My SAD Story…How It All Began [Part 7] 2/2 *Love Edition

 

Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Continuing from Saturday’s segment where I detailed how my 22nd birthday signalled some new, positive changes in my life and how my burgeoning confidence inspired me to seek love, my story continues below…

Down With Love

Let’s just get this straight before I go on, I had never had any kind of success when it came to love and relationships by the time I had reached 22 years old. I think I can speak for a lot of social anxiety sufferers when I say that by that age, that section of my life was totally non-existent.

And in a lot of ways, I have myself to thank for that. I was definitely a self-saboteur when it came to affairs of the heart. As a teenager, when ever a member of the opposite sex would show me the least bit of interest, I would immediately shut it down.

That’s because in my head, I couldn’t even begin to fathom that someone could find little old me even remotely attractive. It just couldn’t compute in any way, form or fashion and I refused to even entertain the thought.

I see now that it was a form of self-preservation to prevent any one from getting to close to me, I secretly feared exposing my vulnerability which essentially is at the core of being in a romantic relationship.

I was either too fat, too ugly, too boring, too quiet, basically too much of anything negative to deserve to be loved. And so I went through my teenage years keeping in the shadows.

I dressed like a tomboy deliberately to blend in and to not appear womanly or feminine. I hardly talked to males unless it was for work related reasons when I was in academia. 

Fizzle And No Sizzle

I thought I was being smart by becoming the invisible woman but secretly by my early twenties, I felt like I may be ready to be in a relationship. Don’t get it confused though, I didn’t feel like I needed to meet someone in order to feel complete, I knew that I had to find that in myself and not rely on anyone else for that verification.

So I started by signing up to a few dating sites like OkCupid! and Match. I figured it would be easier to meet someone online because I could get comfortable messaging them first before perhaps getting to the stage where we could go on a date.

Lol, let me tell you this, I was terrible at flirting and trying to appear seductive and cool. It just wasn’t me and try as I might, I just couldn’t fit into that persona.

I remember going on a couple of dates though with two different guys but I think because I was so nervous, I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself. Things would pretty much fizzle out before they’d even begun to fizz which left me a bit discouraged.

Guy Seeks Friends

I decided instead to focus on finding friends rather then a partner. Since I had left University the prior year, I had lost touch with everyone and didn’t have any friends of my own to socialise with whatsoever. I reasoned that it would make more sense to start making friends and become comfortable with that before attempting to embark on a possible relationship.

My twin sister told me about Gumtree and said that they had a free ad service on which you could post messages in order to meet friends. I thought it could be a good way to meet people who had similar interests to myself and so I signed up and started trawling through some of the ads. 

The very first time I started looking, an ad caught my eye. It didn’t say anything particularly ground-breaking and I remember the title was ‘Guy Seeks Friends’ which doesn’t actually tell you that much. Nevertheless, I was curious, read the ad and then sent a message.

Over the next few weeks, that guy and I started sending emails to each other. We then progressed to texting and speaking over the phone. Finally, after a month we met in a café in Notting Hill on a cloudy day in August 2008.

Naturally, I was worried about meeting face to face and thought that I’d run out of things to say, which didn’t happen. On the contrary we talked for over three hours straight about anything and everything.

After we had said our goodbyes, I remember feeling pleased that for the first time in years I had found a friend who I felt completely at ease around, which didn’t happen very often. Something told me right away that I was going to know this guy for a very long time. And I was right. Just over four years later, that guy became my husband.

So by the time my 23rd birthday rolled around, although some aspects of my life were still up in the air as I was just starting to slowly get myself together, (my career aspirations for one) my love life for the first time was in full bloom. 🙂

I was in love and it was a good feeling. If only the rest of my life could have run as smoothly…

Stay tuned for part 8.

My SAD Story…How It All Began [Part 7] 1/2

Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Following on from part six of the series where I made a vow to make some big changes in my life due to my 22nd birthday fast approaching, my story continues below…

A Spring in my Step

I would definitely say that my 22nd year was a huge learning curve for me and it was a year of quite a few firsts. I don’t know why that year heralded so much life changes for me. But looking back now, I felt really confident about the future for the first time.

I was old enough to relish my newly found independence but young enough to just enjoy being young without the responsibilities that life inevitably brings you as you get older.

