like him, but it barely gets mentioned, though sometimes I'll look at a picture of my brother and the resemblance is uncanny. I don't know how my brothers feel about Father's Day, or most things, we're not close at all, and haven't been since we were really small. My mum's ex-husband did a pretty good job of being a step-father, in that he pretty much left us to get on with and didn't try to replace our father. I'm quite close to my mum's dad, though he lives in France and I only see him occasionally, I don't think I'd say he was a father-figure either, probably more so for my brothers though.
My mum did a really good job raising us, and I think single mums are amazing, in fact I expect to be one myself, intentionally, but still fell a little like I'm missing out each year. It upsets me when people take their fathers for granted, I know so many people with bad relationships with them, but I don't even have the chance to try and improve my relationship with my father. This August I'll have lived half of my life without my father, one day shouldn't mean much more, but everywhere I look adverts are telling me how funny, caring and loyal my farther is, not so much, and I'm sure I'm not the only one for who those adverts just raise bad feelings.

Living a more fulfilled life

I have spent a long time doing nothing but going to work and chilling out with my boyfriend. Occasionally I'll go to Brighton and see my family, in the evenings I'll watch tv or read, at the weekend I'll watch tv or read, outside. My boyfriend and I go to museums quite a lot, or walks around London, but I haven't been to a gig in over 6 months, and it's only in the last month that I've very slowly begun the process of making new friends.
In a lot of ways I like my life, I'm an extreme introvert, one day at an unconference makes me want to sit alone in a quiet room for hours. However, it's not the most fulfilling type of life, especially at the weekends I feel like all I do is look at a screen all day, then go home and look at a screen in the evening. I don't have a huge amount of online friends, so it's not like I'm even being social in that way, though I am getting better thanks to XoJane.
When I was little I wanted to be a doctor, I spent years assuming I'd be doing something that would be helping people, and that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm in a bit of a career rut at the moment, I don't have the money I need to do an MA and so increase my job opportunities, and I don't get much fulfillment out my current role. Because my boyfriend and I live in different cities I don't want to give a regular weekend commitment to anything, because then I'll never see him, but the weekend is the only free time I have, especially as I work odd hours, starting late and finishing late. However, things may be changing. It's looking more likely that I'll be able to move in with my boyfriend in the next couple of months, this will free up my weekends, for the first time in 3 years we'll live in the same town!
I'm looking at volunteering at the moment, I like the idea of being a mental health advocate a lot. It ties in nicely to what I've been interested in recently, and seems a nice way of 'paying back', I feel like I've been very lucking with my experiences of doctors and therapists, helping someone who is not having such a good experience would be nice. I would also love to do reading with children, or any kind of literacy work. The problem with these schemes is they tend to be week only, so not very practical as I work monday to friday. Ideally I'd find a job in a lovely public library and reading with children would be part of my job, but the way the library job market is now that won't be likely to happen.
The other thing that is beginning to make me feel more fulfilled is online activism, something I've only been dipping my toes into so far. I'm really enjoying twitter at the moment, I've learnt a lot from reading other people's tweets, and I've started to have some interesting conversations as well. Through Twitter I have also found a lot of good blogs to read, including The Fementalists, which I am in the process of writing an article for. This will be the first thing I've submitted to something organised, rather than just typing my ramblings onto this blog. It seems like a good first step though, after all a blog about feminism and mental health is right up my alley, and raising awareness for this blog would be good too.
I am starting to feel like I am actually accomplishing things, even if they are very small things. I've got two book groups to go to next week, which will be fun but exhausting, and I'm going to work on the article to submit to The Fementalists, and other articles for this blog. I'm also going to try to engage in more conversations on Twitter and XoJane, it's may be mostly online, but socialising of any form is good, and it all makes me feel more confident about doing it in real life.

