Guilt.

one of the big problems ive had during my time dealing with depression is that i feel guilty about a lot of things. im going to try and explain the 4 main "guilt trips" i have in this post. obviously there are plenty of other ones, but these are the 'big 4'

1. i feel guilty that ive caused friends and family to worry about me. 

if you're ill, be it physically or psychologically then chances are there will be someone who is worried about you. friends and family do that kind of thing. the problem with me was that i didnt want people to worry about me. i knew that friends and famiy have all got their own stuff to deal with, and i didnt want them to spend their time trying to sort me out when they had their own lives to get on with. 

2. i feel guilty because i constantly think that i dump my problems on others.

i HATED it when i did this. the people who i talked to about my problems have their own lives to live. they didnt need to spend their spare time listening to me warble on about my emotional state. i know they didnt mind talking to me, but i felt like a HUGE burden on them. friends take care of each other, but that should go both ways. it shouldnt just be me pouring my heart out to them because i got so upset and angry about not being able to do something on my skateboard or whatever. 

every time i ended up opening up to one of my friends i'd end up apologising SO much for talking to them, and no matter how many times they said "its alright" i still felt guilty. i used to be able to handle this shit on my own, now i was just falling apart and relying on others to keep me in one piece. i didnt want to be a burden on them, and i felt like i was just dead weight dragging them down. 

3. i feel guilty because im taking up the time of people who could be helping others with more serious problems. 

doctors, counselling service people, friends. all of them could (and in my mind SHOULD) be doing other things instead of trying to help me. there are people in much worse positions; physically, emotionally, financially and so on who could use their support so much more than me. why should a doctor be trying to help my fucked up mental state when they could be helping little penny jenkins and her poorly tummy? or mr cooper and his arthritis? they are much more important than me.

4. i feel guilty when i've had a good day. 

this is one i feel ALL the time. im depressed, that means im not allowed to have a good day, right? 

that label of being depressed is a huge barrier in my mind. i have a great day, but when its ending and im about to go to bed i end up feeling really bad because im meant to be depressed. its a horrible feeling. everyone tells you its ok to have good days, but because you've been given that label you feel terrible because you feel like you're wasting everyone's time. surely if he's depressed he should be moping around all the time and not having good days. 

its a fucked up mindset to have, and its very hard to change. i know im allowed to have good days, (enjoy the little things, right?!) but there is always that label looming over your head which makes you feel guilty afterwards. 

stupid, isnt it.

guilt is a bitch. i have found it incredibly difficult to not feel it in some way while ive been dealing with depression. its not rational. you know that you shouldnt feel guilty about those things, but you do.

people care about me; they'll worry sometimes.  friends help and care for each other. doctors are there to help EVERYONE, not just some people. i AM allowed to have a good day. 

all really easy to say. all very difficult to believe when your brain is having a 'fuck you' day.

Battling with your pride

one thing that really got to me as i gradually got worse in the first year or so of my depression was the fact that i couldnt do things myself any more. ive mentioned before (several times) that if you are suffering from depression you arent alone, and that there are plenty of people out there who can help you, however, what i havent mentioned is that when i finally admitted openly that i was really struggling and needed help my pride was torn apart.

ive never really been one to ask for help with things, especially if it was everyday stuff that i used to do all the time. i spent a LOT of time trying to handle my problems on my own. i tried to deal with them without other people knowing i was having problems. realising that i couldnt keep fighting on my own was a huge emotional blow. everything between not being able to go to a shop on my all the way through to and keeping a hold of my emotions became an incredible challenge for me, and it was one i could not do solo. 

the fact that i could no longer do things which i knew i could do and which i knew i was good at (the hiding the emotions and problems) and it hit me hard. not only was i struggling with the existing mental health issues, i then had to deal with that added weight of knowing i wasnt good enough, strong enough or stable enough to handle things on my own any more. 

