Behind the Loneliness

Edit: It is now the afternoon after I wrote this post originally. I do not feel this way any more. However I want to leave the post as it shows what is going on in my mind at times. This is a snapshot of the sort of things that people battling depression and anxiety can face. This is some of what I experience in dark moments and I know no other way to explain how I feel and why I hate these problems so much at times. This is what depression can do.

I’m going to preface this post by saying I am not in a great place as I write it. Much of this may be irrational and unreasonable and unfair but I think it is important to explain to people where my head takes me at these times. Often when I have written at times like this and read it back later I have felt ashamed, embarrassed, guilty, afraid and disappointed. One of the reasons I want to post this is something I read a couple of months ago. Someone who had talked openly about their struggles with mental health and who recently lost a close friend to depression commented on how so often we talk about our experiences after the event not during. That struck a chord with me. This is the best I can manage to talk about during a depressive/anxious episode.

I have talked previously about feeling lonely. This comes with a whole range of irrational fears and thoughts. Sometimes my head takes me to a place where I feel no one likes me and I am completely alone. This is awful but is not the biggest challenge I face as I can see the poor logic behind the feeling with relative ease. The real challenge is something else that I feel and that was triggered accidently by a friend earlier today. While I reacted somewhat poorly at the time it was a number of hours later that the real problems kicked in as the thoughts festered. During this time I had also spoken to another friend about the incident and only given them half the truth which probably made the problem worse. I was already irritable and grumpy today largely due to having a virtually sleepless night previously and struggling to both get to and through work. I was able to mention being irritable and some causes of why but did not mention this deeper problem.

What I struggle with most is when I know that people are my friends and like me but only to a point. I feel there is a limit to our friendship and that I have few if any good friends. On reflection of my life I often feel I have had many friends but rarely a best friend. This is what I feel I miss. A good friend or group of good friends. This is were I feel I am being unfair on those around me. I know I probably have many good friends who are there for me but at these times I feel I have none. This is a hard feeling to fight. I struggle to logically defeat the feelings and begin to resent my friends for not being there more and myself for not being good enough to have friends that are close. My head can use many things to persuade me that those around me do not care and reinforce the horrible feelings. What I really want at times like these is someone to reach out and show me I am not alone and am cared for and loved but need it to be without prompting or my head will convince me the person doesn’t actually feel that way. As no one can know how I am feeling without me telling them it is highly unlikely any such message will arrive at the right time. It also feels a lot to expect of people to keep looking out for me for the weeks and months that I struggle through. I am sure many did such things for part of the time at least but that will not stop my head telling me they don’t care at the times they don’t and I struggle to fight those feelings. I was off work for over three weeks recently. Even now I am only back part time as part of a phased return. I know most people are or were unaware of this. I still feel hurt that in this time no one apart from my family came to see me. When I run through my friends in my head I can easily justify and understand why any of them didn’t visit especially as I know many people struggle to know what to do to help. It makes perfect rational sense to me. But my head still makes me feel hurt that no one and it doesn’t matter who made the effort. That feels unreasonable to me much of the time and it probably is but I can’t get that feeling to go away. And that frustrates, annoys and scares me. What worries me more is the large periods of time I don’t know whether that is unreasonable or not. I doubt so much at these times I struggle to know what is true and what is in my head. Reality feels a little shaky at times. That scares me. All I really want at some times is not even a visit but someone to just reach out and ask what they can do to help and when or offer something. I know some people told me they would help and I just had to ask or said their door was open and I could visit. In the good times this is very much appreciated. In the dark it simply isn’t enough to fight the thoughts in my head. That is not intended to do down any of the people who made those offers it is simply me explaining why they aren’t always enough to stop the dark thoughts. It can take a huge effort for me to ask for help. I struggle to do so. When I am in a bad place it can be more than I have to do so or to explain to someone how bad it is. To do so feels like I am guilting them, pressuring them and forcing them to help me and makes me feel awful for doing so. So I don’t in most cases. I bury the urge to get help and try to struggle on alone. In the past few months I have regularly messaged friends talking about how I feel and quite often mentioned the idea of doing something together. I often leave this slightly open as asking for specific times and being turned down hurts and makes me feel unworthy and unliked. However, the slightly open nature usually means while this immediate reaction is avoided the event rarely happens and the feeling simply builds in the background. I struggle to find the energy to organise things and the courage to ask people or to tell them why I am asking. I struggle to find a way to tell them I just want some company without sounding desperate even though I am. I feel bad if I say I need company as I can manage without it but that is all I can do. Manage to survive. I don’t know how to explain to people that I want company but on my terms and in my way as so many things feel too much. I just want someone to understand and to try to help. This is where my desire for a best friend or two comes in. I just want someone who will do whatever they can to help. During this time many friends have arranged social activities through groups and I have been part of the group invited. These invites are nice but usually it is simply an activity that the group is doing or someone wants to do and I one of several invited and my attendance will not affect whether it occurs or not. I often struggle to attend and rarely commit easily. I want someone at some stage to message me and say lets do something for you. Let’s make sure it’s something you can do and lets just spend time together doing whatever you are able to do or want to do. I want to feel valued as an individual. Again this is probably quite unreasonable to expect people to plan around me and I feel bad for wanting this but I don’t know how to make the feelings go away. I also resent friends sometimes for doing things without me. Especially when they organise events they know I am probably not comfortable attending. This is unreasonable of me. I cannot expect them to set aside their lives and organise everything round me. But my head tells me they should do so at least once. I don’t know how selfish that is but I don’t like saying it or feeling it. It feels I am being horrible to my friends. I know that my friends cannot possibly know how desperate I am at times and the enormous effort I have to make to ask what I do and to manage what I can sometimes. But I feel like I have been crying out for help at times and no one is answering. Intellectually I know this is because I cannot communicate clearly and the call isn’t being heard or understood but I struggle to deal with the hurt I feel each time. This builds inside me and eats away at me and I hate the feeling. I hate feeling like this towards good people who I know are doing their best to help me and I want to be rid of these feelings but I don’t know how to manage it sometimes. When I can clear my head and get a sense of perspective they tend to drift away but they always seem to lurk in the back of my head ready to pounce when I am low. They contribute to my already grumpy and irritable nature. They can cause me to feel annoyed with those who try to help as they aren’t doing exactly as I want them to do. This is again unreasonable of me and unfair on them. For those times that I am I unfair on you I apologise. I will try to fight these feelings when I can but I fear I will fall short at times and hurt you. I hope I don’t but I fear I will. You do not deserve that. I am grateful for what you do. All you can do is your best and you do that. It is on me that I do not appreciate that at times. Thank you for persevering. I do not deserve you.