What is really the measure of success?

Why is it in this society success is often measured by the possessions we have? The money we make? Why is it not measured by how happy we are?

I want to do a job that won't exactly make me rich but it will make a difference in a few people's lives. That will make me happy. Knowing that for someone, their life will be changed for the better, due to the work I do. Yet because it won't make me loads of money, I will not be seen as a success?

When I was growing up, we weren't rich, we had very little money to our name. This made people look down on us. Made people think "I wouldn't want to be like them" the thing is though, my parents are kind, loving, loyal people, who will help those they care about. To me that is success. The fact that they are good people who have people in their lives who they are about, is more important than the brand of the clothes on their backs.

I want to be someone who will always be there for others. Who will always aim for happiness over money. Of course we all need money to survive. All I want to be able to do though, if live comfortably. Be able to pay my bills, buy new clothes every now and again. Basically not have to really struggle for money. If I can get that, I will be happy.

I believe success should be measured by happiness. Money is something that we earn, something that gives us the ability to feed our families, pay our bills and go on a holiday once or maybe twice a year. Happiness is the thing that makes our life complete and for some people happiness can only come with money.

I challenge you though, if you believe happiness can only come with money, look around at all the people in your life, the animals, the every day things that make you smile and ask yourself, would you give it all up to be rich? I know I won't!

Finding me

So I have found out, there are people I have never ever met in my entire life who search my username online and look at all the things I  have done under that user name, simply because I disagree with them online. This seems very odd to me. I don't like them one bit, I haven't spoken with most of them in a while though, it appears they seem to have some sort of obsession with me. I do not understand this.

If people can become this obsessed with someone they have never met, that is alarming. It is not like I am famous or anything. I am just a person who does not agree with them. They are probably reading this, getting wound up, that they cannot respond. Why though? What is the point?

I know myself I have at times allowed myself to become very involved in these arguments and allowed it to become personal, but contact with these people has now been cut. I have no contact with them. I am simply in a group that they are in but they never comment. Surely they should leave it alone now? The time should have come for them to move on from our arguments.

The funny thing is, they are not just obsessed with me. There is another member they also do not get on with and they seem to have a little obsession with her too. In fact I swear they think we have magical powers that means we control the internet.

They seem to believe I attention seek as I share things about my personal life online. Because I am NOT ashamed to have suffered with mental health issues. This does not make me an attention seeker. I do this online because I have the freedom to do so. In fact if you put my user name into google a lot of pages will come up with posts from me in different groups. These groups are for people with mental health issues such as my own. If they bothered to read it they would see though, that some of the posts are also comments on other peoples threads offering support. I do this because it does not come back and bite me in the arse in my real life. It is separate from my real life. People from me real life are not members in these groups and even though I have fallen out with people in my real life, none of them have felt the need to become so obsessed with me that they search my username and discuss what they found.

I honestly hope these people get help, seriously. They need to learn to let go. Neither myself nor Donna have any magical powers. We do not control the internet, I think I would have money for things like therapy and the such like if I had any control over the internet what so ever. I really do feel for them. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to become so obsessed with two people they have never met.

Inside my head

Inside my head I am a mess, feeling completely absorbed by stress. Like there is no escape.While outwardly I smile; laugh; say all the right things, inwardly I am screaming for someone to help me please. 

With no idea how to cope or even how to let go, I find I want to scream and cry and let this all out. Yet something inside my head is saying "no you cannot show that level of vulnerability", telling me I cannot cry, I cannot scream I cannot allow myself to be out of control. I cannot allow myself to let it flow out. 

Every day I wake up wondering whether this will ever change but surely there must be an answer? Something deep within. A reason I am like this, a reason it can be over come. How do I find this though? What do I do?

So many seem to think I make this out to be worse than it is, when they see me out and about they assume I must be fine. They do not see the struggle inside, the voice in my head screaming that I cannot do this. The adrenaline, telling me to run. The amount I have to push myself just to get out of the door. Sometimes I want to stop pushing myself so hard, I want to just let it be, but I know I cannot do that, as I do not want to end up a prisoner in my own flat. I have to push myself, I have to try and go out.

