Just Concentrate...

Yeah, right!!!

How the hell do I do that? There was a time when my concentration levels were extremely high, but those days are long gone. These days, I find it really hard to concentrate on anything for too long. The house is full of UFO's - no, silly, not space craft, Un-Finished Objects - because my ability to concentrate on stuff is just non-existent.

I love to read but lately it takes forever to read a book - the last one I tried to read, I think I read the same page at least a dozen times. I would pick it up, read a bit, doze off, wake up, read the same passage again, lose my place in the text, doze off, wake up, look for my place in the text, and re-read the whole chapter again to make sure I hadn't missed anything!! A bit like reading the book several times, only doing the several readings at the same time. And then I get pissed off with myself because I can't concentrate on what I am reading.

It is the same with just about anything I tackle lately - just can't concentrate. I even forget what I was talking about if I get interupted for a nano-second. Or I will be talking about something and my mind just goes totally blank and I have absolutely no damned idea what I was rabbiting on about. It is just so frustrating, but GAD does that to you.

I used to do a lot of craft stuff like sewing, embroidery and making toys and teddy bears for my grandkids (and for me too) but I don't anymore because they never get finished. A great example is the little dresses I made for my grand-daughter just before Christmas to send over to her in NZ for her birthday in January - they are still sitting here without zips and buttons and some still have pins in them waiting for hemming! She had her birthday 2 months back and I still haven't finished them or sent them. By the time I do, they won't fit her at all.

The only thing that I do with any regularity now is sit (for as long as I can anyway) in front of this stupid machine and surf the net, play a few games, write a bit, and waste a lot of my time hunting for eggs or building my farm up in facebook!! Sure it gives me something to do but hell, it isn't really productive is it. Just a means of escaping from the reality of the fact that I can't do much anymore - a) because of my back; and b) because of the anxiety & depression. It is my scapegoat. I have even put off stuff that I know I have to get done and that I have been paid to do, because I just can't cope with doing it because the concentration levels are at rock bottom. And that only adds to the problem, because I then get all stressed out about not getting those things finished on time, or when I said I would, and waste more time looking for or making excuses for not getting it done, instead of spending the time productively and getting on with it.

It is a vicious and neverending cycle and lately the troughs are deeper than they have ever been before.