Tag Archives: anxiety

Casually Cruel

Posted on by
Reply

Do you ever wonder why certain people come into your life? Is it for a reason? Is there a lesson to be learned? Or is it just coincidence? Is there no deeper meaning at all?

I want there to be a reason. I want to believe in fate. I want my life to have meaning. Why? I suppose because the alternative is scary. To accept that things just happen at random means facing the powerlessness I have over my life. It means accepting that, despite all my best intentions, things may not go the way I want them to. Bad things will happen. Good things will too. Against my will. In spite of my efforts.

I’m not sure what the right answer is to these questions. I imagine, like so much of life, it is somewhere in the middle, in that gray space. Life is unpredictable in a predictable way. We may not be able to control everything that happens, but we do control our reactions to the things that happen. What causes what is complicated. It is nuanced. Every day I am learning to sit with that.

I recently started talking again to someone from my past. He is someone that I used to feel very attached to. Perhaps dependent on is a better way of framing it. His mom had passed away within the last couple of years when we met. When I first met him, though, he was goofy and always joking around. I actually questioned whether he was capable of being serious. He reacted to that assumption I made and called me out on judging him too quickly. I remember feeling bad. I’m not sure if I felt bad for what I did to him or felt bad for being criticized – probably both. I felt I needed to keep talking to him, to figure out who he really was.

So we did. This was 2018. To say this relationship has been tumultuous would be an understatement.

It became an unhealthy dynamic for me very quickly. It was the oh so common trap of wanting someone you can never have. It didn’t take long before we were spending hours on the phone, and I truly enjoyed that time. It was both witty banter and deep conversations about what we had been through. It had become very important to me that I find someone with a sense of humor, but an ability to be serious at the right times. I felt like I found that in him.

Despite all the communicating, he wouldn’t commit. I wanted the constant communication to mean we were in a relationship, but when I told him I wanted to date only him, he replied with the “I’m not in a good enough place to be in a relationship.” It is true. He wasn’t. But we acted like we were without the label and that was confusing for me. And it hurt.

He told me to date, and he went on some dates too. However, he would then use the fact that I had gone on other dates as “evidence” that I didn’t really want to be with him. I would defend myself and he would twist it around so it became my fault. Every. Single. Time.

We continued to talk, but over time, the fighting was more and more frequent. The same push/pull dynamic played out repeatedly. I felt crazed – trying to convince someone I wanted to be with him while he was actually pushing me away. Once I started to move on, he became ready for a relationship, but made a point of letting me know that he had doubts about a relationship with me. I tried to hold on to my truth and not lose myself, but this relationship broke me down. The words broke me down. As Taylor Swift says, he was casually cruel in the name of being honest. I was called many names and accused of having so many terrible traits.

I did finally move on and started dating other people. Enough was enough. In response to this, I was accused of ghosting him. This was not ghosting. I’ve ghosted before (I’m not proud of it), but this was not it. This was me deciding I was worth more than the way I was being treated. This was me getting out of the trap of needing his validation. But I will never convince him of that. He will never see it from my perspective. He is the victim, and I am the one doing harm. That is his narrative.

We did occasionally talk after that. I learned that within a month or so after we stopped talking regularly he got into a relationship. I was still dating around. We attempted a friendship, but the conversation always steered back to who was to blame for what happened between us. A game I was destined to lose every time.

The fact that he got into a relationship after telling me he wasn’t ready for one with me triggered my insecurities in a soul crushing way. I was so tired of this being my story. Why was I always the one men left for greener pastures? I was trying very hard to build up my confidence, to not tie my self-worth to external validation. But, F*ck, it is hard. Really, really hard.

In my more confident moments, I can reflect on these relationships and look at them critically. I can see my role in them. I can see their role too. It can be gray. That is easier to accept. When you are in it, though, when the pain is raw, you need a place to put it. You will do anything to not feel it. That feeling of rejection. Of loss. Of what could have been but never was. In these painful moments, I turn on myself. I blame myself. I am the version of myself he painted me out to be.

From Spring 2020 to August of this year we did not speak. And during that time, I let go of the idea that we would ever be something. I continued to learn more about myself and who I want to surround myself around. Despite my ongoing struggles with OCD and bulimia, I generally feel more at ease, more settled. So why did I respond when he reached out?

