Looked at just the initials by themselves it gives off something of an amusing appearance of being some kind of bizarre wrestling tournament. Yet Whitby Goth Weekend is gradually approaching, at the very, very end of this month and start of the next. Of course it should be a most fun time for me, being all sorts of things that I like, but much like Christmas it comes with its fair weight of social pressures and even at the best of times I can always contrive to make anything I should enjoy into a most tiresome trial. Hopefully some day I may be able to look forward to events such as this without the unwelcome colouring of my anticipation with dread.

There are of course various reasons for all of this but largely I think it is a question of expectation. The expectations that I imagine everyone else will have of me on this weekend when I ought to be having the most fun and rational thought would assume that I would be the most comfortable and at ease. Some of my imaginings are perhaps fair enough to assume but many aren’t, and even though I may be aware of this, those feelings will still invade my nervous system. People, I assume, are going to expect something special from me and imagined or not, the weight of that social pressure is not a comfortable thing to carry.

It is all accentuated further by my own self-doubt and lack of esteem. I rarely imagine myself being able to live up to the most general of expectations most of the time so increase those expectations and I’ve even less chance of being worthy. Moreover though is that desperate desire to be liked and approved of which often translates as being a terrible fear of doing the wrong thing. Naturally I’m more worried of doing the wrong thing around those people whose opinions I care more about. That I think is often the issue with close friends, people I love. Being so afraid of doing the wrong thing I end up doing nothing, paralysed by own timidity and ironically in such cases the stronger my affections can actually strengthen the anxiety. So meeting people I like and care about scares me, and being amongst the world of goth does too. Of course I’m well aware goths be not judgemental people, well, they are understanding people anyways, and even more so those nice people who know me and like and care about me. They may be the least likely to be unkind to my mistakes but as my fear of causing offence be that much greater so my imagination may run to an excessive riot. On top of that then is my own greater wish to be good and companionable to these people who I like more, only natural of course to want to be good to your friends, but it’s still an additional pressure I put upon myself.

All this of course comes in me as a tangled web and wave of feeling but hopefully by unweaving the knots by these defined words will help to give my mind a better handle on it all and aid in my efforts to reduce my reactions. In terms of Goth Weekend it would be nice to be able to make friends and do stuff but mostly I just wish I could just simply enjoy those things that I like and go out and do them. When fun things are made less fun then one avoids doing them and that of course leads to a bleakness and depression. More importantly perhaps with the people I really care about, to be able to be me and express what I really feel and what I really want to honestly and openly. I often find it harder, or at least feel it more keenly, to be with people I know and who I care about than relative strangers who I don’t. Yet strangers can have a somewhat greater threat of the unknown to them. Goth Weekend though manages to combine both aspects.

So expectations on my performance are increased and as much as I want to be liked and loved, as anyone does, I don’t imagine that I can meet those expectations and because of the paralysing affects of my timidity I end up not doing. This in turn of course makes me dislike myself even more, feel myself even less able to meet expectations and less worthy of being liked and loved and make me imagine myself to be judged ever more harshly. So it is all a self-fulfilling prophecy feeding back into and strengthening itself. What I am doesn’t change. I remain a romantic, dreaming, creative, loving, caring, imaginative, gothic, longing, wishful and all sorts of other things kind of creature. All these things though are subsumed by that depressive, timid and anxious operating system at work within the deeper parts of my brain. I don’t know how much these words might express of what it actually feels like to exist as me to anyone else who might be reading this, but hopefully it may help open things out to my own mind, that it may more clearly see the foolishness of its ways, and so be more open to my own conscious efforts at altering the way I tend to think.

I still feel inside myself the urge just to hide myself away in my little room all through Goth Weekend. I always feel that urge to some extent though at such times it becomes more apparent. I don’t want those eyes upon me, I feel oppressed by the swirl of noise and activity which at the moment exists but in my imagination, though which does exist in Goth Weekend with the crowds and sounds and enclosed spaces, such visceral things which my nerves may react to far faster than my more conscious and rational self may engage with. At the same time though I want to be part of it, feel I ought to be part of it and wish that I could be. I feel fearful of it (and other social things more generally), know the pointless foolishness of feeling fearful of it but just feel worse for that. Still, I continue with my efforts to rewrite that bit of script. Like anyone (though in truth I have no real idea just how much or little I might be like anyone) I have my good days and bad, good moments and bad. As I’ve made a certain amount of progress my reactions to situations have started to become a little less predictable. Sometimes I can convince my nerves to be good, other times such control is less easy to find. Of course I shall always have some anxiety; it’s only natural and in some cases may be well founded. I never imagine myself being perfect of life being wonderfully easy. Still though I wish and will continue my efforts to try and become truly and openly, idiosyncratically me. I would make mistakes but I should wish them to be honest ones.

I’ve no idea how this Goth Weekend is going to go. My brother is coming up, hopefully it will be fun. My fear over the prospect waxes and wanes. Whatever happens though it will be over almost as soon as it has begun. What then happens with the rest of my life, how I can be with the people I care about and what I may create and achieve, these things matter more. I can but keep trying, hopefully with some supports and maybe someone to hold my paw a bit along the way. To whatever degree I may become someone else in company, I do most appreciate all the friendship and support though I may not so well express it face to face. I shall keep trying to craft some sort of nobility into my characterisation in the narrative of the novel of my life. Wish me luck!