today's dilemma
A lot of days bring a dilemma. Some glorious days are a dilemma-free zone. They start, you can think of no dilemmas. They end, and no dilemmas have appeared throughout it. Success! You knew exactly what you were doing all day!
Today has a dilemma. The deadline for resolution of the dilemma, one way or another, is a good few hours away, but it is there to be resolved, so of course it's going to sit in my brain until A Decision Has Been Made.
Background.
A friend of mine (more of an acquaintance – as you might know, I don't really have any friends) runs a "Men's mental health talking support group", and had been mentioning, with increasing frequency, that I might like to attend one of their regular Friday night meetings to see if it was something that might help me.
My immediate response, and one that as lasted for the eighteen months he has been mentioning it, was of course a resounding "No!", for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I didn't think I particularly needed any help (and, incidentally, why did he think I did?) Secondly, I don't like talking much. And thirdly, I don't have any emotions (OK, two, humour and anxiety, if they count as emotions)
However, J thought that maybe talking at a group like that, instead of always relying on her to be there as my sounding board for any problems and anxieties that I might be wrestling with, might be a help to me. Besides, she said, you might make some new friends there. She was encouraging, and insistent that it could be A Good Thing.
So last week I went.
And, for me, it was grim.
Now, what is talked about in a men's mental health talking support group stays in a men's mental health talking support group, but there were only four other attendees, together with me sitting there silently just listening to the various life updates and worries they had. They touched on areas of experience and trauma that I know people have to deal with somehow, but that I don't have any history of having much contact with.
Also, it was very hard to not jump in and tell people they were being complete fucking idiots when they mentioned buying some medication off the internet, because they had seen on Facebook that the product was being endorsed by celebrities who said that they liked it, so it must be good. (Perhaps add 'a bit of anger' to my emotions list)
I felt pretty uncomfortable for the two hours it lasted for, and I resolved that I was not going to go to another one after about half an hour of this one.
But then I've had A Week.
My Dad was in hospital, blue-lighted in by ambulance and very sick with what turned out to be sepsis.
We weren't talking. I also wasn't talking to my Mum. I posted about it all here earlier this week. https://skryblans.com/to-visit-or-not-to-visit/.
Eventually, we had to talk, so I have now been in contact with her, and later my Dad too, once he got a little better and could talk intelligibly. I haven't visited though, just talked on the phone.
I have some ...conflict? about all this. Some stuff to get out. So far, little bits have come out in posts on the socials, but it would probably do me good to try to talk about it to someone. J is not here as she left to do a craft fair this morning.
So today's dilemma.
Will writing this post be enough to now file this week away as 'tricky' and I'll try to move on, as I always have done up till now, and hope it doesn't keep surfacing in my thoughts because things are actually still unresolved?
Or do I go to the men's mental health talking support group meeting (that I hated) this evening, and listen to other people's stuff I don't really want to know about for what feels like most of the night, just in order to blurt out some rambling words that I know I'll have great difficulty in even finding within myself, let alone expressing to others, but might help me just get it out of my head better than my normal method, aka 'ignoring it'?
I may toss a coin.
post link for sharing: https://skryblans.com/todays-dilemma
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