This time tomorrow I will be bracing myself for lunch with a group full of strangers that I have committed myself to spending the next four and a half months with, four days a week. If I make it through the preceding three hours of class, that is.The lunch part might actually be more scary that the class part, because it is unstructured social time, where I am required to participate in a normal capacity and make an effort towards establishing some degree of social exchange with a view to forming new relationships.In class I can listen and learn and respond and have a narrow window in which to participate, which confines my margin for error and allows me to limit my eye contact in a socially acceptable way. There is barely any chance for me to get wound up and burst into tears and flee, running until I find myself somewhere not too far away, still crying, hyperventilating and vomiting in an alley near by.I won’t have to pull my hair until the pain grounds me, until I stop retching and shaking and crying, and I can gather myself and return home in disgrace, where I will have to use the internet to send emails withdrawing from my course, cancelling after-school care for my child, informing the government that I am no longer eligible for the financial assistance related to study, requesting unemployed designation once more, making appointments to see another job-pimp, booking more sessions with my GP, psych-man etc.I won’t have to collect my child from school and explain to him that something happened and I won’t be doing the course after all, but I will try even harder to get a job because things are getting really desperate on the money front at home.No, the class part should be fine, it’s mostly lunch that concerns me. Unless of course, I say something awful and offensive and personal and stupid in class. And I am determined not to do that. It is bad enough that I will arrive as I am, obviously poor and a bit unkempt and wearing the only clothes I have that fit, maybe older than the other students, and with more qualifications but less experience and usefulness and potential for employment. I will be the fat, awkward, poor, old, sweating, anxious one at the back, grinding her teeth and trying not to broadcast craziness.I know that sounds like a pessimistic and self-pitying forecast, but it is rooted in reality and actually a significant improvement from two years ago, when I was all those things, but housebound and quietly suicidal and with a number of other issues I am too ashamed of to admit here today.Tomorrow will be my first day of putting into practice a plan I made last year to address my crippling social anxiety and depression, and develop a regular productive routine outside of the house. I really do want to make new friends, restore my confidence, achieve measurable results in an endeavour comparable to a real job, so that in July I can try again to win employment and be a responsible adult and parent and peer amongst my small group of friends.I am so sick of being sad and angry and ridiculous and pathetic, of embarrassing and annoying and exhausting my close friends and family. I have spent years being unemployable, unreliable, untidy, unpresentable and unlovable.This year, and the the years that follow, I am going to get up everyday, get dressed and do something about it. I am crying and typing now, in anticipation of this seemingly massive undertaking that begins tomorrow, and I am worrying about lunch and class and the pressure of it all. But my alarm is set for 7am, and I have a plan and it is a good one. I am putting all this out there today for three reasons, the first being that I need to articulate my concerns and evaluate them in order to stem my tears and break up the negative feedback loop that undermines my perception of nearly everything in life, and perpetuates my misery.The second reason is that I know I am not the only one out there with anxiety/depression issues, with an unrelenting sense of desperation and isolation, who is already buckling under various pressures of life, and preparing to return to study in the next few weeks. I am unable to qualify what my experience might mean to others like me, but I think my contribution might mean something to someone feeling the same.Lastly, I am inviting anyone out there who has overcome or is successfully managing anxiety/depression or other issues of desperation, to please reply with advice and strategies I could put into practice tomorrow and the days after that. So, do you have something to say, or offer me as I prepare to venture out into the real world again?
