Lately I've not known what to feel and it's been getting worse, I think it's related to me moving to my own place because I felt OK when I first moved in and then gradually felt more and more emotionless despite wanting to feel them. These are the kind that if you get a good idea or you make plans you get a feeling of excitement and looking forward to it, or that feeling of looking forward to seeing your partner and having cuddles and enjoy spending time with them etc.
It's a new empty feeling of mine and if this happened a few years back when I lived with my ex for three years then it would've been a good thing because he was teaching me independence and being stronger etc, now it feels like it's too much for me. I remember him saying he could never see me living on my own too.
I used to dream about living in my own place and decorating it how I want, having friends round when I wanted and doing what I wanted too. Now I have my own place I don't know what to do that would make me feel like this place is more of my own, it feels like my home, but a part of my head can't click with it, I just use it to live in and I can't afford to decorate it more and personalise it, but I've tried and I do like my flat, but I don't have the same feeling I had when I lived with my ex in Worthing and my ex in Swindon which felt like a door had opened despite me not really liking the area in Swindon, they still both felt more like home even when I couldn't personalise the places in the same way.
I have no local friends that can pop round and when I do have friends here they're limited to board/card/computer games if they bring a laptop and I have room for one computer. The area I live in is suburban and has more kids in the area than I'd like (About thirty) that play in the streets in the nicer weather, the people and adults are defensive, anti social and 'chavvy' and if I go to the shops I'm overwhelmed with the smell of weed everywhere and kids of various ages leaving their bikes around and walking in 'gangs' which I rarely saw when I previously lived.
You could say I hate living in Gosport, but I love being close to my family in case something happens, I'm at a loss what I'm meant to do about that if I moved away. Moving somewhere different always seemed more exciting and I was the one that didn't have to sort the bills out either, which might be why I only had a day or two of feeling this numbness.
My financial situation is better than when I lived in Swindon too, when I lived there we were sanctioned just when we could start to have £30-40 to ourselves most fortnights when we were paid job seekers allowance, this then limited us to housing benefit and donations from our families as well as borrowing from a mutual friend, it was too stressful for me and I bailed out of it by moving back with my parents in the end as I was making wrong decisions and becoming passive aggressive more often.
In Worthing my ex worked and paid and managed the bills, when I moved in with him he convinced me to come off incapacity benefit for my anxiety and switch to job seekers allowance, we then discovered that because he was earning enough to support both of us, I was not eligible to receive money from them and I was denied incapacity benefit when I tried to re-apply.
I was a grand in my overdraft and had recently been handed over my life savings of £8k, it was a hard decision but he convinced me I did need to pay off that overdraft before it got worse and I broke open the piggy and paid it off. Since I was not getting any money in I then decided to live off of it, I needed clothes from my rapid weight loss after having my gastric bypass and I paid £1k for a level one course at college because I wanted to prove to myself I could finish it since I never did when it was free at a younger age, there was also the £450-490 yearly bus pass too.
I gained another £7k from three family members passing away in those three years and £240 went towards tattoos and treats such as gigs and LAN events etc, I was always expected to pay for myself and yet frowned upon when I was evidently spending too much, I loved buying people presents as I knew they couldn't afford it themselves and I currently could, I didn't feel like I deserved the things I bought for myself and didn't have the room for it anyway, most of my stuff was at my parents since we lived in a small flat and my ex had most of the stuff in it.
I've gone slightly off topic here, but I used those savings up and only managed to hold a Christmas job which lasted five weeks, I had a job in Swindon for a few days but they made me redundant due to my numeracy and numeric skills not being good enough for them, my alpha skills being too good and taking work away from the other temp worker they had hired. I had other jobs but they didn't last more than a few hours, and my work experience really put me off any potential retail work.
That reminds me; one example of my broken mind is that when I think of how hard it was for me to care for people with advanced dementia, I used to have feelings from it, my friend works in the same job and I want to be able to admire while feeling the admiration and not just think it, if I think about how hard it was for me to do that job and think of them doing it full time for many years then my brain just gets confused and can't reach that point, it almost goes dead after taking a few steps, no matter how hard I try to force it.
If I think about looking forward to seeing my boyfriend I don't feel anything, there's a slight thought in my head of guilt though, that he's spending money to come do the same thing he would do at home and sit at a computer because the only things I feel are fun are things you can do anywhere else such as cinema if there's a good film out and a meal out. Going to the arcade and bowling are other choices, but more enjoyable in bigger groups, and computer/card/board games are also more enjoyable in bigger groups or at least three people.
