DR night... more depression thoughts.

Tonight was a pretty wearying evening in DR. As usual, RP is srs bizness, in Elanthia. It gets like that when you've poured years and years (for some people, over a decade) of training, backstory and interaction into your character. Gotta try really hard not to take it too personally, sometimes. 'Cause it's a game, and not RL.

On the other hand... my games are sometimes all the interaction I have with people. I've not hid the fact I've been practically a shut-in for 3 years, I suffer from major depression, I have serious anxiety issues and hardly any self-esteem to speak of. I don't have many friends, online and off, and I have trouble trusting the few I do have. It means I often feel alone even if I'm not, and I'll expect betrayals even if none are there.

Sometimes they are there. But that's another thing entirely.

Mostly, I just wonder why people put up with me and my weird insecurities, my tendency to make assumptions based on expecting to be hurt, and so on. Dealing with me can be... difficult. Step the wrong way and I might just shut the door, disappear. And I'll likely believe that the people I'm leaving behind wanted me gone, anyway.

I just keep doing it lately, too. Something happens and I immediately think "they're doing it because they don't really feel what they say they feel!" And if I'm not right, I end up feeling like I'm being a bad friend for being suspicious.

I don't know. Maybe once I'm moved in the new apartment I'll stop being so jittery about people. I can certainly keep hoping so. I intend to do something about my agoraphobia when I'm there, start going out in small bursts. I intend to look for a therapist, for my depression and my anxiety. I want all this to get better, I want to regain control over my life. I just have to keep telling myself that whenever I'm overloading on a bad feeling and just want to give up on being alive.

I guess it could be possible that the enormity of the situation, the possibility of finally being to go out and DO things for myself again, is making my brain overload or something. I've mentioned that possibility before. Maybe I'm just paranoid about other things changing around me that ARE familiar, because I'm making this big leap towards an autonomous life. Thus me worrying my friends might be deceiving me, and my big freakout over Kalli leaving and so on.

Still... the odd thing is that I'm not consciously thinking about the move. My brain's kind of just compartmentalized it. Yet I'm still reacting like I'm in a high stress situation. It's weird. I guess the mind can really play tricks on you.

I can say, though, that today DR occupied me SO much that I wasn't even angsting about Kalli's move by around 6 pm or so! Just... so much happened. Of course, I still miss her dearly -- I miss having her to rant and rave about things -- but I think I'm past the worst of it and I can actually deal. I guess somewhere during the night I had this revelation, kinda like, "wait a sec, these people really DO like me! Stop being dumb!" and that close friendship just takes time.

Time and trust, really. I think of myself as more trustworthy than trusting: that is, I am loyal to those I believe deserve my loyalty, without question, but at the same time I am afraid of being betrayed on a more personal level. So I end up with this weird situation where people may really like my company, but I can't believe they could possibly like me. I'll jump onto the first excuse I see where I could prove people dislike me, because it really just makes more "sense" to me that they do.

I could try to explain it over and over, but honestly, it's really not rational to begin with. For whatever reason, and whatever label you may call it, I'm sick with depression and have been so for many years. It may not be a purely physical disorder, but it has repercussions on my body, my memory, my confidence, my social life, my ability to work and take care of myself.

It's not an excuse for all the failures and misunderstandings I've had, but it IS an explanation for why doing things like socializing, stepping out of the apartment, motivating myself to work, etc. can be so much harder for me to do than others.