Tomorrow I'm handing out candy at my brother's house in town.
I'm excited but also nervous that this may be one of those times where I'm all geared up to do something social & when it happens I'm shy & agitated.

But I'll try, they're only children after all. All I have to do is smile & say "Great costume! Are you a witch?" I can do that, can't I? And besides, I'll be behind a wig & costume, Cleopatra to be precise. If my "wall" (my overwhelmingshyness, it is a brick wall) gets in the way I will be extremely angry. Angry that this stupid problem is inconveniencing me, angry that is may stop me from having fun. I want to smash that wall, I want to break it like Berlin Wall.
Revolution. No more tyranny, no more isolation, no more sadness. I want it to crumble, I don't want to have a door, I don't want it to have a hole, I don't want IT at all. No wall, no shyness, no fear.

I want a treat, not a trick. I will be standing at my wall saying trick or treat, if it says trick I'll say "wrong answer!"
Confidence & assertion, not typically a characteristic of me, but only because of the wall.

You know, I'd give anything to not have this. I'd rather have any other mental disorder\illness or whatever the fuck this is. The old the grass is greener on the other side thing, I know it's not true but my god this is too much (my stomach is too big! it's too much!).

And it used to be so simple, just a year or two ago I could just pretend in my world & let all the worries of the future be clouded by the better universe.
So wonderful, where I'm loved, I'm a social butterfly & I don't hate be hugged & loved. Just stay in your room where it all flows into you, sweet cushioning dreams of the life you want, the person you want to be. Then snap back to reality where you're alone, isolated & afraid of how the real thing might be. At least in my fantasy I have control, I can't actually get hurt.
Then you realise one day that your sickening desires for such decadent, selfish things such as love, friendship & courage have created a hole, which you filled by eating. And then you saw it, how crazy & wild your desires are, the mirror, it tells no lies, you've become a large thing (it's too much).
Too much here, too much there, control yourself! Take it away, become as thin as you can be, cease to exist.

I remember how I first came to see myself as I was, at least physically, it was a substitute for the real thing (the real thing could bite me!), but nonetheless I saw how my actual self was & sought to destroy it. To implode, to carve away an imperfect body to carve away an imperfect soul. To make the pain move from soul to skin, to attempt to fix it by addressing your physical existence as the root of all evils.

I see myself as so naive then. Ignorance is bliss, but we can't stay in the dark forever, and when the ignorance lifts you have all this nasty stuff underneath. It's ugly, it's disorganised, it hurts.
I finally see the person who inside is crying because she is so empty & wants the real companionship that the rest of the population takes for granted. I see the person who (with those decadent, selfish wants & needs) wants to go to a movie with the neighbour girl without being terrified of doing or saying wrong thing (will she like me? am I too boring?) & then saying "Oh nevermind I'll just go to a movie with my other friends."

And now, I cannot stop it all, stop it from circling in my head like a mad donkey, around & around it goes. It enters my head late at night, when the dust settles from the day & all the information about myself stares me clear in the face. I am up tonight because of this, I am writing right now because of this. It won't leave my head, it insists on being rowdy, so I put it out there. Okay, I'm dealing with you.
I feel stuck, I want a cure, yes a CURE. And I want it now, I don't want the touchy-feely sessions with the therapist asking what my thoughts & feelings are about this & how this is long process.
I don't want to be scared that I'll wind up a lonely failure, I don't want my fantasies (but they are so soft, not like that pesky real world that everyone insists I live in). But that has never been how it works, oh the hell well.

This mental disorder is really a huge inconvenience, I mean, damnit it pisses me off.
And you may think that I've come so far, I have. That I have terrific insights, I think I do.
But even if you know every corner of your psyche it's not automatically fixed.
You can spot & analyze everything wrong with your car & you can drive it knowing that the transmission is bad, the steering wheel is lose & the break light is out.
But knowing it's there does not fix it, obviously.

Where to go? I'm trying to find out. Trying my hardest.

(I cannot take credit for the lines: to carve away an imperfect body to carve away an imperfect soul. To make the pain move from soul to skin. That was originally written by Marya Hornbacher.)

When I took this test it was the very first time I had heard of Avoidant Personality Disorder.
My result on Avoidant was high, but that didn't phase me too much. It was when I read the description of it & read the part about elaborate fantasy lives that I thought "Oh yeah that's probably what I have." I know my shyness is not normal, I know I just know it's AvPD, but why am I making such a big deal out of it?
I must sound like such a hypochondriac, like "Oh, this is MY illness - I'm an Avoidant!" I'm not proud to have it, it's just nice to have name for for my oddities.
And besides I've looked at all the other similar "disorders"

Paranoid Personality: I'm a little paranoid, but it doesn't keep me awake, I'm not suspicious of everyone.
Schizoid Personality: One big difference; Schizoids don't exactly want social relationships, I yearn for them.
Dependent Personality: I'm afraid of having to make it on my own yes, I'd rather stay a kid sometimes, but on the other hand I want to be self-sufficient, I want to move to France & live all by myself, lol.
Schizotypal Personality: Are you freaking kidding me?
Social Anxiety: It's too mild, and I do stuff like watch the reaction of people I'm talking to & well of course the fantasies, it's just more severe than that.


Now, if you would like to hear me go on even more about how I have AvPD then continue to read, if not & you see no point in me pointing out that it doesn't matter than you may exit.
It also happens that I have always been interested in psychology so this comes naturally.

Although one thing I do not have is panic attacks, I have never had one. I have had anxiety attacks where I've been breathing heavily & quite upset, but that is not a panic attack.
I remember a year ago I signed up to take some Summer classes at a church for photography & some other stuff. After I had already been to some of them I had become quite overwhelmed by shyness that I was sitting on my bed one night thinking about how I didn't want to have to go back there & feel self-concious around all those other kids & I started breathing heavily & saying "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh My God. Oh my God."
I haven't had alot of them, probably because I avoid them. Hahaha.
I also have a habit of sometimes agreeing to social things & swearing to myself that I won't be shy, I tell myself I'll be like I am here, with my (close, live-in) family & then I am never able to do it & feel like a failure & all the like.

Here are my quiz results:

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Moderate
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Very High
Dependent: Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

Every one of those I agree with it so happens.

I f-ing hate it, I sometimes wish I were Narcissistic or Histrionic. Those are alot more interesting, I'd have more friends & would probably be an over-achiever than one who's scared of achieving too much ('cause then things will get bad!).

So I'm here typing late at night when I should be in bed, trouble is is that when I lay down to sleep all the painful thoughts cloud my brain. Sleep has become troubled for me, not only the bizarre dreams I seem to have been having for the past few months, but the actual act of falling asleep.
It's when my mind is finally still after a day of trying to fill it up with other things. But when my head hits that pillow it all tries to make its way through.
I have let it through, I had a few nights where I stayed up half the night going through periods of utter quiet & near hysetria as it all surfaced. I've learned the hard way that it must not be stuffed down, or chaos will eventually be the end result.

What you might ask, is a lifetime of loneliness, not having friends, wanting friends, being scared of friends, the secrets about myself that I keep so cleverly hidden, a missing cat, the fact that I, yes I have a mental illness.
And to top it off my mom couldn't afford to pay my therapist so I couldn't see her today & I am one of those rare few who loves their shrink. I was seeing her every week, now every two weeks.

I sometimes feel like I may explode one day, do something the complete opposite of me & just lose it ("Fuck you all! I hate you! I hate me! You're all clueless! Did you ever think that maybe I'm sick inside? Leave me alone! Fuck you all!")
I hope it doesn't come to that, but in a way it would feel so good.