We spent our first weekend alone in quite a while recently and I was feeling guilt without the feeling of it, I almost felt misery out of it because I was constantly reminded that he could be saving his money and putting it towards better things, or putting his time towards watching tv series, working on hobbies or having gaming nights with his local friends from home instead of spending time with me where we barely talk because he's just happy being around me, I actually prefer having a friend with us because he'll then be able to talk about his passions that I don't have the qualifications to understand or be able to return the conversation with, that also makes me feel miserable and guilt.
At times I want to be left alone because I feel people are enemies or I can't be bothered with them anymore, there's people I'd love to be friends with but I don't understand why they seem to want to avoid me, there's some who I used to be friends with but they don't want to talk about what exactly I've done wrong or what has happened to make them feel whatever way they do, but I don't think I actually want to care any more if they became or came back as a friend to me now, it's not important enough to me and I wonder if this is because I'm living in my own place and fulfilled something I've always had in my mind as a goal in life.
I can't afford to buy things for myself any more either, I felt guilty when I spent £34.99 recently on forty packs of cards in Hearthstone, and I felt the same way when I pre-ordered a game I'd been anticipating for £32.99 which comes out next week, I've been trying to avoid playing games I'm likely to get addicted too and try to think negatively of it so I'm not enticed to spend more money or stressed over the game itself too.
I also owe money, £430 to be exact. I receive £143 a fortnight from Employment and Support allowance and I put £30 towards food a fortnight, £7.50 a month towards my phone and the rest is bills/tax and a stupid debt I have with my housing association because I was honest when applying for housing benefit and no one warned me to mention I should use the date I received the keys to my flat as my move in date, I was honest which resulted in the housing benefit only paying from the day I officially moved in and leaving me with £140 I have to pay back and have been paying £5 a week off of it.
Whatever money I have left for myself is now put towards paying this debt off, I did have more but I'm prone to knowing how much presents people buy me cost them and making a note of it, after asking these people if they consider it money owed, they said no or that to them I owed them nothing, as guilty as I felt for taking their word, I had to reassure myself that I asked first.
The first person I owe the most money was the same person my ex and I borrowed from in order to pay the bills when living in Swindon and I admit we also had the odd takeaway and LAN I think, it feels so long ago now that I'm not sure but I know it was when we were desperate and it got out of hand to get up to £350, the second person was just from me and I don't really know any more what reasons I had to borrow, but I had it noted and they'd even forgotten too and allowed it to be halved down to £80 now.
For me, this is almost a a huge amount of money to pay back, I know they said it was fine to loan until I got a job, but in my current situation I have no idea when that would be, the job market down here is poor and I am only confident enough to work with data entry work which is one of the most popular and easiest jobs you can do, so I'm pretty screwed. I'm told I'm not meant to look for work until I start sorting out my anxiety issues and learn how to deal with borderline personality disorder, but it has taken so long to finally get a CBT assessment that I've been applying anyway.
So this leaves me with paying £10-30 each fortnight to each person, depending how much money I have available after my bills etc come out, it won't take long to pay back the person I owe £80 too, but it's going to be over a year at that rate to pay back the larger sum and I leave myself with £5-8 each of those fortnights because I believe I don't need things, I only want them. I'm paying for my living costs and I'm living quite comfortably without any problems, so why should I feel like this as a result? The things I'd like to do in life have become a dream rather than a reality such as travelling to places and buying things, I keep a wish list on Amazon if I want something and I find that later on I remove things after a while and lose the initial interest and justifications I'd initially have for it.
When I was really low on money I started to sell my possessions, my dragons, my games, DVDs, music, anything that my nan would consider a waste of money, she claimed I was a sentimental hoarder and it's better to live as a minimalist, I needed the money so I agreed that it was a better way to live, especially as I can't and don't want to have children so I wouldn't have anyone to pass my possessions on to anyway, I sold or gave away over half of what I owned and it still feels like I have too much at times.
Friends used to be the most important part of my life and making memories with them, going to LAN events, having fun and the excitement of potentials and possibilities of making new friends and doing spontaneous or unexpected things too. Now that I've been going for a few years I just enjoy going to smaller ones because I know most people that attend and I can chill out more at them and play games with friends I don't see that often or make new ones, but there's no excitement, no happiness, no love any more about it, just another predictable LAN then home again.
I still care for some friends who I wish would talk to me more often, when I try to talk to them I sometimes get a reply and that's reassuring for me, but most of the time it hurts or I just give up on them completely, which also hurts to some extent.