pride may be good in some aspects of life, but it is more of a hindrance with regards to improving your mental health. it became a vicious circle: feeling crappy, try to do something you usually do to take your mind off of things, cant do it, get stressed and annoyed because you cant do it. someone helps with it, but then you feel crappy again because you cant do something you used to do all the time.  

pride and stubbornness seem to go hand in hand. you dont want people to see you as weak, so you keep trying something. if it doesnt work you get more and more pissed off and upset that you cant do it, but you feel even worse because other people know you cant do it.

its a bastard. a total bastard, and all it does is make you feel useless. 

fortunately for me, my view of that stuff has changed a bit.

its very rare that people learn something entirely on their own. there will ALWAYS be some kind of third party influence; be it a teacher when you were in school, a parent, a friend, something you've seen on tv or on the computer and so on.

at first you needed a bit of help getting to grips with things, and the simple fact is that sometimes, even if we're really good at something it can still be useful and helpful to have someone else along to give us a hand with whatever we're doing. 

i spent 3 years at college studying furniture making, and one of the things i learnt when using large woodworking machines was that sure, you could do the job on your own, but having someone else with you can make it a bit easier and quicker to do. one person puts a length of wood in one end of the machine, one takes it out. 

pride is a total arse biscuit and in my experience it is actually a handicap when it comes to dealing with emotional problems. sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and admit that while you may have been able to handle things on your own, now you need a bit of support along the way.

its not easy to do by any means, but if you can get past your own pride and allow people to help you instead of being a stubborn fool (like i was and still am sometimes) then you've taken a big step to gradually getting better.

"no-one cared who i was until i put on the mask"

(you bet your arse thats a Bane reference!)

i'll be honest, part of the reason the idea for this post popped into my head is because since im an incredibly cool, hip and trendy individual i've ended up owning a horse mask. (random fact. its REALLY hard to play COD while wearing a horse mask. you cant see SHIT!)

one of the phrases that ive heard used a lot when it comes to depression is "putting a brave face on things". some people are incredibly good at doing that. 

when my depression first started i didnt want anyone to know about it. i thought it was a sign of weakness. a sign that i wasnt strong enough to be who i am. a sign that i wasnt strong enough to be able to handle situations and events in my life.

the first thing i did was put up what i guess you could call "emotional barriers" to stop people realising that my brain was pretty much screwed. 

the first of those barriers is what this post is about. its often the simplest thing to do, even if it is actually REALLY difficult to pull off for a long time.

putting a brave face on. 

its pretty much like wearing a mask. inside you may be angry, upset, sad, annoyed, depressed, pissed off or whatever, but you have a happy face on, covering everything else underneath.

at first, its really easy to wear the happy mask. everyone thinks you're just that happy feller. what they dont see is the real you underneath. you're hiding it. and you're doing a bloody good job hiding it as well! hell yeah! gold star sticker for me for hiding my emotions! WOOOOO! 

gradually though, that mask gets more and more uncomfortable. it begins to shrink, and soon enough you cant hide behind it. soon that happy face is stretched so thinly over all the pent up anger, aggression, frustration, sadness, loneliness and rage that you cant do it any more. you cant keep a brave face on things. you cant cover things up. 

a brave face can only last so long before it shatters, and if you arent able to control the things building up behind the mask then when it does finally break you're pretty much fucked.

the key is finding a way to release those emotions and feelings that you are hiding behind the brave face. 

ive mentioned the coke bottle analogy before, (if you drop a bottle of coke on the floor you can either open it slowly, carefully and gradually, controlling the release of the pressure within the bottle, or you can stab holes in the bottle with a pointy stick, which gets rid of the pressure, but you end up with half your drink missing, a buggered bottle and the shirt you're wearing covered in coke) and this is another one of those instances where you need to learn how to release that emotional pressure slowly and gradually, otherwise you end up in a right mess. 

i know ive said this before on a few of my posts, but if you are struggling to cope with things then please try and find some help, whether its talking to a friend, going to the doctors or calling a helpline.