When I turned twenty-two, I was working for the NHS, in an office, booking medical appointments and sending out correspondence to patients. It was yet another temp job but not a bad one at that.

The work was pretty straight-forward and so didn’t have a high stress factor. Plus I wasn’t constantly liaising with patients all day and so I could immerse myself in administrative tasks. 

I was still very shy and quiet and I mostly kept myself to myself, although most people appeared to be fairly polite and helpful.

For once in my life, I was almost, dare I say it…content? Yeah, on the whole things weren’t going to shabbily and I felt quite optimistic about the future.

Welcome to Jamrock

It was around that time that my twin sister made the suggestion that we should go on a group holiday to Jamaica. I had never gone there before, although both parents were born and raised there.

The ‘old’ me of a few years back would have positively baulked at the thought of going on a three week holiday thousands of miles from the UK but the twenty-two year old me really wanted to try something new and just go for it. 

Which was what I did.  Myself, a group of family members and my sister’s friend flew out to Jamaica and it was an amazing experience I must say. It really helps sometimes to just delve into entirely foreign environments, especially when no-one knows you because you can shake off any ghosts lingering from your past and just live in the present.

Jamaica is a wonderful country, for those of you who have never visited. Please don’t believe everything you hear about it being a violent and dangerous place.

Of course, some areas are unsafe but I visited alot of Jamaica and the people I met were so welcoming, vibrant and warm. I think that helped me to relax and actually enjoy the trip alot more.

Plus Jamaican men are renowned for their charming ways and so for someone who always intentionally keeps themselves in the shadows, it made a nice change to innocently flirt and exchange banter for once in my life!

But of course, in life all good things must come to an end but I returned to the UK just that little bit more confident and optimistic. I really thought I had turned a corner emotionally and that something positive would soon be heading my way.

I decided that I was ready to venture into the world of relationships, of which I had absolutely zero experience. I had honestly never held hands with or even kissed a member of the opposite sex before, let alone anything else.

But with my new found confidence, I decided that there was no time like the present to meet someone special.

Stay tuned for the concluding segment of part 7. 

Valentine’s Day, SAD and me

Image courtesy of noppasinw / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since it is a festive occasion, I thought I’d write a suitably festive post to match 🙂

Though I must admit, I’ve had very up and down feelings towards Valentines Day ever since I was old enough to really understand the significance behind it.

That was when I became a teenager. *Sigh. And all at once I’m relieving all the embarrassing, awkward, lonely, humiliating and uncomfortable (I could go on for awhile!) feelings that I experienced on a daily basis back then.

I mean, being a teenager generally is hard but add crippling social anxiety to the mix and you’ve got a major quagmire to wade through!

As you can imagine I was extremely shy when I came into any contact with the opposite sex. Trust me, I had trouble forming basic syllables together like ‘hi’ and ‘bye’. And when it came to talking to someone I actually fancied, I turned into a quivering wreck!

So no surprise that I came to dread Valentines Day when it rolled round. I was so envious watching classmates being surprised with cards, chocolates and flowers by their admirers while I pretended to act all nonchalant like it was really no big deal.

I sprouted all the usual guff about Valentines Day being over-rated and commercialised when in all seriousness, I would have loved for one of my peers to give me even just a card. The funny thing about it, looking back is I don’t know if I wanted something on Valentines for myself or to feel validated and accepted by other people. I’m pretty sure its the latter, which is kind of sad.

Fast forward a few years and I finally have a Valentine for keeps, in the form of my lovely husband 🙂 Although, its wonderful to finally enjoy being spoiled and pampered for the day, I think only now do I understand what Valentines Day is really about.

Behind all the grand gestures, candle-light meals and red roses, the most important thing I take from the day is to celebrate love in general. And in my opinion, the greatest love you can have is first and foremost for yourself.

That may sound like a selfish statement but think about it. How can we learn to give out love if we can’t learn to love ourselves first?

I’m not going to let the fact that I have social anxiety stop me from loving myself, because despite my flaws, I still deserve to love and be loved in return.

Whether you are single, dating or in a committed relationship doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t have one other person in your life to enjoy today with, celebrate it just for you…Happy Valentines Day!