Sure I can put on a front and laugh, be hyper and seem happy, I don't really seem miserable or sad either, I'm just me and that's pretty much neutral, I'll do my own thing and complain to games I play or talk while playing etc, but that's normal me and doesn't involve emotions because my mind can still react to things like that, but I can feel miserable at times, it's on and off.
Back when I lived with my ex in Worthing a door opened up for me and I had the oportunity to go down a path of my personality that I didn't think would happen, this changed me and made me more open minded, but after a few years I lost more and more interest in it, the people I'd meet would become predictable and I got bored of that, I'd make some friends who became gaming friends or just to chat with, but I lost the mutual understanding that we all had and eventually struggled to join in or show any interest, I was more content to just be around like minded people when I had the chance to do so.
My sex life is also non existent, without going into detail it's obvious to my friends that my mind will always be dirty, but that's all there is now. I've no interest in sex and after over a decade of being a nymph it feels strange and almost wrong, I can't even block it from my mind any more, like I had been doing before it finally just went. I had the ability to just put the numbness to the side and focus on what I wanted etc and have a little bit of interest in having fun, but now I don't care for it, if my partners don't like me for not providing them sex then so be it. In the past I used to want to be accepted and with my self loathing, lack of confidence and high insecurity, I was easy to be used and as a result I was raped four times and I think this may be related to why I have changed on a sexual level too, but I know that most people can live a-sexual without a problem.
I thought about making money from baking, but I'm lost where to start when it comes to starting your own business, I don't think it's as easy as making a Facebook business, creating cards/leaflets and getting yourself known for your baking, and even then I'm not so good at what people seem to want most, my baking is simple but it tastes nice. I'm basically willing to put the effort in for a cheap price because I don't have much else to do, so I may as well make money from something I enjoy doing, but when my dad is the honest critic who tells me my "food is inedible" then I'm struck down and I'll believe him and my family more than anyone else.
I also thought about making some pennies on the side from photography, but I'm a amateur and struggle to know how to learn to improve, I have limited gear and I do get ideas for photos but I lack the confidence to go with it, I have no experience with photoshop or lightroom either and I know people who just pick it all up really quickly, where as I'm always asking questions and struggling to see things I could turn into brilliant pictures or how to do that.
Weight has been a serious problem for me as well, I've gained three stone since I lived in Worthing, I used to be 16stone 10lbs and now I'm balancing on 20st 3lbs, sometimes more and sometimes less. Walking hurts my hips and my coxis a great deal and I'm too afraid to go to the gym or swimming 30mins walk from me. I've thought about asking my dad or my lifelong friend to come with me, but my friend is always busy and can't afford it and I feel embarrassed at the thought of going with my dad.
See, I just had this feeling of wanting to cry in frustration and hurt, but I can't. It's trying,but it won't. I was near to having an anxiety attack last night and had the usual signs building up, but it felt like a bad radio signal and I was getting hit by these signs on and off or only half of them and they'd stop then start again later. I had a good cry after getting drunk on Saturday night and I cried when discovering my hamster had died, but now I'm numb again and it's frustrating me.
Back to my weight, I find I'm eating and drinking okay, but if something sets my mind off to not care, then I'll go straight to drinking something sugary when it's in the evening and/or eating something I shouldn't because it's in the flat. I try to eat whatever is in the flat so I'm left with no food and forced to go out if I want it, but find I have more food when and after I've had guests round too, resulting in my weight going yo-yo each week.
I'm even part of a group of friends who weigh themselves each Saturday and add it to a spreadsheet, it's a nice nudge to not completely give up with losing weight every week and to support and encourage others, but I do get frustrated when they forget to go to the gym or swim two to three days a week and when they can't go, they misbehave sometimes and forget about managing their food completely, as none of us are actually on a diet because it's too stressful, but some of them have nearly lost a stone already this year so I can't be too hard on them.
I might be over reacting and this is part of growing up, who knows. I don't know and this is why I'm coming out in this blog, this is everything in my head that has been going on in a daily basis, I think a lot and I have what feels like three minds, the main mind does the thinking, the second mind will think for the main mind and the third mind is my subconscious which tries to tell both of them what they need to know and they all work at once.
End of the day I guess I just need to man up; get a job, get my weight off by brave facing and going swimming, to the gym or walk more often which I've been trying to do by walking to my parents almost every day in the last week, but I don't do anything but watch TV when I am at theirs and play with the dogs and take pictures.