Honestly? I think there are three reasons. One – It feels good to be on someone’s mind, especially when you already feel like you are easy to walk away from. I’m human and would like to feel more of that. Two – Dating hadn’t been going particularly well. There is some weird sexual energy out there following the months of isolation due to the pandemic…hang tight, I’ll share more on that in the near future. Finally, three – I think I was genuinely curious to see how he was. Contrary to his belief, I am not actually a monster.

Up until three weeks ago I was really enjoying catching up. I told him I needed to ease back into being in each other’s lives again and he seemed to respect that. Though, it didn’t take long until we were talking daily, including over the phone. The banter was fun. The conversations were real. I had always genuinely appreciated his comfort in sharing his emotions. They did not make me uncomfortable when I wasn’t the target of his negative feelings. When things were on good terms between, they felt really good. I let myself consider the possibility that maybe he was in a better place these days.

And then poof, it switched. I wasn’t there for him in the way he expected. He was having a difficult week and so was I. I was honest about the fact that I was struggling. I told him I had less energy to give for that reason. Still, I was accused of distancing. “You always do this.” “Would have been nice if you asked about my interviews.” For the record, I didn’t even know these interviews were happening.

I knew following this exchange of messages that letting him back in my life was a mistake. There will never be any space for me in this relationship. His needs will always take priority and I will be expected to carry them even when I’m on the ground struggling to get up.

In an effort to have more direct and honest conversations with the people in my life, I told him that I was hurt he hadn’t checked in with me to see how I was doing. I told him I didn’t feel there was room for me to struggle as well.

And suddenly it was 2018 again.

I was selfish.

I was imploding so badly he had a hard time watching it.

I flip and let emotions cloud me.

I am unstable.

I am entitled.

I am like talking to a 4th grader.

I was destructive.

I was using him and taking advantage of his kindness.

I was an asshole.

All these things were said plus more. I will admit my anger led to me saying some regrettable things. There is something so anxiety-provoking about someone who tries to rob you of your truth like he does. Every time the story is twisted and I become demonized.

The last message I sent was an apology for the hurtful things I said when angry and defensive. I do wish I was able to control my emotions more in the moment and disengage, but I am imperfect.

I own this. When provoked, I am capable of saying hurtful things.

But that is all I owed him. Me owning my part. But I refuse to own his too. I refuse to carry his anger, frustration, and pain on my back. I refuse to be a projection of his anxiety. I will not let him or anyone else weigh me down so they can feel lighter. I will not be silenced so they can yell louder.

This is progress and no one can take that away.

Cue ‘All Too Well’ by Taylor Swift

Pain (Continued)

Posted on by
Reply

I live my life through song. The lyrics, the melody. They speak to me. Different songs depending on my mood or my circumstance. At the airport tonight I randomly thought of a song that I probably haven’t heard in at least 2 or 3 years. I had such a strong urge to look it up and listen to it right then, but I could only remember the beat. I waited for the lyrics to come. And then one word did. Blood. The name of the song. ‘Blood’ by Middle East. Why this song? I’m not sure I know yet, but I will try to unpack it.

The song is heavy, at least my interpretation of it is. It is about family and love and loss. Lately life has been heavy, particularly for my family. But then again when is it not? There is always pain. Your own or someone else’s. And then so often there is the fear of the pain to come or the pain from the past that you are trying to forget. It can be paralyzing for so many of us. It is debilitating. I mean this metaphorically and, also, literally. Anxiety and depression can be physically painful.

As someone who has struggled with depression, I know pain well. The kind of pain that grips you and takes over. Pain that leaves you on the floor unable to get up. Pain that leads to uncontrollable tears and then the opposite, numbness because it is so deep you just cannot face it any longer. In high school I had a plan in the back of my mind that soothed me. I could end it. If I really had to. Back then taking my own life truly seemed more tolerable than living it. The pain consumed me and I did not yet know my way out.

Today, it seems like a lifetime ago. That version of myself. Sure, it doesn’t always feel like that. I have my bad days where I feel low, both helpless and hopeless. I still feel shame about many things from my past. But today I feel okay. And more days than not, I feel okay. Of course, I still feel pain and know I will continue to. But I feel at peace knowing that it will come and go, just like feelings of joy will, as well. But it has been a hellish road to get here.

