Online agoraphobia.
Feb. 27th, 2002 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronI've hardly been online in the last 10 days or so. Haven't written anything in my journal for ages again, and I haven't been reading anyone else's either. I haven't even been reading email. If you've been trying to get in contact with me by some online means, I'm sorry. Please don't feel neglected - I don't mean to avoid anyone. But I just don't feel like being online.
I logged onto irc this evening for a while, and could only stay about half an hour. I felt myself going the way I do when I get agoraphobia - wanting to just hide and retreat and withdraw. I realise now I've been feeling increasingly like this online for a number of months. It seems crazy that the online world of newsgroups, talkers and irc - the place I've always retreated to when I haven't felt up to socialising in person - has itself become too scary to deal with. How can I feel anxious about "socialising" when I'm sitting in my own room with my own stuff all around me? It doesn't make any sense.
If I lose online media as a way of keeping in touch with people, I'm going to completely lose a large number of my friends. As it is, I was thinking only a couple of days ago how I used to have loads of friends, and now I only seem to see my closest friends. Because I hardly ever feel like going out, and people don't seem to want to visit me at home, I just don't see people. Also, I need to force myself into keeping a mood diary. As I know people don't want to know all the ins and outs of my depressive states, I can write it in livejournal as private entries. But I do have to keep it. Some time ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lilfurrydan told me about a friend of his who was seeing a doctor who specialised in female depression caused by hormones. Mine is so so clearly linked to my hormones - but before I can get referred to a specialist I need to be able to prove this with a proper, detailed diary going over a number of months. I'm not going to get the right treatment until I can provide that, and I'm not going to be able to provide that until I can force myself into writing a journal.
I logged onto irc this evening for a while, and could only stay about half an hour. I felt myself going the way I do when I get agoraphobia - wanting to just hide and retreat and withdraw. I realise now I've been feeling increasingly like this online for a number of months. It seems crazy that the online world of newsgroups, talkers and irc - the place I've always retreated to when I haven't felt up to socialising in person - has itself become too scary to deal with. How can I feel anxious about "socialising" when I'm sitting in my own room with my own stuff all around me? It doesn't make any sense.
If I lose online media as a way of keeping in touch with people, I'm going to completely lose a large number of my friends. As it is, I was thinking only a couple of days ago how I used to have loads of friends, and now I only seem to see my closest friends. Because I hardly ever feel like going out, and people don't seem to want to visit me at home, I just don't see people. Also, I need to force myself into keeping a mood diary. As I know people don't want to know all the ins and outs of my depressive states, I can write it in livejournal as private entries. But I do have to keep it. Some time ago,
lilfurrydan told me about a friend of his who was seeing a doctor who specialised in female depression caused by hormones. Mine is so so clearly linked to my hormones - but before I can get referred to a specialist I need to be able to prove this with a proper, detailed diary going over a number of months. I'm not going to get the right treatment until I can provide that, and I'm not going to be able to provide that until I can force myself into writing a journal.