A step in the right direction

I didn't want to come inside today. I finally did, at 9:25PM when it was so dark out that I couldn't see the keys on my keyboard anymore.

I am going in the right direction. I already feel different this summer than I did last summer. I am getting out. Going for a walk yesterday was really a big deal for me. The social phobia tells me that everyone is staring at and evaluating. I also hated the awkwardness of getting eyecontact or not, and if so, when. But I got out there. Sunglasses and headphones helped a lot. And when I am feeling just right, sometimes I LIKE the feeling of being out with people (more often than not, nowadays) going for a walk around the lake is sort of like "seeing and being seen" feeling for me. Like a nightclub but healthy.

And now I am sitting on my blanket playing on the computer, (not RIGHT now, but now, in my life) and the summer has just started, I am going to try, when it is a nice day, to always get outside, every time. I won't force myself to be social, but I so want to get out of my bedroom. Maybe the computer can be like a security blanket to get myself out there, and eventually I can graduate to reading books out there.

And the doc doesn't think I need to quit Risperdal, which means whatever successes I am having can compound on each-other for awhile. Maybe in the future I will have to get off it, but hopefully by then I will have made more gains, and like now, feel more at home in a healthy mind than an unhealthy mind (one of the biggest problems with mental illness.)