I teared up listening to this song tonight. I think because it reminds me of my own family and the weight we’ve carried. Maybe this is inevitable when living with chronic illness. We learned pain too early. Not the typical pain of childhood. The bumps and bruises that your parents can wipe away with a band aid and a kiss. It was a pain you couldn’t easily make go away and one you certainly couldn’t understand, at least not when you were under the age of ten. When a parent is sick life is scary and unpredictable and you learn to feel okay any way you can. Her pain was my pain. Her suffering was my suffering. I would have given anything to make her better.

I was recently asked on a date what I was like as an eight-year-old and all I could think of was anxious. During those years, I was scared most of the time, especially when she wasn’t home. Every time she left for a doctor’s appointment or for the hospital, I feared she wouldn’t come back. I hated the space in between when she left and when she returned. That space was lonely and the silence was deafening. I learned early on how to fill it with all the “what ifs”. I begged God to please make my family safe, happy, and healthy. Over and over again. This was self-preservation. The relief I felt every time you returned was intoxicating and I believed my various control tactics worked.

I used to look back at my childhood self with shame. Why wasn’t I stronger? Why was I so strange? Why did I behave the ways I did? While it still isn’t easy to talk about, it makes a whole lot more sense now and slowly the shame is dissipating. I’m learning to soothe the childhood me.

I understand from the outside looking in that obsessive compulsive disorder looks completely irrational. But is it? As a child, I felt out of control and I did not know how to express it. I was also told often to “be strong” which I interpreted as do not show you are afraid. I learned to control what I could. Of course, the organization of my dollhouse and the position of the throw pillows had nothing to do with my mom’s health, but it did make me feel more in control in some strange way. It was better than sitting with my spinning thoughts. When you are anxious and hurting, you will accept any form of relief. And if it works, even for a short period of time, you are going to repeat the behavior. This is what I mean by self-preservation. I learned to survive. Day by day.

When I was at the beginning stages of therapy, I was told to practice self-love. To talk to my inner child and repeat words of affirmation in the mirror. I was repulsed by it. I felt insulted by the therapist. My skin was crawling at the idea of it. What an intense response to self-care…

If you are in therapy and have had this reaction, try and ask yourself why and, most importantly, be patient. For me, it was impossible to practice self-love when I did not love myself. It felt foreign and any of my efforts would have been insincere at the time. I did not think I deserved any sympathy. The problem was me. Why would I go easy on myself?

My current framing of my struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder took years of therapeutic work. First there were the years of hiding it and then there were the years of being ashamed of it. It is only until very recently I could see it differently – as resilience.

I’ve learned the hard lesson that you cannot escape pain. Pain is certain. If you let it, it can consume you. My advice to you is to feel it. Don’t run from it. Don’t bury it. Don’t ask someone else to carry it. Feel it so you can move past it.

Cue ‘Blood’ by Middle East

Shame

Posted on by
1

I started this blog to push myself to address my deepest fears with the hope that by doing so I would be set free of them. I wholeheartedly believe FDR’s quote “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” To live in fear is to not truly live at all. It is like spending your days digging your own grave. After my last post I told myself it was time to start addressing the parts of myself I am ashamed of. I told myself I needed to expose more of myself and to unpack why I am who I am today. Instead, I just stopped writing for five months. Why?

Because I am scared.

I am scared you will judge me.

I am scared you will think lesser of me.

I am scared by the depths of my pain.

I am scared that exposing my shame makes it real.

And after that, there will be no denying it is part of me.

Shame is like a parasite that won’t be away. It makes a home in you. Every time I soothe myself with food, I’m fueling my shame. I’m making it stronger.

So today I will start with some brutal honesty: I am more ashamed of who I am than proud of who I am. I say this after years of therapy and that shit right there is depressing. Naturally I went to therapy to feel better, to be fixed. And yet here I am. You may be thinking that the problem is my therapist or maybe how you knew therapy was a sham. I don’t think either of those things are true. For awhile I’ve been of the belief that therapy will only be as successful as what you put into it. I’ve realized there are ways we all do therapy more “safely” where we only talk about the topics we are comfortable discussing. It is incredibly easy to deal with only the current week’s events or to quickly brush over major life events that fundamentally changed us. We get to leave each session feeling like we opened up. But did we? Now I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely not the same person I was years ago. I am in many ways more confident than I have ever been. But my pain is still there. It is still gut-wrenching. It is still physical.

