I need a second skin

It is so tempting to build myself a shell so that the world cannot ever hurt me again.  But a shell would mean that the world could not be touched by me.

I often wish that  I did not not feel or care as much as I do. I had been away from the world for so long after my first breakdown unfortunately the moment I allowed myself to become part of the world I was hurt so bad I wanted to kill myself. So now I am scared, scared of being out there, scared of being alone, convinced that this is it, this is what my life holds for me.

I know that it is up to me what I make of my life, but fear is overwhelming. I am intelligent I know that its up to me, I know that the fears are in my mind but that realisation, use of logic doesn't make it any easier.

When I was growing up I was the person who others came to for advice, now I need help myself and I don't know how to ask for it. I don't even know what help I want, only that I need some.

For the last 3 months I have been attending a group called Photo tales Swansea, who have been helping a group of us who are disadvantaged in some way to use photography to tell our story. In some ways I have found this group more demanding than when I did my Masters degree. It has put me through the emotional wringer. I have written in an earlier blog entry about the problems I had with the self portrait lessons. I also realised the power of photos to provoke memories that I had even thought I had dealt with or that I hadn't thought were a problem.

Tomorrow is the final session, when we will submit photos for an exhibition in June. Its going to be hard cause its the last one, and despite the problems and issues its raised I do look forward to going. Luckily its not the end as there is a Camera Club all those who do the Photo Tales can go along to, but its different and change can be hard, as I have said before I like my train tracks, and to go to the Camera Club not only does it mean that Photo Tales is over but I have to change the day I go to Create Solutions. But looking at it positively it means that I will have to get up early at least twice in a week, plus those mornings I have an early driving lesson. So its one step forward in getting prepared to start looking for work.