How different the outside can be from the inside

Thank you for the comments on the last post. This carries on from there in a way. The stretch between how I can come across, appear, perform to others, and how I really feel inside, where noone can see, is becoming more painful and harder to manage. This is a bad thing.

I don't want to drag myself around, telling the world how things feel inside. I do want to change, get better, be better and being in the world and interacting with people. I get up, mostly, I smile when I need to, I try. But when I seek support, when I go to a place where others may be able to relate even a little bit to others' struggles, I don't expect to come away feeling worse.

I worked, for a reason now unfathomable, in mental health for a while. I was struggling undiagnosed at that time, had times off, crisis intervention etc. Some people who I worked with knew, some didn't. I felt lost and useless, awkward in my role and in myself. I left, unable to cope. During that time and afterwards I avoided mh centres etc. Three years on I am trying to find ways to manage the times away from TC, therapy, which are a real struggle. To then go to somewhere seeking solace and to be told that I look fine and questioned as to why I can get support and someone else can't. Felt destroyed. So, am back to wondering, is it worth venturing outwards. Hello lonely world, can I make friends with you?

...Frozen,

or caught in the headlights, petrified. A place has come up suddenly at the TC for me. My head is in a messy awful place. Have been on edge of crisis for few weeks now if that's even possible. I don't feel ready. Very scared. But does this mean I am in fact ready? To jump in, to try and float in a sea of everyone else's struggles which I always seem to swallow and push down my own. Also the endings thing, I am leaving support that I've had for several years to go to the TC, but no time to prepare, for "closure" (ugh), to enable my head to move on. I have stopped talking, it's too hard. And it is put down to me having cold feet. I already had a flood of stuff to get through with mh support, now I feel silenced by fear and unable to sort out the stuff. Do I take it with me? Will I be able to deal with that in a group when I can't even face talking 1:1? Bingeing again - as if to make visual the fact that I am filling up with unprocessed awfuls.  

One month before heartbreak post

http://onemonthbeforeheartbreak.blogspot.com/

I have no idea if I have posted the link properly above, (dinosaur me), but just want to credit the fact that I heard about the One Month Before Heartbreak idea through reading Karita's great post on If Narky, Feed Profusely and an idea from Phil Groom? If anyone can point me in the direction of crediting/linking properly that would be so kind, if anyone is in fact reading. Thankyou.

I have a postcard on my fridge door. I have had it for years and it came as a birthday card a long time ago. Somehow while I was making tea in the early hours, it got me thinking about this post, and this DLA disaster about to happen, the big society idea etc. I like the sound of the big society in some ways, the idea of communities coming together, working together, increasing tolerance and understanding. But, providing services that otherwise will be lost due to cuts, relying on volunteers to excess, no. I don't understand how the party who dreamt this Big Society up can genuinely look people in the eye and say that they were also the party whose leader in the past said "there is no such thing as society".

The postcard: A long dining table with benches on 3 sides, each with  many small white rabbits sitting on them. A larger (adult?) rabbit is standing at the 4th side of the table, holding a very large carrot in one paw, and is about to cut up the carrot with a knife, presumably to feed the many other smaller rabbits.
This may sound strange, please forgive me. But I got to thinking, always dangerous. The bigger / adult rabbit who is standing up -or the one that seems to be in charge (she looks kind and friendly so not sure I can make the leap to a comparison with the ConDems but anyway...) seems to be providing for the other, smaller rabbits, who are waiting to be fed, they don't have any food of their own. They are looking expectantly, but none of them is grabbing for the food or fighting for it.
I am not too well at the moment but I am not a small white rabbit, that I do know. And I can go and get food. I can cut it up. In that respect I am absolutely fine. However, I am not able to work at the moment, supported by several mh professionals. I live on ESA and DLA. This isn't what I want or what I planned to happen for me. I have lost four jobs (so far) due to my mental ill health. I want to work and get to a place where I can do that sustainably without lurching between crises. I want to be independent. I want to be able to provide carrots for those who cannot provide them for themselves and one day I hope this is achievable. But I do need time to be able to get there, and without DLA I doubt that I could keep my tiny HA flat or get to appointments, activities that aim to support me.
What if one of those rabbits (or one in four) is accidentally missed out, or missed out on purpose and doesn't get his/her slice of carrot to sustain him/her until the next meal? What if s/he lacks confidence to ask for help, what if s/he is too ashamed to ask because others might say s/he doesn't deserve the carrot? What if  what if what if. I am trying to make a point, and failing, but on I go...
DLA is the carrot. It is necessary to provide for those who can't provide for themselves, whether this is long or short term. I fear that for those with mental health issues, issues that we can't see and which many do not want to see or acknowledge, DLA will become "unnecessary" as of course many of us are mobile or not deemed to be in greatest need.
I have gone on long enough. The idea made sense, I doubt the post does, but, there, I tried.

Can we just cancel?

OK, enough now, please can we just cancel New Year's Eve and get on with things? I hate NYE, I don't know what am supposed to be celebrating (and hope with meds to sleep through it). I don't want to reflect on what I haven't achieved in the past year, too scared to consider the coming one. I need some support, and appointments being suspended over the "holiday" period don't help. Oh, and I seem to have a coldy nasty thing going on which isn't helping. Bah Humbug.