I do my best to disguise it, but I am incredibly paranoid. I try to be mindful of what I can use as a weapon wherever I am, I do my best to look imposing in spite of my tiny female stature, and my brain is very good at convincing itself that I am going to be killed or raped by merely being outside. The logical part of my brain knows that’s total bollocks and that the chances of me being assaulted or kidnapped or murdered are slim to nil.

However, it leads me to a conundrum of sanity tonight — do I go out, or stay in? Because my little one is going to bed earlier, my fortnightly outing situation means I can either go for half an hour and get a lift home, or maybe manage to find a lift home from other attendees… or take a cab. The former is ridiculous, the middle is improbable (everyone else lives in completely different directions from me!), or do I take a cab and pray that the driver isn’t a murderer or rapist or opportunist out to try their luck on a smallish female person? The latter is the obvious choice, but I suspect you can all pick up the bullcrap my brain is flooding my body with, thoughts and chemicals and all. It will (hopefully!) only be an issue twice because I should have my British driving licence soon… which means that I can spend lesser times freaking out about getting killed or raped walking to my car (’cause yanno, town centre places having parking lots? Ha ha, ha ha… ha… no). Thanks brain, you continue to be quite a pal.

Obviously, I’m going to do my best to ignore the nagging and the body flooded with freaked out to actually attempt to have the meagre social life I need to get by in life. But damn… it’s going to be hard. I can hope that the first positive experience will help me fight my brain’s desire to be panicked… but we shall see. I’m not going to let it win without a fight, yanno?

<3