its impossible to hide behind a happy face forever. all it does is make you feel worse when that mask finally does end up breaking, especially if you thought you were good at hiding your emotions (which i thought i was). it wounds your pride to have to admit you need help  but its worth doing. (i may do a post on "pride" at a later date)

Friends, Family and My Broken Brain

this is one of those topics, much like the self harm posts, which have caused me to have to sit back and really think hard about what im going to write. this should be interesting....

ive mentioned before about how lucky i am to have a group of friends and family around me while ive been dealing with depression. im positive that without those people, especially one or two in particular i would be dead right now. 

looking back to the worst times i have often wondered what those people thought about my actions, words or decisions i had made. at that point in time how i didnt think about any of that. i didnt think about things i said and did affected those around me, and how those actions may have had a significant impact on how that person/those people saw me as an individual.

during the early stages of my depression, before everything finally came out in the open and i saw the doctor about it i confided only in 2 people. every time i spoke to them things were negative, bleak and to put it bluntly, fucking depressing. they tried so hard to cheer me up and take my mind off things. they were constantly doing it. every day, for at least a couple of hours each evening they'd talk to me via facebook, but nothing seemed to work. 

they put so much effort into trying to help me (and still do) but seeing none of it paying off must have sucked BIG time for them. actually, i KNOW that it sucks trying to help someone but nothing seems to work. it makes you feel pretty useless. the frustration about now being able to make things better must have sucked so much. 

looking back, i HATE that i put them through that. i dont know if they did feel that way, but i know i have felt like that when ive not been able to help someone i care about.

another thing that i think a lot of the people close to me found difficult was the fact that my mood and state of mind can vary greatly from day to day.

hell, even during one day my mood can go from elation to 'im just going to go hide in a hole somewhere' faster than Usain Bolt can run after 7 cans of red bull. little things, insignificant, almost non-existent, pointless things could cause me to flip moods. even the thing which made me laugh one day could make me feel like shit the day after. i think that those around me would have found it very difficult to have 'normal' conversations with me, especially when they didnt know what could set me off. everything ended up being a risk for those people. do we ask him about this? do we tell him about that? shall we see if he wants to go there? etc. all of them such silly, insignificant things that could set me off. it was a very wobbly tightrope for anyone who had any form of interaction with me, especially if that interaction was something important or personal to me or the other person involved in the interaction. 

another thing that suffered was how new people viewed me. im shockingly shite at social interaction. especially with people i dont know. 

before everything went tits up inside my brain i at least used to try and talk to people (although im no good with talking to women. women are scary!) my depression caused me to become very introverted. early on was the worst time though. i didnt speak to new people. no eye contact, no self confidence. my physical appearance wasnt good. it cant be a good first impression, can it? do they see me how my close friends and family see me; as someone who is a decent person but who is having problems at the moment, or do they see me as some rude, scruffy weirdo who wont look at you or speak to you, even if you speak to him first? 

it was even worse if a new person tried to speak to me if i was in a bad mood. i'll be honest; when im in a bad mood im a rather large twatface. im not pleasant to be around. if someone, say a person at a skatepark, asked me something on a good day then i'd be fine. i could help them out with whatever it was they wanted. if they asked me on a bad day then the reply was not as nice. nope, definitely not nice at all. again, people who knew me well could tell when to interact with me and when to just leave me alone.

while im nowhere near back to normal i do know that i have changed a lot, and the way people see me has changed too. i wear my emotions on my sleeve now, whereas before i used to keep everything hidden inside. i have become really open when talking about my depression and experiences with self harm. (shit, would i really be writing a blog if i wasnt?) i dont know how i ended up being so open about it, it just happened. 

