Honest

It's been so long since I have written anything really honest. Not that I have been dishonest as such, just that I have felt so restricted in terms of what I should and shouldn't write in my posts.

In view of the fact that this blog is actually the only thing that has really remained a constant in the last year-and-a-bit, I suddenly feel the need to return to the reason I started writing it in the first place.

I used to read Dooce and find myself awed by her honesty, her unashamed ability to confront her demons and write about them so candidly. I'm not sure why I admire the sharing so much, but I really did then and I still do.

It was because of that blog that I began writing under my own name. I wrote about things I found funny. About my friends and family, and what I did of a weekend. I wrote numerous posts about the desire to sing and the frustrations of being in a situation that was not conducive to singing. I wrote about boys, dates and being chatted up on the Tube.

I think, though, that it was always the posts about my depression and self-harming that helped me the most. To find words to describe the anxiety and hollowness that would wake me in the night and haunt me in the day, that seemed like a challenge and then an acheivement. I felt that I could write what I wanted, because in this little world of narcissism and self-importance anybody could read it, nobody is forced to. I didn't have to sit with someone in the pub, anxiously watching for their eyes to glaze over with boredom as I wittered on about feeling lost and isolated. No need to apologise for wasting somebody's time with my idiotic neuroses and poor-little-middle-class-girl problems, because they could choose to read or not.

Recently, though, I have felt less able to be so honest here. Because I declared myself fixed after therapy. Because I am seemingly living the life I had yearned for everyday. Because more and more people who I know personally will read it. Because I have forgotten how to put aside feeling ashamed and guilty for feeling things I don't understand.

I decided today that I am going to try to be honest again.

I wrote that last sentence and then spent about a minute and a half staring at the screen trying to work out how to even start going about doing that, and I still have no idea.

My self-analysis (overactive at the best of times) tells me that when I left my job and my flat I lost my sense of self. That the shift from dreaming about something and actually doing it is bound to be a shock because in our dreams we conveniently leave out the mundane parts. That maybe I expected myself to adjust too quickly to a life that is pretty much the polar opposite of what it had been.

I can tell myself these things to try to bring some sense of comfort or of perspective, but it isn't really working.

All I know is that I feel hollow, dejected and lonely. The effort it takes not to be constantly in tears is too draining. I wake up and feel like a train has just hit me, and the pep talks I am forced to give myself just to get out of bed are beginning to sound somewhat scripted. Despite knowing that I work hard in the studio I still feel guilty on the days when I am at home and I want to sit on the sofa and watch Charmed for a while. I feel lazy and worthless all the time, and even though I know this is irrational I cannot seem to find a way to make it better for myself. I feel sick most of the time, and tired all of the time.

An improvement, I suppose, is that I have absolutely no desire to self-harm again. I would if I wanted to, but I just don't. At least when I did that I didn't have to actually try and give an unprompted voice to my misery.
Now I don't know what to say when my friends ask me how I am. I want to say 'fine' because I don't want to waste their time, but I also want to tell them the truth. I am not fine, I want to say (but I don't). I actually not feeling that great. I feel like I am floating in a void and I don't even know who I am anymore. Please, I want to say (but I won't), help me.

So I used to be more honest. I have just been honest again.