There’s no other way

A weekend of golf with friends last autumn, amid the rolling Devon countryside, was both a welcome boost to my flagging confidence and an unwelcome dampener on said confidence, all at the same time. It was good to escape an existence as a near hermit since my mental issues of 2017. It didn’t last. Soon, I was back in the same old place, declining meet-ups, parties, reunions and pretty well anywhere I might be in a room with a lot of people. I’m still outside the room today.

Today, I had the second of my golf lessons at Thornbury Golf Club, something that took just about everything I had left in terms of mental strength to arrange. I know this reads as totally bonkers but you need to have been in same the headspace as me. I was as nervous as a kitten as the golf pro worked assiduously and patiently to put my grip and then swing back together again. Once it was all over, I had to be alone again. I don’t want to see too many people for the rest of the day so I am going to avoid you all. Nothing personal, you understand.

I am double-booked on the social front tonight and have decided to attend neither event. One is a farewell to someone who is leaving my place of work, the other is a works reunion from my old job in the civil service. I had intended to make a fleeting appearance at one and then make my way to the other. That didn’t work out too well because having made my plans, I spent the week fretting about them until, leaving things as late as possible, I am backing out of both of them. Does this make any sense to you? Of course not. But then you are not me and I am not you.

Call it avoiding reality, call it what you will. I have got me to answer to and if either event went wrong – and here is me mind-reading yet again, a horrible trait that mental health therapy failed to remove – I’d be even worse. I can’t take the chance. So, tonight, when it gets dark outside, I’ll close the curtains, put my phone on silent and do something else, or perhaps nothing else.

This depression and anxiety malarkey just goes on forever and now I am dealing with it with a combination of drugs and my own, sometimes misguided, decisions. If I want to get better enough to be a social animal, a fifth rate golfer and a whole lot healthier, there’s no other way.