Some days I manage to control the fear, instead of the fear controlling me. I work hard to make sure no one can see that right in that moment I am having a panic attack. This does not mean I do not struggle, I do not fight and I simply just make it out worse than it is, it means I have become good at hiding what is reallly going on in my head at that moment in time.

Yet no matter how hard I try, how much I push myself, no matter what I do, I just cannot seem to get past this wall, that in there standing between me and getting better. I try to break it down, I try to keep on going, but still it stays knocking me back at every attempt.

I sometimes wonder how much more I can take? Whether I can continue to fight and to be. Yet I know I have to fight, I know I have to be. I want to live, just not with this pain and fear. I want to be free of it, I want to be okay.

I wish my life were a little simpler and not so hard to get through and just be.

I'm done

So I went to the doctors today to discuss a few issues I am having. As I don't get to see my Psychiatrist again until February. I found out that I actually have received a diagnosis of OCD (obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), Anxiety and Depression. Which I knew that he said I had obsessional thinking but I did not know I had actually received a diagnosis of OCD.

Anyway I have also found out that they are referring me back to IAPT, which basically means another few rounds of CBT. No matter how many times they give me CBT it will not make a difference to my life. There will be no change. I will still have these issues and if I deal with some of the symptoms then guess what? New symptoms pop up any how. Not that anyone has ever listened when I have said that.

Basically in this area, unless you are bad enough to be in a hospital or have been in hospital for mental health issues, the treatment you can receive is CBT or medication and screwe you if it doesn't work, because that is all you will ever have access to.

For a while there I started to think things were working out. I was going to get treatment. I was going to work at-with support-getting better. Turns out no matter what happens that is not going to happen. So I have decided I give up.

I have been ill for 9 years now, at least 6 of those years I have been fighting for treatment, to no avail. So you know what? I am done! I am too tired to keep fighting this. I accept that this is my life. I can't fight that any more, It won't make a difference. I am done! I give up!

fear

y'know I have been scared of just about everything for around 9 years now. So I started to wonder what it is that scares me most.

The first thing that scares me most is the fear I have of being like this forever. The fear I feel about never being able to work. Or never being able to go out of the house without feeling anxious. Never being able to feel relaxed and at ease without going into a panic attack. Never having friends over without constantly feeling on edge. Never being able to go and visit a friend without questioning it at every step and worrying about it the night before. Never being able to go about a days business without feeling stressed out and scared. this terrifies me. This is not how I want to live the rest of my life. I want to wake up and feel okay to go out and work and all of those things that I can't do right now.

However the other thing that scares the hell out of me is, and this will sound stupid, getting better. It terrifies me. This is not something that I have ever admitted to anyone, even myself. As it makes it sound as though I don't want to get better, but I really do. It is just the fear of who I am without the anxiety. When I moved to Spain I learnt who I was, I learnt what I believed in. I begun to behave like me without worrying about how other people perceived me. I grew into an adult. I became me.

Whilst finding out who I was though, I had anxiety. Meaning the anxiety became part of me, without me even realising. It is the thing that stops me doing things. It is the thing that controls my behaviour and part of me wonders who I will be without it. Will I suddenly start drinking? Will I suddenly start partying every night away? If I only have a little fear about something, I will normally follow it through, I have become used to that fear. I do not let a little fear control me. I need to feel extreme anxiety to stop me doing something. My fear is, without the extreme anxiety, I will get myself into all sorts of stupid situations. that scares the hell out of me.

So at the same time as fearing being like this for the rest of my life. I also fear not being like this for the rest of my life, to the same degree.

Trapped

I know I have spoken about my anxiety before and I am sure people get bored of hearing it. I get bored of saying it too, believe me! Any time anyone asks me to go anywhere, I instantly become filled with a sense of fear. This would mean being around people and going out of the house. Both of these things I find difficult. When I feel I just can't do it, which is rather often, I find that now instead of just saying I am anxious-I come up with stupid excuses, which I am sure people don't believe (and if any of them read my blog, will now know to be untrue) as I am fed up with saying, sorry I feel too anxious. I am sure people find that to be an excuse half the time. So I just make some stuff up. Meaning a lot of the people I know probably feel I am just not interested in being their friend, which just isn't the case.