the weird thing is, ive actually had people say im "brave" for writing these things. while i appreciate the compliment i must say that im not brave at all. im just a normal(ish) guy dealing with something that affects 1 in 5 people. i started writing this blog a way for people to maybe get a slightly better understanding of what goes on in the mind of a depression sufferer. im not trying to be brave or macho or trying to become mr jimmy bigbollocks. im just trying to be me. 

depression fucked me up. 

im trying to get things back together and get my life back on track, however i cant do that alone. i need those people who support me and look after me. without them i am royally fucked. 

im truly sorry to those who i may have upset or made feel bad. to the 2 people who i talked about earlier in this post; i love you both very much. i wouldnt be here without you to, so thank you. C and A, you are both brilliant. 

does this depression make me look fat?

one thing that i'd never picked up on before i'd experienced depression first hand is the physical effect it has on the person who is suffering from it. the knock on effects from the negative, introverted and imbalanced mind have a HUGE impact on the physicality of the sufferer. 

what i've found with my depression is that there is a HUGE lack of motivation to do anything, especially physical things. ive mentioned before on this blog that i like to skateboard. there have been periods during the past few years where the lack of motivation has caused me not to skate for long periods. 4 months is a long time without doing something you love to do is a LONG time. 

i used to be really into sport. during school i pretty much had a go at anything; football, rugby, tennis, squash, hockey, basketball, athletics etc. while that declined a fair bit during college i was still relatively active. when my depression decided to twat me in the face with the great stick of "FUCK YOU!" i stopped doing so many physical things. 

as a result of that i gained weight. 

a lot of weight.

going from around 11-12 stone to over 15 stone is not fun

now im 6ft 4, and i usually wear relatively baggy clothes, so i dont actually look fat until i take my top off, at which point i look like a pillow case filled with cake. (hence why i NEVER take my shirt off, even if its ridiculously hot)

im actually more self conscious about people noticing my weight than people noticing the scars on my arm. i can feel that im REALLY close to being able to have my arms out in public (i want to show off my walking dead tattoo if im honest) 

the other thing is that due to putting on weight and not being active enough i am ridiculously out of shape! 

ive been trying to have a kickabout with a mate more often and even that knackers me out. im shattered afterwards! same with the skateboarding. loss of stamina is a bitch, especially when you're doing something you used to be able to do for 6 or 7 hours straight

i do want to get back in shape and lose some of this weight, but again, motivation is pretty low at the moment. its a vicious circle: "urgh, i hate how i look, i better exercise" "im having a rough day. i really cant be fucked to exercise right now" "urgh, ive done nothing. ive put on so much weight!" etc.

on top of the weight etc is the simple matter of personal hygiene. sometimes things are just too much and even doing simple things like having a shower, brushing your teeth and so on just take so much effort. effort which you dont have! give it a few days with that mental state and you end up looking like something that has been fired through a large pile of discarded big macs: greasy, smelly and gross. 

not nice. 

fortunately, it takes a lot less effort to have a shower and a shave than it does to get in shape, so at least i can say im clean and smell nice, even if i am overweight! 

i felt like this topic should have a dedicated post as i feel that not a lot of people realise how much of a physical effect depression can have on someone. 

we all know someone who is very self conscious about how they look; be it a kid trying to fit in, a girl with self esteem issues or a guy who gets upset when people comment about their weight. now imagine that with the added effect of mental health issues. its not fun for that person, and they could use a boost; even if its just something as simple as saying "that shirt looks good on you."

Relationships: why is it easier to talk to some people than others?

i really could sum this one up with 3 words:

relationships. fucking hell. 


i'll try and write a bit more than just that though.

life is nothing without relationships of some kind or another. relationships with family and friends. romantic relationships. patient/doctor relationships. those complicated little buggers are EVERYWHERE!

