Another incoherent ramble:

Something that bothers me a lot is feeling like I lose time, and not always knowing where it's gone. I have lots of worries about using time well, I check the clock way too often, and the more I worry about it the harder it seems to be to get anything done. My attention span is sometimes incredibly small, I get distracted or seek distractions but can't stay with one thing. I get up, wander around or pace, open and close cupboards if I'm downstairs. I also seem to worry a lot about when I did something, or how long it took me to reply to an email or how much time I wasted pacing around downstairs.

It's not like I really lose time, I don't blackout. I do do things with my time, but they're frequently so anxious and unfocused. My psychologist has suggested before that I don't do things in a focused or mindful or present way, I suppose this means I get less out of them, I'm not engaged, I don't form much memory of the experience and I feel disconnected from things.

Emails seem particularly tough, more and more these days it takes me much longer than it used to to reply or send one, my thoughts just keep spinning round and round and it feels like I'm fighting through deep water or something to get anything out. And I check the time, check when I started something, check what a person has said and what I've previously said etc. Add worrying that I'm taking too long to everything else I worry about. Of course in a conversation in person where I can't just pause and get distracted for 20 minutes, I worry that I'm going to switch off, go on autopilot and blurt out lots of stupid things I don't mean or try desperately to be funny and end up insulting someone.

If I'm with people that I want to hang out with then I worry about getting good stuff done in the time, whatever that means. Having good moments. And I can't just be in the moment, can't relax, can't stop thinking. And then I go on autopilot, which is sort of still hyperaware but I feel trapped and stuck on a course and I struggle to make real choices, I defer to other people. Everything races past so quickly, I feel like I'm in such a rush to get somewhere but all I want to do is slow down, relax and breathe. And I can't, although being on autopilot means also pretending I'm okay. And if I feel like I'm too stiff or not engaged, that's another worry.

Okay, so I guess I'm not just bothered by losing time. Although that's what was originally bothering me because I feel like the last 2 and a half hours have vanished and I don't even know why I feel so anxious right now, I'm just buzzing and I can't concentrate, things with me are always a feedback loop where it goes from 0 to 100 in seconds. I am very sad about how much I struggle to engage in life. Even if I'm reading a book I love, or spending time with people who make me happy, there's a wall.