{"id":403,"date":"2010-10-05T02:02:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T01:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/?p=403"},"modified":"2010-10-05T02:35:38","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T01:35:38","slug":"misery-loves-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/?p=403","title":{"rendered":"Misery loves company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last month has not been good.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s actually been over a month now when I finally decided to do something about the increasing number of heart palpitations and the trouble breathing I&#8217;d been having. My blood pressure was apparently fine, but since I was getting joint pain as well, I was sent for blood tests.<br \/>\nWhile I was waiting for the results I found they lessened when I had a bit to drink. As the tests eventually came back clear, it seemed to confirm the symptoms were psychosomatic; a direct reaction to stress. It also dawned on me that the feelings were so much like the start of a panic attack, but they lingered for hours on end.<br \/>\nA fortnight later and I still have the same continual symptoms. For a week of that I tried lessening it with alcohol, but by the end of the week it already had little effect, to the point I was sober from a bottle of wine to myself in a few hours.<br \/>\nI became increasingly aware that it got worse when I tried to work by myself. It became obvious that I&#8217;d finally hit some psychological stress limit from working on my own with no reward.<br \/>\nGetting some personal things, like new glasses and dental checks done, helped a bit. I looked forward to going to the LF meet at the weekend. And sabotaged it. Again I took the portable shop with me, and again I tethered myself to a single table to run it. The final nail was two friends inviting me out at the end of the day, and not being able to with the millstone in tow.<\/p>\n<p>During this time I tweeted about it, and got minimal response. I was getting desperate and increasingly feeling that I was being ignored. A background character in everyones lives, these people who claimed to be friends. I decided there wasn&#8217;t much to loose, just let go of my sense of control and let myself fully emo-up. To let myself freak out.<\/p>\n<p>Admitting you&#8217;re in a very bad place makes you paranoid. It makes you repress any good feelings you do have because you fear it&#8217;ll make you seem like a liar if someone sees you in that moment. And while people did sit up and attempt to start helping, every bit has been tainted with the knowledge that I had to literally jump up and down in front of them to get them to notice I was in pain. No one noticed things slowly getting worse? My mood darkening? Am I that forgettable?<br \/>\nEveryone keeps saying I should ask for help if I need it. And every time I do, I&#8217;m told it&#8217;s something I need to do for myself.<\/p>\n<p>I did manage to meet with a couple of friends, and it did help for a bit. I tried to rest as they advised and it helped more. But each time I&#8217;ve tried to get even a small amount of work done I&#8217;ve been overwhelmed with the futility of it. Everything seems insurmountable.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone offers the same advice, and having to explain the same facts of the situation over and over again to purported friends who haven&#8217;t paid a blind bit of attention until I started yelling I was hurting, just rubs it in.<\/p>\n<p><em>Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s happened.<br \/>\nYes I&#8217;ve tried that. And that. And that.<br \/>\nNo, that won&#8217;t work because of this. And this. I need to do THIS. Ah, you can&#8217;t help with that then?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I had hoped the amount of help I&#8217;ve tried to give other people in the past decade might have amounted to something, and while I have had some help from more recent quarters, it still feels like the last ten years have been something of a waste in regard to the friendships made.<\/p>\n<p>The words on this screen are hollow and meaningless. It seems so many of them are easily typed and forgotten. So many I know are happy for relations to remain that distant.<br \/>\nIs it really so much to ask for a few real words, or the human touch again?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m tired of all this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[131,147,146],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","tag-depression","tag-psychology","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sci-fi-fox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}