Saiisha,

The activities I’m trying (and currently failing, but want) to do involve other people, yes. I spend far too much time in my own apartment, and have turned down or otherwise not contacted friends about hanging out on any kind of regular basis…until yesterday, when I had this revelation. I’d been drinking to get drunk so I can do what’s comfortable–being alone and playing video games. Being drunk also allays the intense loneliness I have. It does bother me that I spend time with so few people, but a fair amount of the time that has been my own choice. This revelation is very much me learning about myself and what I might like. I think the alcohol abuse over many years has been stymieing that, and I didn’t know just how much until last night. Lately when I’m alone I worry, but also use DBT skills and try to be in the moment, though I’ve had a very difficult time being in the moment over the years. Then again, this comes back to alcohol–I’ve practiced being in the moment intermittently for years, but always thought in the back of my head “but I can get drunk tonight, so I don’t have to experience the loneliness or try new things”…i.e. I don’t have to feel much of the loneliness, or face the positive risk-taking of doing new things with new people. Or with existing friends.

I have activities I do when I’m alone (such as video games, helping others on TinyBuddha, watching movies), but I spend *far* to much time not being social and not trying to be social. The lack of alcohol in my life these days, combined with the extreme anxiety I’ve been under (as you read on my other post), brought the revelation to the forefront of my mind. What I enjoy, what helps me the most, is social situations–I’ve been so desperate for social activities, yet so scared of them, and abusing alcohol to where I didn’t care, that my desire to be social was blunted very much.

I enjoyed video games as a child, but for the most part I didn’t love anything as a child. If you look at my”Apartment noise and fear” post in Emotional Mastery, I describe key points of my childhood. In a nutshell, it was hell every single day, and the only “safe” place was my room (though even that wasn’t always safe). I hid all the time. So that’s what I’ve been doing for so many years as an adult. Only nowadays such coping mechanisms no longer serve me. My life has been closed, and I’m hoping that with this revelation I can open it up.

“When you can love yourself and who you are, others will come to you automatically”–I’m not sure how you mean this ultimately, because the way I see it is thus: if I love myself and who I am, I will seek out others, because that’s what I want to do. Though I do see that, if I’m in a lot of pain and hiding, people might not want much to do with me because I’m a drain. On the other hand, I’m honest about myself to friends. I don’t say I’m doing fine when I’m not. I’m being myself.

Saiisha,

I haven’t tried visiting per se social places by myself. That might be a good idea to see how I cope with the emotions, because if I go by myself I can leave at any time. On the other hand, going with friends pretty much means I’d be practicing coping while in the moment–which would be a very valuable thing for me to do. I can cope in the moment alone, but when alone I’m not potentially disappointing anyone else; with a friend, I can practicing coping with any real or perceived disappointment.

I guess I wouldn’t say I “thrive” on social situations–I’d say that, right now, I desperately need to be social so that I’m not staying up in my head and worrying and producing panic. I don’t work, so that’s something that would occupy my time if I did (which makes me think of your volunteer suggestion). The prospect of work is a whole other can of worms. The last time I worked with any regularity was 2008. This is also about fear: fear of authority figures, disappointing others, my own stuff exploding to the surface and making me a sobbing mess and/or lashing out at others. At three of my previous jobs I got angry with the store manager, a supervisor, and a customer respectively, and in the first two instances I told them to go eff themselves. That’s not how I want to act. And it’s all about my fears and depression and immediate judgment of authority (this comes from my dad being terribly unsupportive in every way except money) being not expressed and held in until it bursts.

I have a few supportive friends, but not ones whom I’m close to. I mean, I tell them things, ask for help, and they help the best they can, but just about none of them truly “get” me, or if they get me they aren’t communicative anywhere near as often as I’d like (with one of them it’s been two months at least, another a couple weeks). And when I say “desperate”, I’m also desperate to be held. I can hold a pillow and cry at night (which I did last night) and breathe and work to comfort myself, but it isn’t the same as another person wholly understanding me and holding me. I want to feel the love others have for me, but if I can’t seem to feel that for the time being, I want to be held and comforted. Basically I want what my parents couldn’t or didn’t give me.

Incidentally, the friend I’m meeting later today and the friend I’m meeting tomorrow aren’t really huggy types, and one of them is male…I’ve had a difficult time being friends with guys due to the closed-up nature of my dad and how he modeled avoiding friendships (he still does avoid friendships, at almost 73 years old; I don’t even know if he himself is aware he avoids friendships. He probably doesn’t allow himself to even go there mentally).

Anyway, the part about revelations…or epiphanies as I sometimes call them: I’ve had two since this whole thing started, and they came about either while I was using calming skills or immediately after. They’ve been about a couple weeks apart, I think. So I can see that about spurts 🙂