I wish I could go out

I want to have a life. I'm not saying that I'm not alive or living, but my life lacks a certain purpose. For years, everything has been the same; get up, go to work or school, go home, eat then sleep. It's a routine I'm used to-- and a difficult one to break. When I am able, I use whatever free time I have to be unproductive. Not just in the working sense; but in the life sense. I don't spend time with friends or family. I rarely have the motivation to do anything creative and gaming sometimes can feel like a chore. I spend my time curled up in bed or on the couch mindlessly watching whatever until the time for the next part of my day comes along.

This isn't how I want to live my life. I want to have friends. I want to be able to create things that I'm proud of. I want to be able to go out and enjoy the small things life has to offer. But I can't. Any time I leave home, I have a good time... At first. I have fun and smile and laugh, but when things start winding down, so does my brain. It's not easy to pin when it will happen, but almost without fail my mind goes from bright and happy to a heavy gloom. Suddenly, I don't feel happy anymore. A dense fog falls over my brain, infecting every inch of my being. Either I don't feel anything anymore, or I feel such intense negative emotions that all I want to do is hide away somewhere and let everything out.

This pattern of emotion makes me so much less likely to want to do anything. What's the point in going out and enjoying myself if I'm just going to suffer towards the end and after? I do it because sometimes the fun and happiness I feel spending time doing anything outside of my usual routine outweighs the fog my mind puts on itself afterwards. Sometimes I wish it wasn't like this, but other times, it's a good excuse to leave an uncomfortable situation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

According to Vocal, I started writing this 3 years ago. The sad part is just how little has changed. I'm in the process of getting more help with my mental state, but it's much slower than I would like. I still struggle with anxieties over leaving the house. I still have meltdowns and mental breaks that feel like too much to put on my husband to help with. He has his own problems and I feel like sometimes I make it worse by being so unstable.

So often I feel like I want to leave the house and do something. For whatever reason, doing it by myself is what makes the anxiety worse. If I'm with someone else, I can push it away because they're counting on me to be able to do it. Even at my worst, I am putting others's needs above my own. I've gotten better with the drop-offs in mood and energy in terms of not pushing myself to breaking every time. I've been able to keep track of when I start to wear down and when to step away from a situation. A lot of my improvement has come from paying attention to what my mind needs. A lot of my regression has come from the same.

Since I'm paying more attention, I notice things more often. Little things. The fact that I've been getting irritated so much more easily. The fact that I have to physically recover from just about any activity I do. I don't think it's because of my physical health. That's been getting better overall. I've been wanting to die less, but disappearing for a little bit still sounds good.

Quite a few people have told me that I should write my story. That other people should know everything that I have gone through and am currently dealing with. I doubt anyone wants to hear about that. My story has become so much more common. At least some of the major points. Some things definitely are strange or shouldn't have happened, but it's probably not enough for a full story. I can try. Try to find the joy in writing again. The joy in feeling my fingers racing over the keyboard as I weave stories and create new worlds. The joy in seeing just how much I've written and that people want to read my writings.

I need to find the joy in my life again, but no one taught me how.