Depression has definitely had an impact on the state of existing relationships and the chances of me building new ones as well. 

in general, my ability to communicate with new people took a downward turn when my depression took hold. it was (and is) SO difficult to strike up conversation with someone i dont know. even more so if there is no common ground to talk about.

common ground is the catalyst to any relationship in my opinion. something you and the other person can both talk about. for example, during my depression its been a LOT easier for me to talk to someone new who was on a board at a skatepark. that person and i both skate. that common ground is the basis for striking up a conversation with that person, and possibly turning that person from someone with common ground into a friend. that friendship, and the relationship i have with that person may stop at the fact we share common ground with skateboard, or it may evolve and become a better friendship over time. 

the relationships i have with my close friends; the ones who i talk to about my problems are totally different to the ones i mentioned above. my outlook on people changed a lot during the first year of my depression. it went from "yeah, everyone's alright unless they prove me otherwise" to "everyone is a wanker UNTIL they prove me otherwise!" fortunately those people closest to me (you know who you are) i have known since before my problems began, and while (as in any relationship) there will be rough times they have never let me down, and (i hope) i have never let them down. they look after me. i try and look after them. thats how it works. they have proven over and over that they are NOT wankers. they are the best people i know and i love them to bits.
i find those close friends easier to talk to than my family. sounds weird, but its true. a lot of the time i talk to my friends via the internet. i have time to think about what im going to say when im typing it. i can read things before ive said it and i can delete things before ive said them. the internet is a bit of a safety barrier, which i think is why i find it easier to talk to my friends. 

talking to family is much more difficult. as i live with my parents i see them all the time. personally i find it a LOT harder to talk in person to someone about my problems than talk via facebook or whatever. it scares me that there is no control or safety net to restrict what i say or do. i may try and say one thing, but it sounds like im saying another. its very difficult. 

my relationship with my family is good. but talking to them is something ive never been able to do very well. it takes a LOT of effort and courage for me to say something. even something as insignificant as "i need to go to the dentists" scares me when talking to them. that feeling of no safety net definitely throws me off a bit. that feeling that they may judge me for what i say or do isnt nice either. i know they probably wont do that, but its still a difficult thing to face- the overthinking doesnt help either.

of course, there the 'other' kind of relationship. the kind that isnt "just friends". the romantic relationship.

i'll be honest. even before my mental health deteriorated my abilities with these kind of relationships was about as useful as stephen hawking's football boots. im shit at talking to women. theres never been anything serious or long lasting. during my depression there's been no 'special relationship' with me and a ladygirlwoman. thats not to say that there isnt someone i care about a great deal. i may even have used the L word when talking about her to other close friends.

unfortunatly she doesnt feel the same way. a total kick to the feels. however, she is still a close friend and that is ace. we take care of each other when either of us aren't doing good. we've been through rough times and have both dealt with depression. its a very close relationship. (and yeah, there are still emotions and feelings there...)

there is something that makes a relationship between 2 people a lot more important if you've been through similar bad times. i believe that depression and self harm is something you cannot fully understand unless you have experienced it first hand. when i've spoken to people who have experienced them they seem to understand better. it adds an extra ammount of depth to a relationship.

depression/self harm sufferers should never underestimate the power of talking to someone who has experienced the same things. they can give an entirely different view than those who havent dealt with mental health issues. its also an entirely different support structure which they can give. im very lucky to have that lady in my life. and while its not in the way in which i wish, im still very happy that i have that relationship with her. 

the last relationship i want to mention is the one i had with a counsellor from the YMCA counselling service. that was totally different to anything i've experienced when it came to talking about stuff.

the fact that it was a third party i was talking to made it so much easier to open up, even though it was face to face. i didnt have to see them all the time. i didnt have to talk to them all the time. 

for that one hour a week i could just get loads of stuff off my chest and they would listen and offer their opinion. 

there was no friendship. no complex connections. no fallout after speaking to them. it was basically like a patient/doctor relationship. you only said what YOU wanted to say. it really helped to have that option available to me and if you are reading this and need to talk to someone i strongly suggest looking into the YMCA counselling service or a similar service in your area.

