No, my subject line isn't some weird geek kink, btw. [br][br]So I’m quite tired today, I was up ‘til 10.30 last night talking to two of my best best best friends (I know, I sound like I’m about 10, but that’s what your best friends should do to you – make you feel like a kid again).  It doesn’t sound late, but it is if you consider I wake up at 5.45am for work, and it takes me ages to get to sleep in the first place, and I have been staying up late for the last 4 months maybe, especially more recently, because it seems there are more things to do with my personal time now.  I didn’t feel like I had much going on personally for the longest time, and suddenly I do, and it’s like no no, why does it already have to be time to go to bed?  I want to stay up longer, make the most of the time I have.  [br][br]  I know what my ‘problem’ is: I care more about people than anything else.  What a funny problem to have, eh?  But it’s true.  If I’m talking to someone or reading e-mails or something like that, I can’t be bothered to get up and go eat, or go to sleep, or anything, I end up delaying everything, nearly not making it out the door in time for work, not going to bed on time, hungry for far too long, it’s silly I guess, but then maybe not so silly, because there are too many people who put people last, and maybe I should put my own basic human needs before socialising, but what can I say, I consider socialising a basic need, and okay I need food to survive, but I wish I didn’t, because eating really isn’t as much fun as talking to friends. [br][br] It’s weird though, that I feel this way about socialising, when I’m so terrified it in every way, even with friends, even with best best best friends.  I mean, it doesn’t matter if I’ve known the person a month or a year or a decade, I am still just as anxious.  It’s like going to a party (like, yeah, when was the last time I bothered with one of those?  I can’t even remember), I spend the whole time fretting something’s going to go wrong and then, when it’s over, I’m like oh wow yeah that went alright didn’t it.  Well I’m the same with talking to people, I think especially on the phone because I can’t see the person’s face or their body language so like they could be smiling but not making a sound and so on my end I’m instantly there assuming ‘they’re bored, I’m not interesting, I should just shut up’ I really really wish I didn’t get this way, but what can I say, I’ve been like that my whole life, like I can’t even remember a time even at like age 3 when I wasn’t petrified of talking to people.  It’s easier in person though.  You’d think it’d be the opposite, but no…either online, or in person, that’s easiest for me.  The phone sort of fills me with this terror, as much as I like it too.  Also, in the past, everyone called me, so it was easier not to feel petrified because I already knew they were interested, otherwise they wouldn’t have called.  I NEVER made the phone calls, in Arizona, and now that I’m in England and always have to make the calls because it’s free for me and expensive for them, I always find I somehow worry I’m imposing, that they’d really rather be doing almost anything than talk to me.  And yeah sure they keep telling me that’s not true, and like logically I know it’s not true, but I can’t stop feeling like it!  So every tiny pause feels like it’s lasted a minute rather than a second, and I’m there worrying ‘omg what do I say now, I’m boring them!’ and worrying my jokes aren’t funny and I just end up feeling so so stupid, and I keep trying to get out of this way of thinking, but it’s so hard.  I mean WHY is it so hard?  Wait, don’t answer that – I already know: my screwed up brain, yes yes I know. [br][br] And generally I’m okay with that, except when it starts to interfere with things like talking to friends.  Or like exercise – the last few days I’ve been spending my whole lunch hour just going for long walks all around the area.  I explored all the shops and residential areas around my work location, went up the way toward Paddington, etc. then yesterday decided to go to Regent’s Park and really I’m amazed I’ve never gone there before, considering I’m only up the road from it, and it was GORGEOUS, I mean I didn’t get very far in it, I realise it’s massive, and I only had an hour, which is really only a half hour, and that includes the walk up the streets to get to the park, crossing over the traffic, so yes I didn’t get very far but it was so beautiful, so quiet, and I had Muse’s ‘Unintended’ playing and everyone was sitting on park benches just smiling away and not talking, like there was actually a woman staring and smiling at pigeons, not moving, it was so so weird, like some tripped out music video, but wow it made a change from the office.  [br][br] The trouble is, I’ve noticed after I’ve been walking about a half hour, my whole body gets jittery.  Like, I can actually feel the nerves, and I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean honestly I’m sure that’s what it is, I can feel everything inside me shaking slightly, but enough to make me feel really on edge, and yeah the word that instantly springs to mind is ‘unnerved’, and I feel kinda dizzy and like I’m going to fall over, it’s scary, and all my skin is tingling but in a really unpleasant way, like I’ve got little needles all over or something, just prickling me.  I hate it.  And then I realised also, my tics – they just get worse.  My arm is jerking uncontrollably and my shoulder is searing with pain and my hands are literally freezing up like they’re paralysed, and yeah…just going for a walk, and I mean a paced calm walk too, actually makes my tics worse – I mean not to mention the motion, maybe it’s that, all the cars passing by me, or people walking past, it’s like images just flashing at me and my eyes start darting all over and I can’t see straight ahead of me and my vision starts going a bit hazy or black even, and so maybe it’s just the whole being in motion thing.  I get worse with lots of channel surfing on the TV, or strobe lighting, too – I mean, it’s connected to epilepsy, so that makes sense.  [br][br] But anyway, yeah, what a bloody struggle – can’t even go for a walk without shattering my body.  I mean sometimes I really am just so so sick to death of being trapped in this body.  It’s not even just the tics, it’s other things too, things the drs don’t know anything about, no one can do anything for my problems, it seems.  And because they don’t know, they treat me like I’m imagining it or I’m silly to complain – and I just want to shout at them, well gosh I’m sorry to trouble you over nothing, but you know when I’m woken up at 2am by the fact that my body has decided to actually go into uterine contractions literally for 20 minutes continuously, no pauses, and I’m not even pregnant, well I sort of think that’s a problem – I think it’s a problem when I’m doubled over curled up in a ball on the floor crying with pain – and that’s not exactly the stuff of hypochondria, now, is it??  Now how come this has happened to me so many times, I mean like even today, I have to drag myself into work and yet I can barely stand, and every dr I have seen for the last 8 years just shakes their head and gives me this smile and says ‘but you’re a perfectly healthy young woman, you shouldn’t be having any problems’ as if that solves it – how come they ALL unanimously say ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing’ come on, I can’t possibly be the ONLY person in the whole world who has EVER had this problem, surely?  I mean I like to think of myself as a bit unique but honestly, come on, right? I’d like to see them try living a few days in my body, or even one day, I bet they’d be shocked – could they handle it?  I honestly doubt it.  I don’t even know how I handle it, myself, really – it is unbelievable the amount of constant pain I have just grown to accept as normal, so normal I don’t even feel it, I don’t even notice how much pain is in me, I’m sure if there were a magic cure for it all, I’d just psychologically collapse from the shock, I’d be permanently damaged with post-traumatic stress disorder, I’m sure – I mean I don’t think about that often because I’d probably go nuts if I did, but at the moment I’m thinking of it and yeah, being realistic about it, I’m sure that’s how it would be if it were cured. [br][br] And I’m sure I didn’t help things by not sleeping properly for the last, oh…however many months.  But you know I feel like I’m running on adrenaline, able to handle it, like who cares?  Sleep?  Psh.  I can do without that.  But I mean…even if I can’t, like, I’m starting to feel like really who cares, because I have taken every vitamin supplement imaginable, I have taken medications, I have taken yoga and exercise, I have done the whole sleeping 9 hours a night thing, I have done the eating well, and nothing changes, nothing ever gets better, my left arm is still almost completely numb, I mean I forget it’s even there sometimes, like I feel my fingers typing this but I can’t actually feel the arm, and I’m dreading having to get up for anything because I just hurt all over today, I hate it hate it hate it HATE IT.  So I mean…why bother trying to do all the ‘right’ things when they don’t even work anyway?  [br][br] Damn.  I started this out feeling happy haha, tired but happy, and now I just feel pissed off with everything.  I wonder if it’s only been ten minutes again…yeah I think it has.  Crazy.