Reaching the end

This blog was supposed to be a way for me to chart and reflect on my journey through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. However, despite a really productive start I quickly stopped writing. Now I am reaching the end of CBT, I have had 10 sessions, and am scheduled to have 2 more, I expect my therapist to tell me she thinks I won't need any more after that.
The last few months have been hard work, it always seems to be be the really hard sessions, the ones where I end up crying in the therapist's office, that made the biggest difference. I used to swing between blaming myself for all of my problems and thinking nothing was ever my fault. Realising that it would be easier for me to make friends if I would actually bother to talk to people more than once, and just just assume most people are boring, was not a great moment. However, CBT is all about breaking unhelpful thought patterns, and that is one one I am working really hard on, and it does seem to be working.
Over the last few months I have talked a lot about the things that make me anxious and sad, but I have also done exercises to get me talking to people. With my therapist I've rehearsed what to say and do in certain situations, it feels a bit silly, but it really works, I'm at the point where the embarrassment of doing something is not longer worse than the fear of doing it.One task involved speaking to one of my therapist's colleagues, just about normal stuff, two 20-something women in a room, oh yeah, and it was on camera. It was terrifying, but afterwards, realising the other person didn't find me awkward, didn't think I seemed like and awful person, didn't even know I had anxiety problems, was amazing. I was not upset that there wasn't time to watch the video though.
I'm even starting to make friends, lunch with one person, and we're doing it again this week, and a comic book group that went really well. When I get interested I can begin to forget my anxiety, even if I spend the time more keyed-up than I should be, and totally drained afterwards. IO'm making real progress, and think I will be able to carry on making progress without therapy, and, eventually, without anti-depressants.
I'm not going to stop blogging though. Recently I've been reading a lot more non-fiction, my feminism feels reawakened, I'm more angry and less exhausted than I used to be. I've always thought intersectional feminism is the only sort that makes sense, but now I am trying hard to live up to that, and to educate myself. I am especially getting interested in attitudes to mental illness, and disability as a whole, and want to broaden my writing to not just the personal pieces I've done so far on this blog, but more wide-reaching stuff. I want to be an activist, I want to feel like I'm helping people, and myself, like I'm doing something with my life. So, look out for more posts, I already have a couple of ideas, and I'm really excited about them.

Confidence raising through commenting on blogs.

My efforts to make friends through Girlfriend Social were not successful, but I have not been put of. I'm still not ready to start talking to people in real life, but I figure any little step I make is good, and so began commenting on two blogs I read, XOJane and Autostraddle. Between them these sites have, in just a few weeks, expanded my ideas and reignited my interests.
XOJane is the site that has sparked my interest in taking more care of myself, it's the reason I'm not eating sugar, the reason I now actually moisturise everyday (my skin feels so much nicer!) and gave myself a mini-manicure. It's matter-of-fact approach is perfect, real people recommending products they spend their own money on is great, but also the emphasis on self care as something that can improve the way you feel about yourself mentally is really good for me. Also, I often do a thing where I assume I won't like people, that I won't have anything in common with them. With XOJane I find myself wanting to be friends with so many of the writer's, because they are awesome, which has in turn made me think remember that a lot of the ways I think about friendship are informed by my social anxiety, but hopefully my CBT will help with that.
The other awesome thing about XOJane? It's reignited my interest in feminism! And not just feminism, the emphasis on intersectional feminism , so I've been reading posts that have made me want to read about disability rights, I've learned about fat acceptance. I've been more interested in wider things than I have been in ages, maybe this is just the antidepressants talking and I hadn't realised how much I'd been in a rut, but reading people's post, and the amazing comments section, has really had an impact on me.
Autostraddle is having the same effect on me, in different directions. It's a lesbian blog with a very queer feel, very inclusive, and very interesting. It's made me want to read about queer theory again, as well as reminding me how little I know about things like the Civil Rights movement. It's the only place where, when joining, I was able to tick the 'pansexual' box, normally I'm impressed if I can choose 'bisexual' or 'other'. Also, there is an amazing column that is just links to interesting articles, not generally about queerness, but about all sorts of other things, the KKK, child beauty pageants, medical insurance. I've been trying to read a wider variety of fiction and nonfiction, and this column makes it easy.
These two sites have made me feel part of a community, even before I started commenting, and I like commenting, I find it easier to talk to people online, and both sites are so friendly and casual. If I can talk to people easily online, even if it's just saying I liked their article, or that I too can't stand tinned tuna, it's a step closer to be being comfortable talking to people in real life.

