#being social
SOME GIRLS:
ME:
Holy crap. I’m actually excited about something! One of the major ways my depression manifests is that I just don’t get enthusiastic or excited about anything. Maybe a bit of enthusiasm over small things, but no matching level of excitement for bigger events.
I’ve been trying to get together with a new friend, Nickname TBD (I seriously need to come up with an actual nickname), for a little while now. We were messaging on Fet, and we didn’t end up making plans. He hadn’t responded to my last message, but in a rare moment of social bravery, I sent him one asking if he wanted to hang out and (I was nervous about asking this, but I did it anyway.) maybe cuddle or play at the con coming up in a couple weeks.
He got back to me a day or so ago, and today I finally actually read the message. He said that he has has a room in the con hotel, and he definitely wants to get together, including for cuddling and playing! He even added that, if I was interested, he likes to “pleasure [his] partners sexually.”
I’m really really happy that he responded to my tentative hang out request so positively! And I’m even more delighted at my excitement. That excitement about this planned play is starting to bleed over intense I feel about other play I have planned, and the con in general. I’m starting to feel less afraid and anxious about the con about the con, and less fear and anxiety. And jeez. Feeling excited about anything at all is a major achievement, even outside of how I’m feeling about this specific event.
I’ve had things that I knew I should have been excited about, but besides maybe one or two exceptions, I didn’t feel it. I tried to reverse engineer that enthusiastic, giddy, optimistic feeling, but my brain was having none of it. I had a little bit of positive emotion around some events, and I could just manage to say the things that excited people say, put on the expressions that excited people have, and make the motions excited people make. That’s not a real reaction, though. I didn’t have the enthusiasm, the eager anticipation.
But now I actually feel it. I’m like, “Ohhh. That’s what this human emotion called ‘excitement’ feels like. I like it! Let’s have more of this!”
