Monthly Archive for February, 2008

I’m pretty sure I was one of the first fifty or so people to register for Northern Voice 2008; B.C.’s large and widely attended personal blogging and social media conference. Already blogger buddies but now buddy buddies Jennie came in from Pittsburgh and Dan came in from Toronto.

I was excited about many things beyond the buttons and stickers, the kick-ass brown ‘Bloggable‘ t-shirt that I have the most PERFECT place to wear, my Moo cards, [that still haven't arrived], using the laptop an awesome couple lent me [M & JWC], the opening party, plus meeting loads of bloggers and people I’d only heard of and or had been reading for years. I was also looking forward to many of the sessions that were being offered over the two days.

There were posts about Northern Voice popping up all over – I’m pretty sure all of the posts on my feed were from people going, except one by Barbara Doduk that I didn’t realize until later had seeped its way into my subconscious mind.

Last Thursday rolled around and I was fine, I had my outfit and hair planned for the opening party. I was having a good day and I had gathered all of the things I was going to take in my bag for Friday on the chair in the living room when, unexpectedly, I was triggered by something so small it is not even worth mentioning because it is just part of my depression garbage and I lost it.

At first I thought I was ok, that I was just having a minor anxiety attack and that I would calm right down. I didn’t even take a Clonazepam because I knew I’d be drinking that night. With depression in general there are so many things that trigger behavior directly related to my mood disorders that it ends up being no different than learning which battles to pick in life, if I react the same way to every single panic attack then every single panic attack would be debilitating. I try to give the panic attack the benefit of the doubt, think positive, TRY TO BREATHE. But it doesn’t always work, and I ended up crying and shaking and then couldn’t stop crying and shaking and that was it I was done.

Adam probably remembers better than me because I have a tendency to block out the memories of just how often this happens but I know that this happened when we had tickets to see The White Stripes and BAM I had a major attack and we didn’t go. I remember that one because I know Adam was very disappointed, I’ve progressed enough in dealing with them even if I can’t get myself out that I can handle Adam going.

The weekend preceding NV it had come up that I am normally inconsolably depressed between December and the beginning of March and that so far this year, at that time, I had only been depressed for a maximum of three full weeks I guesstimated, I think I am looking at four weeks maybe more now but Adam and I still high fived because I have been working really hard.

Just writing this damn post is giving me anxiety.

In the last fourteen months, I have gone from being a person so plagued by social anxiety, someone who had so little confidence that I’ve never even been able to stand up straight and worst of all someone who believed I was incapable of making new friends and being accepted for ME that you could say I was mildly agoraphobic. I would even tell people I was to avoid having to explain and give details every time I didn’t want to get off my ass and leave my apartment, it was easier to just put out a big word that encompassed how I saw myself but at the core was not the real problem.

Right now, I’m ALMOST a wee little social butterfly.

Also in that fourteen months, I’ve grown, I’ve changed, I’ve taken steps backwards and forwards, I’ve failed, I’ve disappointed myself, I’ve let myself down, I’ve let others down. I’ve actually lived outside of the box. After some serious thought I decided I was happy with where I am in the blog world right now. That even though I know that Northern Voice is not about a bunch of blogging rules that it is still structured and my blog has never really had any structure and it has done fine. I’m sure my friends would love it if they didn’t have to help me with my blog issues any more but I don’t know where this year is going to lead, maybe I will still end up learning all that I missed.

It has taken a lot of conversations with my shrink and more passive aggressive behavior than I ever thought I was capable of, more foot in my mouth moments than I’d like to admit to, just to get me to the place where I am learning to say NO and learning what I want and deciding that even though I fully intend on doing my best to enter more of the blog community at monthly meet ups this year, that I want to do it at my pace. It was all happening too fast and it felt overwhelming and I thought this isn’t why people started reading me. Yes, I love that I have been accepted into some of Vancouver’s blogging circles but there is still a part of me who wants to stay behind my screen and isn’t ready to do all the acting and mental preparation it takes me to go out and become who I want to be through projecting only the positive, I’m just scared of being myself sometimes because I am going through so many personal changes. Entering my thirties has also thrown in some nice new challenges and I have to accept that not everyone is going to like the new me behind the screen or in their face shaking their hand.

I don’t know if this will even make sense to anyone, if even I understand to the fullest extent why I flipped out and didn’t go. I just know that it’s my blog and I’ll post what I want and I’ll go to whatever meet ups I want and that I’ll still be thankful for fucked up situations like not going to a conference I paid for because I still learned so much about myself and why I blog and how important to me it is to not lose sight of those reasons and lately – I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve been letting my long time readers down, losing myself a little, I know I can’t please everyone but I guess I want to move forward without forgetting anyone who helped me get my voice heard.

On a side note I would just like to thank everyone for their support over the last few days I was pretty floored by how many people took the time to tell me I was missed and it really meant a lot.