"You Can't Go On Thinking Nothing's Wrong..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

I am so truly utterly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I don't--wholly know how to cope with the fact?

I missed my meds yesterday, and to-day, this morning, before I remembered to take them, it was like walking around drunk. Things kept sliding, I couldn't steady my hands for anything, my thoughts were all over the place, there was this sense of overwhelming panic in the back of my throat and it kept swimming up and trying to explode and I kept shoving it back down again, but--it just seems like some kind of allegory for the problem.

Which is that I am barely controlling panic right now, and have been for the last few days. It's like--stuff that has been dormant for months? Like my social anxiety, which only flares up when I have to deal with peers for extended periods of time. It is truly horrible right now. And my goddamn ED, which I thought was under some kind of control, is just raging right now. I cannot even--I don't even know. It's horrible. It is so, so horrible right now. I don't feel pretty, I don't even feel acceptable, and the only reason I haven't been skipping meals is because it makes me too dizzy to function, and I know that I need to be able to function.

But, I don't know, maybe it would be better to stop functioning. Maybe I need to fall down on my floor for a while so I could have some physical expression of how bad I feel right now. I feel bad, bad, bad. I'm having nightmares again, constant nightmares, about people hating me. I'm caught up on all my homework, but I feel behind. I am so tired.

I just--I feel like I got complacent. Like I expected to stay mentally stable when I made this transition, but the transition jostled me up plenty, and I wasn't prepared for that at all. And I want to quit the clubs I joined, because I don't feel like I have a right to be there. I want to stop trying to fit in, because I feel like I can't and people think I'm stupid for trying. I just want to have a little cocoon of schoolwork and me and just nothing else, because God knows I am too ignorant and socially inept to have a place in the world of people.

Oddly enough, I haven't done much crying yet. Usually this kind of thing involves crying. Right now it just involves swearing a lot and feeling tight in the chest and head.

God knows. I just don't know what to do.

Comments

[zero_pixel_count]

Oh, sweetheart... *hugs*

It is horribly difficult to get through the first term. No matter what background one comes from, there's always *something* that will catch you out - whether it's a stupid practicality, like my friend Shaun, who had to be shown how to use a washing machine, or something out of left-field (I'd never stayed in the same town for a ten-week stretch (UK term) in my *life*. I don't think I'd ever gone a single week without travelling anywhere at a pace above walking. It drove me quite, quite batty).

Also, it is horribly difficult to sort out food just for oneself, even for people without ED history. Cooking needs an audience, and your familiar tools in their familiar places, otherwise it's a chore.

The social thing will all shake down in a month or two, (I am about to deploy logic again I'm afraid!). What you have at the moment is a random mix of people, all kinda scared and kinda lonely and wondering how they'll ever fit in, all jumbled up together. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, things start to shake out; people begin to cluster into proper friendship groups rather than artificial 'you live in the same hall/attend the same course' type links. That's why you have the 'freshers fair' or whatever they call it, where you join clubs; common interest is a good place to start looking for people like you. Yes, you feel you have to try to fit in, but you know what? Most of the people you're meeting right now, the ones who wouldn't understand you if you were yourself? Those are the people who will become 'oh, yeah, that girl' in later years. The people who'll become your friends - the people who are important - are the ones you don't have to 'fit in' around, so don't worry too much about first impressions. (In short: there are a shedload of people. They're all caught up with worrying too. Most of them it doesn't matter what they think. The ones that will matter won't care what first impression you make).

So you see, it's ok to be struggling. You aren't weak, or a failure, or anything; it's just damn hard, what you're doing, even for people with all the social confidence and other advantages in the world. You are beautiful, funny, intelligent and kind, and it will all be all right in a while.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

<333333333 You are so good. Thank you.

(Our freshers' fair is called Lobsterfest.)