Why I'm feeling unsociable, but not looking it.

I'm not unsociable, but I don't always want to be sociable.    

Especially in new situations.

I'm quite an anxious person. I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder back in 2017. I don't know if I actually still have it on my medical records or not. I was also diagnosed with PTSD in January 2025. Both related to witnessing sudden and traumatic deaths of my father and our daughter.

I don't receive any treatment for either condition anymore but I still have the symptoms of both, mainly in the form of catastrophising and just not thinking I'm good enough for a lot of things.

I hate doing new things, going to new places and meeting new people. It nearly cost me my job back in September after just 10 days, but I was able to vocalise how I was feeling and I was given a sabbatical, time to reset and restart the following month and things are pretty much ok now. I've even socialised and joined the book club and went out for a Christmas meal, but I left a 10pm and came home. Baby steps. I spend the first break in the staff room which is 15 mins, but for the half hour lunch break I leave site. It's too much for me to be there all day.

I cope better if I do things on my own and if I don't have to explain to people what I'm doing when and where and why. But I'm married, I have a husband who cares for me and wants to help me and when I'm talking through, out loud, all the things I have to do, making plan a, b and x, y and z, he naturally wants to input some advice and take the pressure off me, but it just exasperates the situation and I explode. 

I need to run through every single event, outcome, possibility so I can put it to rest in my mind and then whatever happens I'll be equipped to deal with it all.

When I'm in this mood I just don't want to be around other people, anyone at all.

It could be something simple like going out for a coffee, a walk or as complicated as planning a holiday or maybe something stressful like a medical appointment or trying to work out something that is complicated such as a tax return. The thought process is the same and the outcome is the same.

What if I get hit by a car on the way to the shop? What if that car pulls out suddenly and hits the other car 3 cars in front. Will Peter have seen in and be able to react in time? Will it be better if I sit like this or like that? What would our chances of survival be? He needs to slow down, pull back a bit more. Just let me drive, then I can be in charge of my own fate. Then I end up wanting to just go out on my own, so I only have myself to worry about and I don't have to explain to anyone what I'm doing and why? I can just talk to myself to reassure myself, calm myself down and everything will be ok, it usually is, but only because I run through these scenarios.

I go to the football with 28,000 people a couple of times a month, but I go on my own. I can decide in a split second if I want to walk this way or that way or leave early without having to speak to anyone else and make plans. 

I joined a group on the weekend for a walk. I hate joining things. I joined the gym. I was so agitated when I joined. I got so anxious about it, that when they tried to show me how all the equipment worked I got in a panic and at first just let them show me machine after machine, but I wasn't listening, then I plucked up the courage to say 'no thank you' I hoped I sounded polite when I asked them just to show me the three machines I wanted to use. Then after a couple of visits, I plucked up the courage to ask about another one.

On the walk on Sunday I was agitated, I got on the bus and everyone knew each other, there was talk about all the walks they'd done, they had all the gear. The group info and said you needed to be of certain fitness level, I was anxious they'd make me drop out and I'd have to get Peter to come and get me and I started to panic I'd not be able to describe where I was and he'd be driving around for ages in the wrong place because I wasn't anxious and not able to give clear directions.

We started the walk, it was hard, but I wasn't the one that couldn't keep up and I got agitated. I was agitated listening to some of the people talking, their topics of conversations, the tone of their voices. I put my headphones in and isolated myself further from everyone. I thought we would be walking at a faster pace, a hike it was advertised at, we kept having to wait for people to catch up, I was getting cold and impatient. I left the group at a point where I knew my way home.

I was sad and disappointed in myself that I hadn't jsut been able to enjoy the day and make new friends. 

My whole day was ruined. I gave myself a headache. I thought about all the other things I could've been doing and could've done and instead of getting on and doing some of those things in the afternoon and evening, I did absolutely nothing and just got more and more cross and upset with myself for wasting the time.

But from the outside I don't look unsociable, I don't act unsociable (no one saw me with my headphones in, hidden under my hair and hood) I'm always told how sociable I am. How I'll have a go at anything, how out outgoing I am, how organised I am and often by family how bossy I am, but that's not me, that's not the person I want to be, that's the person I feel I've been forced to become. 'what's the matter with you?' 'why are you so quite?' 'go find out what's going on' 'where are we going? what are we doing?' 'where are we ... what are we ... food, places, who, what, where when. All with a gentle shove in my back. So no one else has to take the blame.

This post is a bit all over the place. It's random. Worrying. But that's how my brain works when I get like this. I cut myself off, I isolate, I become unsociable. I didn't want to go to work on Monday, but I didn't want to stay at home either. I just wanted to run away, but I didn't. I knew it's wasn't the answer.

It's not about putting a brave face on and just getting on with it. It's not even about putting into the place the things I've learnt to cope. It's just life and how I live it and when I'm in work and I'm asked what's wrong I'll just reply 'migraine' before they think I'm just a little bit barking mad or maybe it actually is a migraine that has me thinking and feeling this way or is it just normal and we need to talk to each other a little more, but then I'm not feeling very sociable to want to do that, am I?