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.