Substack – rhoto

And how it tricks you…

If any of you have come here from Threads, then you will know, in a fair amount of detail, the struggles that I have had with my mental health.

It’s been so all over the place, that I almost wish that I could just be down all the time, because then at least I would know what I was dealing with.

But as it is, I think I am getting better and then something completely inconsequential happens and I am launched back down into the hole that I have convinced myself that I have crawled out of.

What I am starting to realise, is that this hole is a hell of a lot deeper than I first thought, and it has false ‘summits’. So me thinking that I have climbed out is just me climbing to the next ledge. Which yes, is progress, but not when it means that it’s one step up and two steps back down. That isn’t progression.

Me, in my depression hole, with the ledges. There should be more ledges.

I am back at uni tomorrow, after 3 weeks off – two Easter break weeks and one week off sick – and I do not want to go. I haven’t managed to complete a single assignment, I don’t ant to speak to any teachers or mentors or lecturers and tell them that I am no better off than I was pre-break. I don’t want to keep pretending that I am managing, and showing up when I simply feel like I should just quit.

I have been getting help and support for months. And the guilt that I feel when each week, I have to tell yet another person that I have not achieved is just piled on. I have a skills mentor, a mental health mentor, my lecturer, a senior support person, and the therapist that I pay for myself. And week after week I’m there telling them how badly I am doing and absolutely wasting their time. Because why am I unable to get shit done?

It also stops me doing other things though. Like I can’t let myself do anything fun or leisurely because I know that I should be working on assignments, yet I will sit at my computer/desk, hour after hour, day after day, and do nothing but make plans and lists to try and break down my work into the minutest, easiest way of getting things done.

I am excellent at plans now, at making the lists, it’s become the most common form of procrastination for me. Like, it doesn’t work X way and I can’t start, so I’ll design Y and maybe that will get me going.

It doesn’t.

What’s worse, is that I can sit and write this with absolutely no issues. So it’s not like I can’t write. But I can’t write the important things. And I can’t figure out why.

Yes I have ADHD, but I had it in my first year and I didn’t struggle anywhere near as much as I am now. I had it when I did my Access course and I fucking smashed that. So why now? Why am I writing all around the assignment(s) but not the actual bulk of it? I do not understand my own brain.

I want to just get rid of all the support people because they make me feel so bad.

Wait, no, that’s not true. They’re all bloody lovely and supportive and helpful, and they do not do anything even close to make me feel bad, that’s on me. But I want to stop wasting their time by seeing them weekly and still not getting anywhere.

But what will actually happen, is that I will go to uni, I will put on a bright, happy face and I will lie and I will tell them that I am doing better. I will pretend that I am not a complete and utter failure in the hope that I can convince myself that it is true.

I will sit in lectures and I will pay attention and I will make notes and ask questions, like the perfect illusion of a uni student, knowing full well that inside I am failing hard.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a big woe-is-me type blog, I just needed to get that off my chest (again) so it isn’t sitting in my brain whilst I attempt to work.

Who knows, maybe this will be my saviour? Maybe writing this and getting it out will bring me some sort of epiphany.

Unlikely, but a girl can dream.

(Migrated from Substack)

A few days (weeks?) ago I asked on Threads as to whether anyone would read if I started up some sort of a blog again, because I feel like I have stuff to say. And some people said yes. And because I cannot just write for writings sake and I need external approval (or something), I decided that my words should be public.

I used to have a blog. A few actually. In various different platforms – Blogger, BlogSpot, WordPress, Tumblr (Tumblr taught me a lot). I even had a couple of personal websites that I designed and coded myself, back in the HTML days before coding got really fancy and complicated.

I feel like I have always had an internet presence in various social ways. From chatrooms back in the early 00’s, a network of personal websites/camgirls/bloggers, MSN (a/s/l anyone?) to Twitter (basically saved me at a point where I thought I was going to lose my little mind) and now Threads, where I spend far too much time.

The thing that connects all of these things, and brings me back time and time again, are the people. And considering I have a strong disdain for teh general public, it surprises me even now that I seek out this sort of social interaction with fellow humans.

I suppose, this way (on t’internet) it’s kind of on my terms. I get to pick and choose who my people are, but still hope that they think I’m kinda cool and they still choose to adopt me also because I don’t know how to make friends. Well, I say I don’t, but I seem to have picked up the most incredible ones lately. And again, Threads has, and continues to, save me. And I mean that in the most serious way possible.

These last few years have been an absolute tornado. In the way a tornado picks up and flings around and picks and chooses what it is going to destroy and what it is going to save, and when it is all over, you have to find what is not broken, what can be saved, and what you have to build anew (I’ve literally just thought of that metaphor, and now I feel like a genius because it is a perfect analogy (analogy? metaphor? pick one woman) to how my life has been.

Threads has been a lifesaver. It has allowed me to share feelings, which I generally hate to do. I mean, I hate to admit I even have feelings, never mind share them. And those feelings have been accepted and empathised with and supported by friends and strangers alike. It’s allowed me to be happy, to vent, to be funny (which is what I aspire to be always), to find likeminded people, to feel like I fit in; but without assimilation. I can be part of a ‘gang’, but not lose myself. Not have to create a persona because people don’t ‘get’ me. It’s basically Twitter, before Twitter became really fucking shit. And I love it. And I hope it continues in this way because I’m not sure it can be replicated again.

Yes, I used ‘assimilation’, because I have a seriously hyper-strong sense of autonomy and of self. I have always been fiercely independent, even as a kid. I have very strong ideas of who I want to be as a person, and I will fight to keep that sense of self. Even if it sometimes gets buried or boxed up.

I am currently in the process of bringing that ‘self’ back. I have seen glimpses of the feisty, independent, strong, tenacious free spirit that I used to be. And I want to honour her and allow her her freedom again. And I feel like I am getting to be in a position to do so. I want to embrace that madness, that flighty dreamer, that part of me that had ambition and drive and passion. I lost her for a long while, she was driven away from me, but I see her.

I will honour her.

Tag: Substack

The Big Black Hole

Back at it…