http://www.anxietytribe.comAnxietyTribe.com http://www.anxietytribe.com/rss.php?header=blogs&id=5126 http://www.anxietytribe.com/rss.php?header=blogs&id=5126 I join various social networking sites and even have accounts at a couple of blogging sites, but I never blog or write online journals.  It just seems that I'm talking into a void, and that anyone who does read any of it wouldn't be interested anyway...none of my problems are out of the ordinary and I feel whiny and self-absorbed when I try to get them down on (digital) paper, so many people are worse off than I am... But.  This is a site specifically about anxiety.  And I am lonely and haven't spoken to anybody about any of the things wrong with my life for a very, very long time.  People can read it or not if they choose, but I want to put it down. A week or two ago was one of the very black times.  I had a disappointment about something I had been hoping for very much.  And I was completely alone when I wanted more than anything that someone - anyone - could just come and sit by me and just maybe hold my hand.  Or something.  I can now go for weeks or longer with no deliberate human contact.  But there was no one.  Just me and the knowledge that nothing was worth it, but that I had to go on anyway out of a sense of responsibility to my parents, who would be devastated if I died.  When it got a little better, I knew I had to do something to regain some friends.  (My little circle of friends I had a few years ago has slowly drifted to other cities and I never made anymore after the last one was gone, and was less than vigilant about keeping in contact with them.)  I cannot go through something like that again alone.  I don't know if I would survive, and I want very much to survive during the times that aren't black.   So I went to the meetup.com site for my city and found some perfectly nice meetups, and joined one of a group of people that met for coffee once a week.  I thought it would be a good place to start, at least, somewhere to practice being sociable.  I rsvp'd to go to the meetup this week, and fully intended to go.  It was a much better week than last week, the weight seemed almost entirely lifted ... I've been a little blank, but that's all.  So I drove to the place, feeling pretty well, intending to go.  I got to the parking lot and couldn't get out of my car.  It is a familiar sensation, there isn't any particular fear or panic in it (if there is it is hidden very deeply) it is just my brain saying very calmly, I will not go in.  It completely overrides everything every other part of me wants.  And then there is a sad voice saying, I want to go home, just to go home.  So I did, and that is where I am now.  Things like this have happened so many times.  I try very hard to reach out to people, during the times when I feel able to.  But something in my mind just rises up and switches the rest of it off and shuts me down.  I don't know what I'm going to do. Except, of course, just be by myself.  Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:02:08 -0600