Changing plans and mental health

I have been finding some things quite challenging as of late. They aren’t new difficulties. They are old difficulties that resurface again and again and again. I can make progress on learning to live with them and I have, but I’m not sure they will ever fully go away.

Even so, I always try and push myself as sometimes I can do things that would have once been impossible. I have travelled solo a lot, and there was a time when I couldn’t have even contemplated that. So I think pushing myself is good.

I decided I wanted to go to Worldcon, which is a fantasy and sci-fi convention held at the end of August. This year it is being held in Anaheim, and I thought it would be really fun to spend a week attending workshops and meeting authors and other fans. I booked my flight and hotel, but as the weeks went on, I started to feel more and more anxious. There is a healthy amount of anxiety a person can experience when doing something for the first time, and then there is the kind of anxiety that feels like dread hanging over you. I was feeling the latter, rather than nervous anticipation.

I am also very aware that I recently avoided attending an event in London which is extremely familiar and much closer to home, because I could not get my brain in gear to handle it. So there was a genuine risk that if I didn’t do something, I would end up not showing up at the airport, or going but hiding in my hotel room and not feeling able to attend any of the actual convention.

I have accepted that while it is good to try new things, sometimes I am not going to be ready. And I am not ready to attend an event with thousands of people and far too many variables that are out of my control. I have not reached a point where this feels even remotely manageable. Cancelling my hotel was easy, less so with my flight. I could also really do with the break, so I needed to figure out a way to make this work.

Although I couldn’t cancel my flight, I could change it. I have wanted to return to Colorado since I left six years ago, and so I will be spending a week in Denver.

I lived in Denver for a year and although I feel like I have forgotten everything about navigating the city, I know it isn’t true. It is much less intense than the area around LA, and I can meet up with some friends there and also do my own thing. It is going to be a far more relaxing and controlled experience.

I don’t really know how I feel about all of this. I definitely feel good about going to Colorado, and I feel a very intense sense of relief. But I still feel disappointed that these are the kinds of situations I find myself in. I have made so much progress over the years, but not as much as I would like. It is what it is. I have to take the positives from this. I recognised how I felt and did something about it. I created a plan that will still allow me to travel but in a way I can handle. I am doing things that wouldn’t have been possible in the past, and these are all great outcomes.

The older I get, the less I feel my anxiety has anything to do with being blind. I used to attribute it to blindness and lacking the ability to travel. But I have proven to myself over and over again that this is not true. I think my anxiety comes from people, and not being in control. I need to know that every aspect of a situation is within my control, and that I can reduce as many of the overwhelming variables as possible. When I can’t do that, it is all too much. Blindness might impact on some of those variables but it is not the primary cause.

So there you have it. How do I even end a post like this.