So I really try, as a matter of wanting to reduce my social anxiety, to not avoid social situations unless I feel like that's asking too much. Yesterday I ditched my grandpa's 80th birthday party because I plain just didn't want to go. It's hard for me to not feel guilty about it though. I feel like the right thing for me to do would have been to go, and there's a part of me that honestly would have LIKED to have gone, and there's that tilt factor that I encouraged myself to go anyway, but just not wanting to go sort of outweighed all of that.

My mom called me about it asking why I wasn't coming and I had a hard time with myself explaining that I just didn't want to and there wasn't anything more to it without being kind of frustrated with myself for feeling kind of guilty. I STILL feel a LITTLE guilty but on the other hand I don't regret just hanging out by myself all Saturday and doing whatever I felt like. It's like me time. I want some of it for myself.

I'm looking for help with my feelings though. Am I a bad person for not going? ... or at least that's what I want to ask EMOTIONALLY, even though that's obviously an absurd question. But please help. I don't know how to feel respect for the fact that I want this time for myself. I don't know how to not feel horribly selfish and antisocial about it. I just want to feel self-secure and peace with what I choose. This kind of thing has been a problem for me for a long time because sometimes there are times when that wanting to be alone wins out. It's not all that rare really. ... And if it IS something unhealthy in me ... please, I want to identify it so I can work on it. That's at least a little bit of resolution.

I suppose the more complete story is just that I don't feel welcome on my step-dad's side of the family even though it WAS my step-dad's sis-in-law who invited me. One of my step-dad's brothers just really turned hateful on me one day and I'm really ... it's not that I don't forgive him, but it hurts anyway and that pain of rejection kind of emotionally contaminates that side of the family for me as a whole. It's not a big deal, I can override my inhibitions there, but it's definitely a contributing factor to me just saying, "you know what? forget it. I don't need to face this today." Maybe that's cowardly ... it kind of is I think. I ran away!