CBT session 1

I had my first proper session of CBT last friday, after a couple of introductory sessions. I'd been looking forward to it because I'm really interested by the whole idea of CBT and I like psychology generally, I loved reading Freud and Jung at uni. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with my therapist now, though it still seems odd how young she is, she's so nice and calm and together, while I don't feel like that about myself at all.
So, the session was great. We went through the 5 Aspects, using this worksheet, which I had done about two different situations as homework. The sheets are quite useful because they make me think about my reactions to situations, which is the whole point of them, and I am beginning to see the persistent negative or unhelpful thoughts that are such a big part of anxiety and depression. I knew I had them, obviously, but looking at them almost from an outsider's point of view is good. It feel like taking a step back, and I think that is the whole idea of the worksheets. I am a person who will endlessly analyse their actions, at least here I feel like I might be doing so in a productive way, rather than going round in circles, especially looking over the sheets with my therapist and adding to them as we talked about the situations.
The other thing we did was work together on a more general sheet with examples of situations that made me uncomfortable, and my reactions to them. We ended up talking quite a lot about body language, and also the conflict between not wanting to be noticed vs wearing almost aggressively noticeable clothing and hair, something I did more when I was younger. Also, we talked about 'safety behaviours', which are apparently something I do all the time. I hide behind a book, I clean my glasses when I don't need to, I hunch in a corner, all the way up to lying about being ill so I can go home, all the things I do in an effort to feel more comfortable. Clearly, some of them are more problematic than others.
The best thing about that one hour session was how interesting everything was. I tend to get stuck in a rut, read the same type of book, watch the same sort of things on tv, now I want to go and read about psychology, and mental health, and all sort of different things. It's so good to go into a therapy session feeling ok, and come out feeling really good.

Going sugar-free

Today marks one week of me having given up sugar. This is a pretty big deal because I like sweet things a lot, as the title of this blog hints. However, it was getting to the point I was comfort eating a lot, lots of pastries, chocolate and biscuits, and even the not obviously sweet food was mostly prepackaged and full of preservatives. I would keep trying to eat healthily and then have a not-so-good day so get a big pack of chocolates. When I read something online about someone who gave up sugar for three months and started to sleep really well I decided that a lax attitude to healthy eating is not getting me anywhere, so maybe a really strict attitude will, though not a diet, because I am very distrustful of dieting.
It's actually gone really well, apart from a slip-up on saturday when I forgot that cranberry juice is actually cranberry juice drink and so has sugar in, the sugar rush from that was pretty intense after 5 days without any. I discovered nearly everything I eat has sugar in, so I've been making a lot more from scratch, and I've ended up eating more vegetables than before, which is good. Because of my medication I also can't drink alcohol, which is annoying in pubs as nearly everything has sugar or alcohol in, but I've been drinking lots of coffee, peppermint tea and green tea with jasmine. I think I may end up losing weight because of this, but that's not why I'm doing it, I just want to feel healthier and sleep better. I will start eating sugar again, after a while, but not in the same quantities, and I'll try to stay away from white bread and food that's full of preservatives too.
This is what a typical day without sugar looks like for me:

Breakfast:
Banana
Tea
Porridge

Lunch:
Brown bagel with cheese and spicy hummus
Carrot sticks
Unsalted nuts with raisins
Tea
Water

Snack:
Apple
Poppy seed biscuits

Tea:
Couscous with vegatables, lemon and chili
Cheesy roll with butter
Natural yoghurt
Green tea with jasmine

Medication

At the moment I feel like if you were to shake me I'd rattle, I'm taking so many different tablets. I'm taking:
Sertrolene - anti-depressant
Birth control
Victamin C and zinc - to ward off colds
Vitamin B12 - to increase energy
Painkillers - for my bust ankle
Diazepam - to help me sleep or if I get especially anxious.
I don't overly like the idea of taking lots of medication, but the pill is the best thing ever, and being so stressed and anxious I snap at people all day and cry myself to sleep/ lie awake worrying so much I can't sleep is clearly not a good state to be in. I am a little worried by the diazepam, it's not for everyday, just for if things are especially bad, which slightly reassures me, but the fact I'm taking valium seems such a big thing. On the other hand, I found it pretty funny when I realised, like I'm a character from Valley of the Dolls or something. I took one the other night when I couldn't sleep and was actually really disappointed, it didn't do anything and it still took me ages to get to sleep. Hopefully my eating better and exercising more will sort out my sleeping instead, I will still try the diazepam if I have a really bad anxiety situation, but the fact I can't sleep beacause I'm anxious and worrying doesn't bode well.
I'm hoping to drop the anti-depressants and diazepam soon, in a few months, because hopefully by then the combination of exercise, good diet and therapy will have all worked together to make me a bit more stable and less anxious on their own. I'm ok with medication as a short term solution, I don't like the idea of it being long term that much.

