Anxiety

I was falling apart, it's fucked.

The smallest, most mundane things seem insurmountable, and the stress of knowing you should be better than this weighs on you.

I think it's different with everyone, but for me the things that make me anxious are the things I should do. The more I should do it the more it makes me anxious. You realise how fucked up that is? If I say, lose my licence overseas, I know I should go and get it replaced. I wriggle out of it though, I put it off until lunch, then decide that the day is gone and I will do it tomorrow. That makes it even more necessary tomorrow. After 8 months of not driving on Friday and Saturday nights to avoid the RBT patrols and 2 fines for driving without my license later I went and got my $25 replacement licence, it took 20 minutes.

I didn't even feel good about it.

I can never keep a tidy house. Even though I am home all day I seldom do the washing up. It's unfair on my daughter and unfair on my wife. They shouldn't have to live like this. I have 4 motorbikes in the Garage that I keep telling My wife I am going to sell. One day I will. Our bedroom is a bed int he middle of a pile of clothes. My wife called it a floordrobe. It was actually a good system, dirty on one side, clean on the other. I gave up on wearing matching socks a long time ago though.

It didn't really ever effect me working because I was good at it. I didn't do a lot of things that I was supposed to do, but I made sure no-one could ever tell. The stress almost caught up with me though. The paranoia that any day now someone will find out everything. It's hard to live with.

I can't do my taxes, I can't call electricity/gas/telephone companies if there's a problem, I can't pay my credit card, even when I have money in my account. Seriously, with e-banking it's like 3 clicks.

If it's not something I have to do then I am amazing. Last week I designed and built a working Ukulele in about 5 hours. I can build programmable robots, toy cars and remote control planes from scraps I have laying around. I automated my whole lounge room including automatic projector screen, TV and home theatre and lights, all running from a phone app I wrote. I did this all from scratch, basic components just for fun. But we use it now, and part of it broke. I really should have fixed it months ago.

I run workshops teaching other geeks how to build robots, but I have to get someone else to order the parts. I can research them, and collate a list, but I can never pull the trigger.

I can never get out of the house before 10am. No matter how hard I try.

It makes you feel pathetic, useless, worthless.

It reached a breaking point though. The final straw. I had to register my motorbike. The bike I have had for longer than my wife. My baby, my true love. It's always been a struggle every year, so much so I once rode it for 2 years unregistered,  but this year I found enough excuses to keep putting it off. Then, when there was 1 day to go registration failed because I didn't have my licence number, because I lost my licence in Kenya 8 months ago and should have had it replaced by now. Thank you irony. I've decided that I will trash the bike, partially because it's too hard to get all the illegal modifications I have made to her over the years through the new registration checks, partially to punish myself.

I promised myself a new bike if I can get my shit together. I have started small, one day at a time. I set myself tasks the day before. Call the bank, pay my credit card, throw out the clothes we don't need. I can see my bedroom floor now, and I can drive on Saturday nights again.

With time, Who knows.