Spin Cycle

I seem to have been stuck in a very slow spin cycle for as long as I can remember, including with my blog-writing, which feels to now be almost solely an outlet for moaning about life and how there are lots of things I am unhappy with, but feel unable to change. Round and round I go, feeling washed-out and fuzzy-headed, not knowing when it will end. The mini heat-wave had perked up my sensibilities for a day or two, but all of a sudden I am back down to good old reality with a bump.

Yesterday after work, I went with Samson to buy his brother a 30th birthday present. He already knew pretty much what he wanted to buy, so we managed to get there and buy it relatively quickly. There was a shop I wanted to take a quick look into, so after we got the present, he came along. I was feeling OK when we set off from work, if a tiny bit irritable, but by the time we had got to the shop I wanted to look in, I was just feeling miserable. I didn’t feel like going home, but I didn’t have anything else to do and shouldn’t really be spending any more money, so when we got to the tube station to go home, I said that I felt like wandering aimlessly for a while and would see him tomorrow. Samson said he would keep me company and came with me for a wander, but it sort of made me feel temporarily worse because I didn’t really want him to be around to see me acting quiet and odd, wandering the streets like some sort of hobo. We walked the length of Regent Street, looking in shop windows, him making little comments here and there, while I slouched along next to him in virtual silence. After a while, he suggested us getting something to eat, as his treat. I started feeling bad again and pretended I wasn’t really hungry, but told him I don’t want him to pay for me. Lately it seems like he is always paying for my drinks or food if we go out, not to mention the pricey birthday presents he got me and the birthday dinner he paid for. I’m not used to it and keep expecting that there will be a time of pay-back, when all the nice things get thrown back in my face. Aside from that, him paying for me reminds me of the fact that financially I am in the s**t and am trapped by a lack of options because of it.

I desperately want to move out of where I am and can’t afford to. I don’t always feel completely comfortable at home and feel like I am living in someone else’s house instead of it being an equal three-way split. I know for a fact that having my own space, independence and responsibility would significantly improve my quality of life at the moment, but there is very little I can do about it until I have any money left at the end of each month to save towards one month’s rent and deposit. Because I have very little cash after paying my bills, I can’t even get out much to see films, or have dinner, or go to fun places at the weekend to make up for it, because it all costs money. So, stupidly, when I feel down, I either spend what little money I have (and quite often don’t have) on clothes or other ‘stuff’ I probably don't need, in the hope of cheering myself up. I feel the initial buzz of making a purchase, the initial pleasure when I try on or first wear garments I have bought and really like, but soon feel incredibly low again when I realise I’ve spent more than I should have done. I then end up scrimping on food out of necessity and feel even lower when I don’t have enough energy from not eating as well as I should. It’s a cycle that is both destructive, detrimental and depressive. I also tend to pick at my skin when I feel anxious or negative about myself, which then also makes me feel worse as I survey the damage on my face where I have picked and squeezed at blemishes unnecessarily, making them worse and creating new ones in the process. Round and round I go until I don’t feel good about anything and it’s hard to pull myself back up into any kind of positivity.

Very few people know about how much of a constant struggle it is for me day to day and even morning to evening. I can start off feeling bright and breezy when I wake, but it is very rare nowadays that such a frame of mind lasts the day. Something will trigger a feeling of upset, or remind me of one of the problems I have pushed to the back of my mind and *BAM* - on the verge of tears again. It’s hard to explain this to anyone without telling them my deepest anxieties and fears, my faults, my disappointments. It’s too personal to just share with anyone and pride plays a factor in that too. So people continue on thinking things are OK, while I continue on in my own desperate unhappiness. I feel less and less able to cope with the pressure of getting ‘better’. My family don’t fully understand why I have been suffering from depression and therefore probably can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be better. At work, the Occupational Health report stated it would be reasonable to expect my attendance to improve, which isn’t completely untrue, but they seem to think that just because I am taking medication, my depression should automatically disappear, even if gradually. All it has done is enable me to function normally enough to be able to better face the problems causing my depression. It doesn’t solve those problems. And since I can’t solve them myself completely, at least not for now, I am stuck with the constant see-saw of emotions of trying to be positive about the negatives, while constantly being reminded of what the negatives are, because they are completely embedded in my everyday life.

While we continued to wander aimlessly around, Samson eventually convinced me to go with him for a drink. We found a small pub and sat down with a drink each. I felt numb and rather unable to talk much. He kept checking I was OK, but I didn’t really know what to say to him. After a while, I just felt so low that I was unable to stop a tear or two falling from the corner of my eye. Samson noticed and started to ask what was wrong more intently. I had felt gradually more and more low all evening and wanted to explain, didn’t really know where to start. “Do you just feel rubbish?” he asked, which is my usual description when feeling low. I nodded, but it took me a little why to even begin to tell him why. I explained about my lack of money: that it makes me feel awkward when he pays for things for me, that it means I am currently unable to move out, that it makes me feel low and helpless, that it means the social/fun things I can do are limited, that I end up shopping when I feel down which makes me feel worse because I end up spending money I shouldn’t, that I feel pressure to be better now because I am taking medication, despite the fact that most of the things that have got me down haven’t changed significantly enough to impact my frame of mind in a positive way.

“I wish I was a richer man,” he said after I’d talked a while. “But it’s not your problem,” I responded, not really understanding why he would want to help me solve a problem that is my own creation and nothing to do with him. It’s hard to change your perspective to that of being part of a proper team, rather than the kind of one-way team I’ve been used to, where I had their back, but when it came to me, I was on my own. It helped talking to him and eventually we left, popping into a couple more shops before heading home, me being extremely amused by his uninhibited glee at the huge sci-fi section in the four-floor book shop we went into. The thing is, I can talk to him about me feeling down, but there’s nothing he can really do. He can’t magically increase my salary or decrease my bills. I feel perked up for a while for getting things off my chest, but after that has worn off I have to face that my situation hasn’t changed and I have to find some way to cope with my situation until it gets significantly better, which thankfully it should do, but not for at least a year. I shouldn’t downplay how much him being there means to me. Although he can’t really do much about my problems directly, his company and his optimism, his patience, his way of making me laugh by being silly and not being put off when I am initially unresponsive and quiet, are so important to me. I’ve never met someone whose patience seems so unending, who is content with just being himself, who doesn’t change how he is even when I am being awkward and standoffish.

Despite all the things that have happened in the past two years, if I had to go through them just to get to this point with Samson, then I don’t regret them for a second, even though they have been difficult, confusing, upsetting. My only regret is that I am still in a situation where my relationship is the main thing bringing me any sense of happiness. It makes me uncomfortable because I want to be able to feel content within myself, happy with my situation outside of my love life as well as within it. Knowing how much hurt and emotional turmoil relationships have caused me in the past 4 years, even when I’ve not been in one, experiencing happiness that stems almost completely from the presence of another person in my life feels like an extremely precarious position to be in. I know from both NY Guy and BFTP just how quickly such situations can be pulled from underneath you, without warning or seemingly any cause from my own behaviour. I’m still wary of allowing myself to feel completely safe in another person’s care, at mercy of their feelings, which can seemingly change like the direction of the wind. Having personal happiness wrapped up in another person feels a bit like gambling a year’s pay on the outside chance in the Grand National, or building a house on the edge of a cliff that is steadily being eroded by the elements. In time, I’m sure I will feel less guarded about this, but having other things in life that I can rely on will be necessary to make that happen.