There’s no denying or escaping the fact that I’m feeling increasingly lonely at the moment. I’ve no desire to spend the rest of my life alone. This isolating was with the aim to be more secure around people by being more comfortable alone.
The place I’m in now is not a good place to be alone. I do need someone to talk to and offer a distraction.
So tonight I’m back out for drinks. It’s a been while but probably not that long really.
I’ve been through something taxing today and I probably should be resting but I committed myself to getting fairly drunk and felt like staying open to some company.
Had a first at work. The first time I’d had to report a breach due to a policy being incorrectly administered.
It was nerve wracking because it’s the sort of thing I don’t like dealing with and to be honest after 3 years I was worried there might be questions asked as to why I haven’t done one before.
But yeah I asked for and got help and it’s something I know I can deal with now.
We’re a regulated industry and our breaches must be reported within 72 hrs. There was no putting off until Monday.
That didn’t happen until mid afternoon so I took my extra half hour dinner break and popped in to my local autism hub.
I was hoping to be a bit more social again and it was nice to see an old friend who I haven’t seen for ages. We had a quick catch up and I’m pleased to see she’s doing well.
I got to ask how the others are doing which put my mind to rest a little.
I mentioned that I’ve been spending too much time alone as I learn to be myself. It got me thinking again about how the real me is so difficult to find.
The real me is someone who is friendly but at the same time I’m doing it because I need other people around me to feel human. Without company, what exists deep inside doesn’t really feel very human.
It is totally part of who I really am that I don’t feel safe alone because if I have to isolate to protect myself I’m already trapped in a place where I don’t feel safe.
I am such a different person when I’m around people who make me feel good. The 2 sides of me don’t recognise each other.
That’s the reason I have pursued the Jungian ideal of integrating my 2 selves. To become a balanced person.
During the bad times I had unfriended my old friend which i immediately regretted and fully expected she wouldn’t want to talk to me. But she did.
It made me think that she was so casual that she didn’t even notice I had disappeared which kind of sucked in a way but I was ultimately really glad that she was still friendly.
I’m going to continue pursuing building bridges to being friends again with the old group but I also want to just keep going to new places and begin to meet new people.
Perhaps now I’m becoming more like my old friends by staying open while not really doing anything to cement friendships into demanding relationships.
I still want to pursue relationships of course because I find it easier to trust people when I know they’ll stand by me and stick with me.
It’ll help to spend time around people again but at some point I’ll want more and become unhappy again. But better to be unhappy than to repeat the experiences of the last 18 months.
And so the burgeoning creative inside me really wants to start writing something. To create a world that I can lose myself in and hopefully provide me some alternative to the loneliness.
It’s a big deal and I’m still so hesitant to give it a proper go. I can tell myself that it will be some thing worthwhile that I can be proud of. Maybe it can be what I dedicate my life to instead of seeking out the company of real people.
One fear is that it will make the isolation worse and I’ll ultimately get lost in the dark forest again. But it might be the sort of thing I need to give myself the belief that I’ll be ok.
At this time I can reveal that I finally deleted my Facebook and it’s too late to reclaim it now. I’m already plotting how to relaunch myself by creating a brand new account but only in order that I might have better control over how much I share of myself.
I’m returning to some good advice, to take things one at a time and make slow but steady progress. Trying to rebuild myself but it has to be done right. And it needs good foundations.
I think that I need to apply myself in such a way that I can win one small victory at a time while making sure that I get as much rest and healing as possible.
It’s truly a great feeling when you finally deal with something big but there’s an energy cost and things don’t sink in until you’ve rested and recovered. Feel that weight lifted from your shoulders.
Getting in touch with a better self-image now. I’ve been trying to hold onto the various schema that exists inside myself.
The demons who are covered in spikes to hurt people who get too close. The harsh taskmaster who demands I do better. The child who always want to play and won’t listen to anyone else.
There was even a brief dalliance with the archetype of cool. The unbeatable aloofness of the smirking figure who is above everything but whose eyes smoulder with the fire of warm charisma.
I know I’ve needed this tonight. To take a break from worrying and engage with the part of myself that is free to imagine something better.
So it feeling I’m getting my humanity back again. It feels like connecting with other people helped me connect with my better self again. That was probably always the case.
It’s no accident that all of my friends were autistic and it’s no surprise that I seek to keep them in my life and spend all of my time with them. It’s no surprise that I reacted so badly to losing that connection nor why I feel so bad for the way I reacted.
But tonight is a night for allowing myself to feel good again simply because I’ve reconnected with a part of myself that I love and have shut off the voice that tells me I need to be someone else to feel that love.
The pub is quiet but not too quiet and they’re playing some good music. I can sit by myself and blog or I can join some people I know.
What would the archetype of cool do? He’d do whatever the fuck he wanted.
Thanks as always for reading
Kindest Regards to those who do xx
Jamie's Blog 