07 Jun 2017 - Reflecting on the trip abroad
Evening. Yes, I've missed quite a few days. I'll try to get myself back up to speed; if I can stay awake, there will be a bit of a post dump today.
Day 103 on Lexapro.
Mood: 5, I guess. It's hard to retroactively gauge how I was feeling, and then condense that into a single, neat number.
Since it's a few days out from the events of the 7th as I write this, I've probably forgotten small details as far as what went on, but that's fine. The gist is that I made my 7:45am flight back to O'Hare, got an Uber from the airport to the house of my childhood with my mother, and went to sleep later than I should have, considering how long I'd been awake.
Some inconsequential information that I do remember from the day:
I slept through my 4am and 4:30am alarms, and was awoken by the sound of Favorite Person knocking on my door.
We found one member of our party that had disappeared the prior day, but lost another.
For some unknowable reason, Favorite Person and party member #4 decided to take a different route to the airport from the hotel than the way that we came. This route involved catching a shuttle bus, and when this began to cost precious time, my insisting that we just take any bus that will get us to the airport and then travel inside Heathrow to our terminal was ignored. We ended up taking the Tube to the airport, which cost me something like $6.30 - and then we only rode a single stop. By that point, I was more than a little ticked off at the other two, and was incredibly short with them. I don't at all regret being curt; my priority was not missing the flight, and they were beginning to get in my way.
Once at Heathrow, though, things went smoothly. I made it through security quickly, and got to the gate with more than enough time to spare.
The flight was the most enjoyable I've ever had (which isn't saying much, since I haven't flown a ton of times). For some reason, there were a lot of empty seats on the plane, and while I technically didn't have a row to myself, the one person sitting beside me ended up by the bathrooms for the entire flight. I spent a lot of time watching media - I finished Planet Earth II, watched Inception for the first time, and began Moana. The plane was also equipped with a seat-to-seat chat function, so I talked to Favorite Person for a while as well. Breakfast was kind of sad, but that's okay.
Arriving at O'Hare was also without issue - I made it through customs just fine. Meeting back up with my mom was nice for a brief moment, but I more wanted to get home to my bed.
At home, I unpacked some, gave people their gifts. Then, I watched some YouTube and slept, having been awake for around 24 continuous hours.
Day 103 on Lexapro.
Mood: 5, I guess. It's hard to retroactively gauge how I was feeling, and then condense that into a single, neat number.
Since it's a few days out from the events of the 7th as I write this, I've probably forgotten small details as far as what went on, but that's fine. The gist is that I made my 7:45am flight back to O'Hare, got an Uber from the airport to the house of my childhood with my mother, and went to sleep later than I should have, considering how long I'd been awake.
Some inconsequential information that I do remember from the day:
I slept through my 4am and 4:30am alarms, and was awoken by the sound of Favorite Person knocking on my door.
We found one member of our party that had disappeared the prior day, but lost another.
For some unknowable reason, Favorite Person and party member #4 decided to take a different route to the airport from the hotel than the way that we came. This route involved catching a shuttle bus, and when this began to cost precious time, my insisting that we just take any bus that will get us to the airport and then travel inside Heathrow to our terminal was ignored. We ended up taking the Tube to the airport, which cost me something like $6.30 - and then we only rode a single stop. By that point, I was more than a little ticked off at the other two, and was incredibly short with them. I don't at all regret being curt; my priority was not missing the flight, and they were beginning to get in my way.
Once at Heathrow, though, things went smoothly. I made it through security quickly, and got to the gate with more than enough time to spare.
The flight was the most enjoyable I've ever had (which isn't saying much, since I haven't flown a ton of times). For some reason, there were a lot of empty seats on the plane, and while I technically didn't have a row to myself, the one person sitting beside me ended up by the bathrooms for the entire flight. I spent a lot of time watching media - I finished Planet Earth II, watched Inception for the first time, and began Moana. The plane was also equipped with a seat-to-seat chat function, so I talked to Favorite Person for a while as well. Breakfast was kind of sad, but that's okay.
Arriving at O'Hare was also without issue - I made it through customs just fine. Meeting back up with my mom was nice for a brief moment, but I more wanted to get home to my bed.
At home, I unpacked some, gave people their gifts. Then, I watched some YouTube and slept, having been awake for around 24 continuous hours.
Reflections
I'm still somewhat torn as to how I feel about the Scotland trip overall. On the one hand, I won't deny that I enjoyed it; I can't. There were many new things to see and experience, new places to go, new foods to eat. The group was small, and welcoming, and the interpersonal dynamic was good. However...I still can't shake off the feeling that I didn't deserve to go in the first place. That my poor mental health precluded any possibility of deserving to go. I still feel like I was a fundamental outsider in the group, like I wasn't wanted, like I was bringing everyone down. The depressive episodes I endured while there felt like confirmation. I also can't help but feel as though the only reason Favorite Person told me about the trip in the first place was some sense of pity, and that she didn't actually want me to go with. Who would want to go on their first trip abroad with a person that you have to look after, who is prone to deep and inescapable lows? Who you have to worry about continuously, but generally doesn't say how they're doing?....And then there's the guilt, of going when I didn't deserve to, when I couldn't maintain good mental health. I worried effective strangers; that's unfair to them, to the other people who actually deserved to be in Scotland.
If nothing else, this trip was a bitter confirmation that the only time that I don't feel like garbage is when my attention is held fully and completely outside of myself.
I should probably come up with something better to say about the experience, but it is what it is. My attention was focused primarily on the internal, as it always is.
The next couple of posts aren't really anything interesting, but I don't like discussing more than one day at a time.
Until then.
10 Jun 2017
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