I love to be sociable but I hate it at the same time. I want to have friends over, I want to go out and enjoy myself. I love to sit and chat or go for walks or anything really that means I am around other people. I love to be around other people. I really do! I just can't do it. I don't remember a single time in recent years that I have been in a social situation and not felt anxious, unless I have taken a Valium (I sometimes get them from the doctor, not often though) to make me relaxed but then I am extremely relaxed. People can't tell that I am feeling anxious, hell people can't even tell I am having a panic attack anymore. Well depending on the severity of the panic attack!

It is like I have a constant internal dilemma going on as I want to do these things I just can't. It seems to affect every aspect of my life and no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to get passed it. A lot of people think I don't try at all but for me, going out of the house for even five minutes presents a challenge. I remember one person telling me I needed to "get out of my comfort zone" which I do every day. My comfort zone is laying in bed and staying there! This is not what I do on a daily basis though. I do not feel comfortable getting out of bed, I do not feel comfortable when I have people over, I do not feel comfortable when I go to the shops. I just don't feel comfortable. I feel anxious and scared most of the time.

I have recently been given anti depressants to try and I have tried them. I found however that they made me drowsey and anxious at the same. I could hardly keep my eyes open but also had no chance of getting any sleep because I was constantly scared that I was going to die. Then when night time came and I decided to go and get some sleep-the anxiety had worn off by now-but then I still couldn't sleep. I was awake till well gone 7am! This was not ideal as I had a lot going on and had no time for no sleep. It was like the day from hell only worse. My only escape from anxiety is sleeping. Whether that be napping in the day or sleeping at night. Yet this didn't just take one away from me it took both! I had an entire night and day feeling anxious. No sleep and completely drowsy. The next day I found I felt depressed and sluggish. I was sure this was down to the lack of sleep, which I did manage to catch up on, but then I still felt depressed after that. I don't see how the hell I will get through two weeks of that, and then maybe feel better. The thought of trying to take them again fills me with terror.

I get so angry at myself for this, because there is a chance that if I could just get through the first 2-3 weeks of anti depressants making me feel worse than I already do, there is a chance I would feel better. However I can't seem to do that. I feel trapped by my own mind. I want to feel like me again, without all these constant extreme feelings. Just be myself and not constantly worry about what everyone thinks of me, or what I am saying, or how I am saying it.  To be able to just sit and have a conversation without a million things running through my mind, from whether I am going to die or not, to whether what I just said is being perceived as stupid.

The best part of all of this is, when I am not anxious I worry about why I am not anxious. What is happening that means I am not anxious. Anxiety has become such a big part of my life. I completely see that everything happens for a reason and I know without my anxiety the chances that I would ever have graduated university are stupidly slim! So I can see why I have suffered with it, yet it all seems like it has become too much now and I fear that for me there is no way out.

positivity?

Things in my life seem to be going pretty well right now. I have managed to get through to see a psychiatrist after years of fighting for something other than CBT; I have been found as unfit for work, giving me the time and space I need to get better; I have been housed in a flat in an area I kind of know. Basically things in my life seem to be going in the right direction. This should make me happy right? I should be sitting here feeling positive and excited right?

For some reason however, I feel the positive feelings for maybe an hour or so and then I am back to feeling anxious or depressed. I sit and try and force myself to see the good in my life and I honestly do know there is a lot of good in my life right now. It doesn't change this feeling of wanting to run and hide and not come out again for a very long time.

I know people must be tired of me going on, when everything in my life seems to be going the way I need it to and yet I still am not happy. I can really understand why that may annoy people/ I don't want to see anyone for this reason. I can keep the fake positivity online (apart from this blog post :P) but in person I am finding it increasingly difficult to do that. I know that I have good friends in my life and I am lucky for that but one day the way I am will push every last one of them away and so now I just avoid people-that way when I do see them I can do everything possible to appear positive and happy. Then maybe I won't lose them.

One day I plan on really feeling and being positive, right now I'm just working on getting out of bed and appearing as somewhat happy.