This leads to me to a couple other things I’ve realized about therapy and self-growth. This should probably be obvious, but it only sunk in recently. Progress is not linear. There are moments in my therapeutic journey that have been transformative like when I acknowledged my insecurities with another similarly aged woman in my group or with one of the therapists. Both times I challenged my deepest fear that I’m inherently unlikeable. These sessions were both painful and powerful. But they didn’t “fix me”. I still get down about the curve balls life throws at me and sometimes I take a couple steps back and revert to old patterns of thinking. I’m thankful for these transformative, but they didn’t make me superhuman where I no longer feel hurt by future interactions.

This next realization for me has been huge and why I am risking being vulnerable on this blog. Here it is: Therapy will never work if you are of the mindset you are broken. I have always thought there was something wrong with me, with how I feel or how much I feel. I still think this way too often and this is a problem. I go to therapy to figure out how to feel less so that I won’t be “too much” for people to deal with. This right here is a goal I will never achieve. Feelings are normal. ALL OF THEM. These days, my more confident self reminds me that the ideal state is not one where I am absent of any feeling. For me, I hope to be able to manage my feelings. I hope to see them for what they are without them turning into inappropriate actions on myself or other people. So the problem isn’t that I feel sad or angry, but whether I lash out as a result.

I know, I know. I said this post was about my shame. Ultimately my shame has to deal with the fear that I am not enough and that the way I have behaved over the years is not normal or acceptable. It has been especially a problem in romantic relationships. I have a complicated relationship with men and am incredibly embarrassed by the situations I’ve gotten myself involved in.

I’ve literally never felt “skilled” in this department. I was that girl who had a huge crush on her neighbor since 4th grade and when he actually asked me out a few years later I broke up with him four hours later via a friend because I couldn’t deal with my discomfort. This is the same guy I mentioned in a previous blog post where my so called friends pretended he wrote me a love letter. After that happened, I just couldn’t actually let myself believe he really liked me. My fantasies weren’t supposed to come true for me. Period.

My first boyfriend was in 8th grade. We dated because our mutual best friends were also dating. When they broke up, we did too. As teenagers do, he started dating someone else right after and I couldn’t get that off my mind. It was right around the time of my first panic attack and the bullying and it just felt like a reinforcement that I was not likeable. I was just a pit stop on a longer journey of finding someone better. From then on, I was hypersensitive to how quickly men moved on from me and my behavior bordered on desperation. At the very least, it was destructive to my sense of self. I accepted what I thought I deserved which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.

The very first man I slept with, during college, was a merch guy for a band who cheated on me. Rather than walking away, we continued to talk and I pretended that he cared because I needed to believe he did. To me, being with someone who didn’t respect me was better than being walked away from. I was “a lot to deal with” after all so beggars can’t be choosers.

Needless to say, my early twenties were a bit of a hot mess. I was the other woman to a man who went on to marry his girlfriend at the time. I was with a guy who lied about being with not one, but two other women, one who turned out to be pregnant with his child. I was date raped by a bartender I knew from the previously mentioned relationship I had been in. Left naked on the floor of the bathroom bleeding from the chin.

Two weeks later I moved for graduate school and tried to erase those memories with my new life. The life I’ve been living for the last 12 years. In many ways I’ve built the life I’ve dreamt of. I’m successful. I’m independent. But I’m also still hurting and I think it is because behind those memories which never were erased is my shame. The shame I don’t want to think about. The shame from the years I pass over quickly in therapy because I just don’t want those memories to be reality. I sure as hell do not want them to be my reality.

What would the people in my current life think? How can she be who I know her to be and also that other person? I cannot look at her the same way. And what about the people from my former life? Would they be thinking, “I told you so”? I knew she was pathetic. And what about my family? I raised her better. I told her to be strong and she was the furthest from that.

I’m embarrassed of that person I was and I still am every time I date. I’m embarrassed by my weakness. I’m embarrassed by my attention seeking behavior. I’m embarrassed by wanting love and settling instead for just sex.

When I date I am filled with doubt, anxiety and sadness. Am I worthy of love? Would they be on this date if they knew my past? Did I come across as desperate? Did I sleep with him too soon? Will he walk away like the rest?

So here is a look into my personal hell. This is the shame I am running from every time I order food only to binge and purge it. This is the embarrassment I hope will be flushed down the toilet.

This is my shame and it is part of me whether I like it or not.

Today I accept it.

Cue ‘Arcade’ by Duncan Laurence

Betrayal

Posted on by
Reply

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get the words out. I was sweating. A cold sweat. My mind was a blur.