Girlfriend Social

I joined Girlfriend Social last week, after reading about other people struggling to make female friends say it's probably the largest online platonic 'dating' site. It's free, which is always a good thing, and there seem to be a lot of people from London on it, this sort of site seems to work best if you live in large cities.
I was a little put off by the design, it's very pink, and the name, but it is American. However, that and all the cheesy pictures did make me wonder how useful I would find the site. It's really easy to set up a profile, and to see other people who are in the same area as you. There is a detailed search option as well, which is easy to use and has hundreds of possible permutations.
The first thing about this site that surprised me was people sending me invites! I tend to assume people think badly of me, possibly stemming from being a teenage goth and regularly getting stuff shouted at me by people at school, on one memorable occasion I had stones thrown at me. It didn't bother me that much, but I do tend to assume people still see me as one of the weird kids hanging out on the beach wearing black. The idea that people would look at a picture of me and a couple of lines of writing and think 'I'd be friends with her' is odd. It's especially odd that the site is women only, I'm very used to the line between friendship and attraction blurring, or being noticed by men who find me attractive, I'm actually a lot less comfortable when it comes to platonic relationships, I'm often unsure how to deal with them.
The second thing about the site that surprised me was that the people sending me friend requests seem to have nothing in common with me. My profile talks about books, a lot, because I have very few other hobbies, so a friend request from someone where their profile says 'I don't really read' is very odd to me. What would we talk about? Also, people with kids, this is probably me being snobby, but I'm not sure how much I want friends with children, I don't have children and won't be for at least the next 10 years, maybe never, I do quite like children but I don't want to spend all of my time talking about them. Though someone who liked the same books and music as me and had children wouldn't be such a problem, but I think it would need to be more than a couple of shared interests.
I was actually a little disappointed, so far I haven't seen any people I think I would really have a lot in common with. I don't really like small talk, I'd much rather talk about what I think is going to happen in A Song of Ice and Fire or why Arrow is really disappointing, so shared interests are as important as chemistry to me. A lot of the girls on the site say they want to do 'girly' things, I'm immediatly put off, I've never thought of myself as girly, though I do like make-up and clothes I prefer books. I'm clearly a snob in many ways, anyone who doesn't spell totally puts me off too, I won't even look at the profile.
I'll keep looking at the site, but I'm not sure that Girlfriend Social is the way for me to meet people. It's a shame, because I am more comfortable online, but I think I'm also more comfortable in a niche setting, I'm more likely to meet people I share interests with in a gig or bar than on a site where the only thing I share with most people is a gender.

So how did I end up with no friends?

I've always been ok at making friends but no good at keeping them. On my first day of secondary we were told to split into groups of three for an orienteering exercise, I thought, 'Excellent, my two best friends from primary school and I shall be a group'. Nope. They told me they were going with someone else and proceeded to barely speak to me for the next year. Luckily I was taken pity on my some other girls and ended up with a good group of friends but it was crushing, these girls had been my best friends for years.
However, secondary school was where I met my first proper best friend, we were inseparable, and even stayed really close for years after I moved away, until we hit 14/15 and she was doing drugs, running away from home, being sent to boarding school out of the country and becoming a chav, while I was still a shy goth who worked hard at school and was frankly intimidated by her, we drifted apart. I've drifted apart from a lot of friends since then.
I've also learned being friends with boys is hard, I've had to turn down several romantic advances, and then you get to question if it's worth trying to continue the friendship, despite the complications. However, I did make some good friends at my second high school, and at other schools in the area, nothing like hanging out in the local parks and skateparks to meet interesting people. I was best friends with a girl from another school for a long time, we became a lot less close after my boyfriend dumped me to go out with her. I said I was ok with it, I wasn't of course, I was heartbroken and jealous, mostly of him. The relationship didn't even last, she dumped him on the day before Valentines and she started hanging out with people who like drum'n'bass and clubbing. I felt uncool and ignored around them, we stopped talking. This is one of the few occasions I can't see that I did anything wrong.
 Unfortunately I went to a different college from most of my friends, and that was that, I don't even remember if I tried to keep in touch with my friends from school, I just made a new group, which was excellent for three year but not so good when I was at uni. In second and third year I had uni in London, friends in one town, family in a second and a boyfriend in a third. It was exhausting, especially as my friends hardly came to London, neither did my family. Also, my friendship group slowly began to disintegrate, or rather spilt in two, everyone kind of chose sides, including me. Still, I'd made friends in London, I was even living with them, it was all ok.
Then, during my final year on uni, my boyfriend has a psychiatric break. Nobody knew what it was, it had happened before, but I'd been blithely assuming it wouldn't happen when he was with me. It was a very bad time, and tipped me over the edge into full-blown depression, I spent a lot of time sitting blankly in my uni lesson, not taking everything in, crying, and getting calls from his parents telling my things like he'd run away from hospital and if he came to my house to call the police so they could come and get him. Oh, and I was in the middle of moving house and trying to write my dissertation. I was not a nice person to be around. As my boyfriend got better I saw him a few times, we broke up properly, though I'd felt single for three months, and I did not get happier. I was so miserable, and I wanted everyone else to be miserable, I also felt like my friends didn't want to talk to me about it, at least not the ones I lived with. My two best male friends were amazing, everyone else I pushed further and further away until I was living in a house with three people who didn't talk to me. This was probably my fault, but I think the fact I was ill  should have cut me some slack.
Anyway, that was the end of uni friends, most of the people I knew were only friends with me because of a mutual friend so they stopped talking to me once she did, and I didn't care, I was too busy trying to get a job and fit therapy around it. I even found a new boyfriend, who I had more in common with than most of my friends anyway.
So I was left with two friends, who over the next year or so I also lost touch with. I was living in different towns from them, and they had their own friendship groups and lives, it was easier not to talk, and I wasn't that lonely. The slipping away may have had something to do with the fact they're both male, I had a lot of male company, I spend most of my spare time with my boyfriend,  it's girl friends I really struggle with. Of course now I am lonely, not helped by my shyness worsening until it is full on social phobia, complete with an especial fear of talking to stranger in large groups.
What have I learned from 20 years of friendships? That I find it easy to slip out of touch with people, especially those I don't live near or see regularly. That's something I'll have to watch, and something I do feel bad about. Also, girls are fickle. Or maybe I am just really bad at choosing friends. Maybe I should be asking people 'will you stop hanging out with me if our music tastes change?' or 'will you go out with my ex even though you know I still like him?' I'm better at staying friends with boys for a long time, honestly girls baffle me. Also that perhaps I am not a very good friend, I tend to be a bit unstable, this can't be fun to be around, and I'm stuck in my ways, I haven't changed much since I was 15, I'm not ready to settle down yet, no kids or house for me, but at the same time I don't like clubbing, or big event, or really outgoing people.
At least now I am really motivated to meet people, far to scared at the moment, but at least I want to, once I do have the courage to talk to more people hopefully I'll be able to make wise choices and make the move from acquaintance to friend.