My boyfriend and my best friend have both said they're willing to pay for a subscription for me to lose weight, but I don't want to do it alone and I'm embarrassed if I go with someone else, I feel like a kid in high school again who's afraid of the bullies yet I know it won't be that way, I tell myself that often and it still doesn't work, I don't even know how to swim in an exercising way either, as we always just mucked about in the school pool. Evidently I'm feeling something if I can think that way?
Another thing that bugs me is my relationship status itself, my nan does not understand how open polyamorous relationships work and the rules we have, if there's a possibility of me sleeping with someone I'll always ask my boyfriend and make sure he's okay with it too whenever I see the person who I have consent with, I don't sleep around though, especially with my lack of libido, but I'll open my heart up to those people with consent and in the past I could treat them on a different level than just a friend which was nice as I am capable of caring for many people on different levels, I used to love people too but now I'm not sure if I'd care about having no friends at all any more which I really hate.
My nan does not understand this and I know it's because back in her days the majority of people would be raised monogamously, but her lack of understanding and telling me it's wrong and unfair on my boyfriend makes me feel like shit basically, I listen to my parents most because they've always been right, but when I was younger I remember my nan would say it's better to have multiple boyfriends than one and not to commit to marriage and live free, travel the world and do something with my life. I'm a disappointment in that regard, but at least I'm trying not to follow my mothers path and I think I'm not doing too badly, but whenever I'm compared to her I feel shit because I've been trying, so I try even more to avoid being compared to her.
oh yes, I was brought up by my grandparents, I call my grandad dad and my nan is my grandma,I forget this isn't a normal thing.
I think weight and money are the most stressful things right now though. I want to know what I look like when I'm thin and I fail to be able to encourage myself and rely on others to help me through it, it helps to know people are giving me a little bit of their time to support by commenting on my bizarre picture diet I've created, but I'm desperate enough to try that way. I've got a lot of reasons to motivate myself and the biggest one is that I want to know what I look like at 12stone with a proper looking body that people can appreciate and actually look at me for how I look on the outside too, and wear clothes I'd love to wear, providing I can afford them, and cosplay.
It's so easy to just switch off my brain and stop caring about things until I've paid people back, then I have flexibility in my life.
I also have guinea pigs now, my Worthing ex and I used to love the idea of adopting guinea pigs if we moved out once I got a full time job I could keep and I fell in love with that idea and the things we loved about them, my boyfriend was extremely kind and bought Loki and Brian for me, I was having sleep issues living in my first place to myself and I felt incredibly lonely here, but now I'm feeling it wasn't a good idea.They did help me settle my sleeping problems and I can actually sleep now, but I underestimated how much they eat and make a mess in their cage, I have to clean them every two to three days and they eat a bowl of food every twelve to fifteen hours.
They're also not as social as I thought and read about them, they don't mind cuddles but they'd prefer to be in their cage, I give them runs in the kitchen and they prefer to hide and run around where they feel safe which is the smallest gaps they can find behind the cage on the floor, and I get growled at a lot for making noises they don't like quite often and yet they will high pitched squeal at me if they want more food, so they know I'm not the enemy, but I hoped for more social animals, at least hamsters don't mind being handled and don't run away from you either.
My dad also sighed at me for having the guinea pigs because they take quite a bit of space in my kitchen and my nan actively reminds me to "get rid of them because you can't afford them."
One last thing here, but I've also stopped caring about keeping my little secret of being gender fluid. There's days where I want to be lazy, messy and dress in t-shirt and trousers and feel like a guy, and there's days which are more rare than that where I'll put make-up on for no reason and dress a little bit more fashionably and 'tidier' as my nan puts it. It's nothing that changes who I am, it's pretty obvious already, but I've accepted it now and it doesn't feel like a big deal to me any more, why should people make a deal out of another person just because they're different to the 'norm' they are brought up to believe in? I get grumpy when people just aren't willing to be more open minded and accepting, it doesn't change how I want to be treated at all, I don't want to be a guy, I just like feeling like one and there's no hidden layers than that.
Judge me how you will, do and say what you say, I expect no one to want to help in any way about this but I know some people are there to support.For those that are just nosey buggers who love to gossip, sod off and show some respect to someone who's only way to deal with their problems is to get it out in words. Only a couple of people have confessed to me that they read my entries and I can see the page views too, so I'm starting to feel more judged and paranoid by the people who I see at events I attend and they are just being plain mean.
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