Scars

“Scars are but evidence of life. Evidence of choices to be learned from...evidence of wounds...wounds inflicted of mistakes...wounds we choose to allow the healing of. We likewise choose to see them, that we may not make the same mistakes again.”

this is another one of those posts which has a fair bit to do with self harm. if you are not comfortable with this topic please dont go any further than this picture of a small puppy.

i've mentioned self harm in a previous post and i tried to go into a fair bit of detail about my experiences with it. i briefly went over the sub-topic of scars, but i feel that this is something that requires its own post.

in the aftermath of my self harming a lot of scars were left. going to town on yourself with a Stanley knife blade or a lighter tends to do that. what a lot of people dont realise is that the scars themselves can leave a psychological effect on the person who has inflicted them. 

scars dont go away. they may fade, but they will never fully disappear. at first i kept them ALL hidden. long sleeved shirts, jumpers/hoodies were all used to good effect. as i've progressed after my experiences with self harm i have been able to wear short sleeved shirts, which reveals the 20 or so scars i have on my lower right arm. im not trying to be a big man and show them off. im not trying to make a statement saying "yeah, ive been through some shit times, check me out and chill." im trying to be normal. 

obviously, people have noticed those lines on my forearm. usually there is one of two responses. either they notice them, but dont say anything, which is what older people tend to do. the other response is to ask what happened to my arm. this usually comes from younger people- children or young teens. 

depending on how im feeling and who the person who asked is my reply can vary. with younger people i tend to say it was an accident with a grass strimmer. or i fell off my skateboard into broken glass." its easier to give one of those answers than to have to try and explain self harm to someone who is a bit too young to understand. with older people it tends to be more of a blunt response. "isnt it obvious?" or "what do you think?" 

that sounds harsh and arsey, doesnt it. its very difficult to explain about self harm to anyone of any age, even more so if it is someone you dont know very well. with close friends its easier to talk about....

however with family its very difficult. ive never been good with opening up about stuff to my family. dont get me wrong, i love them all to bits (even if sometimes i want to punch them) but i think there is something very difficult about opening up about something to someone when you see them ALL the time. i almost feel like i end up constantly bracing myself for a question to pop up out of nowhere about it. that constant state of "oh fuck, what are they going to ask me now?" is not nice. 

psychologically, telling my parents about self harm is quite possibly the hardest thing ive ever had to do (and ive done mile high club on COD 4 on the hardest difficulty!) i made a deal with my best (and closest) friend to tell my parents, and i have never been more terrified in my life! 

one of my 'problems' is that im constantly worried about what my parents think. what they'd think if i bring a girl back home to meet them (HA! like that happens!) what they'd think about my views on religion (they are christians) and so on, so obviously i was shitting myself about what they'd think when they found out i'd been using my arm as a chopping board. fortunately, once it was over and done they were ok. (as far as i know) i managed to tell them and get it off my chest. 

i think that my constant worrying about what my parents think is one of the reasons why ive yet to be brave enough to wear short sleeved t-shirts or vests. my upper arm is covered in scars. big scars. little scars. wide. thin. long. short. its not very nice. 

i want to have both my arms out on display. i want people to see my awesome walking dead tattoo on my left arm. i want to be comfortable enough to wear what i want. however there is something; some kind of mental block that is keeping me from having both my arms out. 

im not ashamed of the scars i have. im more concerned with people noticing how much weight i've put on during the course of my depression than the scars on my arm. (yeah, for some reason during my depression i've become really self conscious about how i look) its one of those things that no matter how much i want to do it i just cant, and i have no idea why.

different people see different things when they notice the scars on my forearm. some people see mental health issues. some people see some wannabe emo kid trying to get attention. some people see sadness. some people dont know what they see. what i see are memories. those scars will be with me forever. however i dont want to cover them up with a tattoo or anything. i want to be able to see them whenever i look at my arm. i want them to be a reminder of a worse time than now. a time where all i could do to control myself was to slash my arm. i know now that there are better ways to release any pent up negative emotion; be it anger, sadness or frustration. 