A new start.

I've recently started Cognitive Behavioural Therapy due to my social anxiety issues. This was started by me crying at my doctor, a lot, about the fact I have no friends and had a panic attack when I tried to make some. She referred me to my area's mental health service, I then proceeded to cry a lot at the person on the phone, twice. The second time the mental health worker said I was suitable to CBT, and that I had to go to a group induction to IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) but that I wouldn't need to talk to anyone while I was there. It turned out to be a group question and answer session that I sat through in stony silence, sweating, blushing and trying not to cry. Horrific, but I couldn't leave because then I wouldn't get CBT.
Finally, I came of the waiting list, unsurprisingly the first session consisted a lot of my crying while my nice therapist asked lots of question about my past and social difficulties. Surprisingly, on my second session, about what CBT is, I did not cry at all. Clearly already I am making progress. My first proper session will be in two weeks, and I have homework to do for it, which I am actually finding strangely exciting. Next week I have a doctor's appointment where I have to tell her I haven't been taking the anti-depressants she prescribed because they made me really nauseous, I'm assuming she won't mind though.
So, basically, I seem to be spending half of my life at the doctor's or hospital at the moment, luckily my work don't mind and therapy is one of the things I am not embarrassed about, for some reason. In fact, I am highly motivated about it, though it took me over three years to get to the point something had to be done, if I had kept on the way I had been going I could have easily ended up house-bound.
I don't know if my lack of friends is responsible for my social anxiety or my social anxiety is the reason for my lack of friends. Both possibly. The upshot is that I started falling out of contact with people after uni, even those friends I was living with, not helped by a pretty major bout of depression where I wanted everyone else around me to feel as bad as I did. They didn't, but a lot of them did stop being friends with me. I met my boyfriend, stopped socialising with anyone else, and forgot how to talk to new people. Possibly the fact I was, and am, so happy with my boyfriend, made me feel like I didn't need anyone else.
I carried on without friends, not really minding, for a while, though it was lonely, I missed talking to girls. In the last year I have minded more and more, and I have tried to talk to people, but been too scared and embarrassed to. Some days almost everything seems too scary. I ran out of a dance class I'd been longing to go to after two minutes, crying, hyperventilating and slightly hyspterical. Nothing has ever activated my flight or fight responce so much, the adrenaline was horrible and I was sent home from worl the next day because I was still a total wreck. So I went to the doctor.
And now I'm here. I'm not very good at talking to people, especially strangers, especially groups, but I can write. So, I will write how I'm feeling and how my therapy is going but also I will write about my quest to find people to socialise with, online or offline. It'll be one of those dating blogs, but with more introspection.