I was 13 years old when I had my first panic attack. I was in 8th grade history. We were going around the room reading passages from the textbook. When it was my turn, I was caught off guard. I was a good student. I hated getting in trouble. I hated doing anything wrong. It was my turn, but I lost track of where we were because I was talking to the person next to me.

My reaction was panic. A panic that I could not escape and could not hide from. A panic that exposed me. Everyone was staring. No one knew what to say, including the teacher.

Somehow, I made it through the rest of that class. I don’t remember if we went on break after that or if the next person started reading. I remember the stares and I remember hoping a friend could convince me it wasn’t that bad or that noticeable, but the damage was done.

Once you know your body can react that way, you don’t forget it, especially when you felt like it came out of nowhere. In hindsight, it is now obvious I was a ticking time bomb, but at the time, it didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t find a clear reason for why one moment I could read aloud in front of my peers without fear and then the next I couldn’t.

There was plenty about my life that did not feel normal with my mom being sick, but at school, I could try to fit in and, for the most part, I did. The bullying the year before by those oh so great friends of mine seemed like a fluke. “I’m sure they were just kidding around.” “It was all in good fun.” Things you tell yourself to avoid seeing the truth.

Luckily, academically, I thrived. It felt good to be a pretty smart kid. It felt good to get praise from teachers. Even if I wasn’t super popular, at least I could feel like one of those kids with promise.

The moment the panic started in that 8th grade history class, any ounce of normalcy I was hanging on to drifted away. School was no longer safe. Nor was my voice. Nor was standing out academically if it meant using my voice.

Mentally, I deteriorated. The next four years were hell.

In my head, the struggle was loud. So loud. There was no time for rest when your mind was racing, when your thoughts were jumping around a mile a minute.

On the outside, it was quiet. So quiet. And lonely, so fucking lonely.

At this point, I think it is important to share some words of caution. Never underestimate someone’s ability to pretend. I was a master at pretending to “be okay” or at least okay enough to not cause anyone to seriously worry. At times I was even perceived as strong. At that time, it was the most important thing for me to fit in. To not stand out. Well, to not stand out in a way that would draw negative attention. The kind where an entire room is staring and laughing at me.

But on the inside, I was screaming. How could you not hear it?

On the inside, I needed you. Your comfort. Your reassurance. Why weren’t you there in all the ways I needed you to be there?

For the rest of high school, I spent most of my classes barely learning. I was too busy trying to predict what would happen in class. At first, I mostly feared the classes where reading aloud was likely to happen. Either freshman or sophomore year I mustered up the courage to talk to a teacher about my mounting fear of speaking and he worked with me to try it in doses.

I attempted a presentation. I think we were supposed to read a poem. It happened again. Noise came out, but it wasn’t words. It almost sounded like laughter.

And then I stopped trying to face the fear. I could only run from it.

My teacher didn’t push it more. Instead, I was skipped over without an explanation. In future classes, I would talk to those teachers when necessary. I was still a pretty good student. There were workarounds. Presentations where only the teacher was in the audience.

I will never forget when a guy I had a crush on asked if I had already presented in front of the class. I lied. I said yes. I told him he was asleep. I’m not sure he believed me, but the girl who heard this conversation did not. She wasn’t one to fall asleep in class.

I felt like a fool. I hated this life. I felt better knowing I could swallow pills to end it and there were moments I was close.

I was trapped inside my body. A body that was betraying me. A body that was drawing attention to itself and not the type of attention any teenager wants.

If you are wondering how it is easy for me to stick my fingers down my throat, how it is easy to hurt myself, I suspect this is in large part why. I’ve spent years feeling nothing but pure hatred for my body. It wasn’t because it didn’t look a certain way. It was because it didn’t act a certain way.

There is more to share about these years, but for tonight, this is all I have in me. These memories are painful. They exhaust me.  In some ways, this post has felt more difficult to share than admitting to a decade and a half long eating disorder.

I’ll leave you with some advice or maybe it is a request, especially given all that is happening in the world. Be kind. To yourself and to those around you. Pretending to be okay is not unique to me. It is a way of life for far too many. Behind the pretending, the hiding, the fake smiles, or even the hurtful words coming out of their mouth is pain. Pain that goes so deep you feel like you might drown. Remember that when life is not beautiful or ordinary, it is painful.

You deserve some grace. And so does the person next to you.

Cue ‘OK Not To Be OK’ by Marshmello and Demi Lovato