i am not ashamed of my experience with self harm. im not proud of it either, but i will NOT try and forget it. i know exactly how a blade feels when it goes through your skin. i know how it feels to see blood oozing from your body and running down your arm. i know how it feels to have your hands covered in your own blood. i wont forget that. i cannot and will not forget that. 

my experiences with self harm, and the psychological and physical effects it has left on me with stay with me forever. all i can do is try and learn from it, and try and make sure others dont make the same choices i did. 

i posted the quote at the top of the page, but i'll post it here as well

“Scars are but evidence of life. Evidence of choices to be learned from...evidence of wounds...wounds inflicted of mistakes...wounds we choose to allow the healing of. We likewise choose to see them, that we may not make the same mistakes again.”

i have no idea where that quote is from or who said it, but it is definitely something that sticks in my head and is something i can relate to VERY well.

Dont Panic, DONT PANIC!.... oh shit, im panicking!

its not often i write about something thats happened only a day before i put a post on here together. i think that sometimes its better to dwell on things and try to understand them a bit better before going into detail about them. sometimes its just not suitable to write about something so soon after its happened and sometimes it takes me a while to get the nerve to actually write and publish something thats affected me (i.e. the self harm post).

the fact is, that this post is about something that happened yesterday. i'd quite like to look back on this post in a few weeks/months/years to see how i reacted now and how i would have reacted to the situation in the future. its not a huge moment, but its something that has affected me yesterday and today.

now, as any friends and family who read this will know, i LOVE skateboarding. been doing it since i was 10. im not particularly good, but i really enjoy it. i figured that since i hadnt been for a skate for a while i would toddle down to (read that as get a lift from my dad to) my local skatepark and have a roll around. i was really up for a skate and really looking forward to it. 

(cmoac. a picture of me that i like! ^^^)

now, i get to the skatepark and its pretty much empty, however there is a big event going on at the sports centre/playing field where the skatepark is situated.

im rolling around and getting used to being back on the ol' whizzplank after a good couple of months not skating, then all of a sudden a random lady in a "team management" shirt comes over and explains what they are doing and asks if i want to help with doing some skateboard lessons. 

sure, why not? im ok with kids (when im not in a bad mood and they arent being retarded twatmonkeys) so yeah, im in. 

a 'team meeting' happens to explain whats going on and i start panicking. i have no idea why. i end up lying to this group and saying there was an emergency and i had to go home, at which point i left, made a call to get picked up and then i hid in a shop for a bit until my dad arrived. yeah, thats right. a 24 year old, 6ft 4, 15 stone guy ran away and hid. pathetic, right?!

i hate myself for doing that. im so angry, frustrated and upset with myself for pussying out and running away from something which a few years ago i would have had no problem doing. i used to volunteer at a youth group and did so for 7 years for fucks sake. im alright with young people/kids and i enjoy skating. surely combining the two would be a winning combination.

NO. i fucked up and i dont know why. i thought i'd been doing ok until that happened. i have no idea why i had a panic attack and had to get myself out of that situation, but i really do hate myself for it.

people dont realise that depression can cause you to have problems with social interaction. before my mental health issues started i wasnt particularly good with social situations. after my brain went do-lally it became even harder to do. i thought i was ok with places i knew well; the skatepark being one of those places. just goes to show that panic/anxiety attacks can happen anywhere. 

i want to be able to control my emotions. keep myself stable and ok in social situations but it is SO SO SO difficult to do. 

i need to learn how to control this stuff. the trip to the comic con in london is still on, so i need to get my shit together for that. 

sorry for a fairly negative post. i usually try and keep this positive but thats not the case with this one.

i WILL NOT have this happen on my trip to London. i cant let it happen. i want to learn to enjoy myself in social situations. i want to be able to be calm and comfortable around people. 

i want to be myself again...