Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
One of my new year’s resolutions was to start a blog. It’s not a very interesting beginning is it?
It doesn’t pull you in the way some people do with promises to show you how to have a better life” because if I can you can too!” .
No, this isn’t that kind of “lifestyle blog”.
I can’t teach you how to do anything in order to make money and be a stay at home parent at the same time. I can’t teach you how to blog.
I can’t make any promises to anyone right now.
Promises and wisdom are things that people who’ve made it to the other side of some pit, some dark tunnel,or some great lessons have to offer.
I’m not there. Yet.
My sister has been telling me for years that I should start a blog. I really couldn’t understand why. I thought that it was just something that younger, more confident, more accomplished sisters say to their older, tireder, less confident sisters to make them feel hopeful.
I’ve had others, suggest that I start blogging after some of my anxiety driven facebook rants (that I often regret making, and then don’t, and then do again). Of course I sometimes wonder if they think I should blog because I managed a rant without making a grammatical/spelling/nonsensical error every other line, or if they just want me to take my crazy self somewhere else.
Maybe both. Maybe neither.
Maybe I’m just an overly anxious person who overthinks everything until I’m a total depressed mess that someone has to begrudgingly clean up off the floor.
Thus we have come to the reason I am finally starting the blog that people told me I should start for their own unknown reasons.
I have noticed an influx of anxious people lately. Every day at least five friends share an article or meme regarding anxiety. Though it’s usually this so called high functioning type. Evidently everyone I know is anxious but really damn good at hiding it.
I’m jealous.
Like really fucking jealous.
Oh sure, I “like” or “love” or “lol” your posts. I wonder if you see this as a “hey, me too, you had no idea right?”
Or, I wonder if you, like some close family members, have noticed that I’m not really around much anymore. I’m not texting or calling or anything anymore.
That I often can’t make full sentences in public. That I look anywhere but at you, not because I hate you, but because I literally CAN’T talk right now.
Like, I’m having a panic attack because I’m afraid you’re going to speak to me and the thought of what I’m going to say is causing the attack which is getting worse because I know that I’m having one and I also know that there is no way that I can run out of this building because Walmart has those stupid gates up now that yell at you like a criminal for trying to escape and damn it I’m almost done getting groceries which I was so proud of myself for doing this week…
So I decided to write about it.
I decided to write about what it’s like to not have high functioning anxiety, but to have low to no functioning anxiety.
About how I reached the point where I often couldn’t leave my own yard, my own house, or even make necessary phone calls.
Because maybe someone else is scrolling through funny memes about being a person who secretly has anxiety, and thinking that they wish they had those super cool ninja secrets to keeping anxiety on the DL.
But they don’t. Because they’re having a panic attack about thinking about leaving their bedroom. They’re even way over thinking about what response to click on because someone might take it the wrong way and think something…just something awful. (I’m going to stop myself there because the rabbit hole to what I think people think about me is deep, dark and too scary for a first post)
My resolutions were to get better mentally, to hike more, and to make a more sustainable life for me and my family. All of which I have decided to blog about here.
The blog is part of getting better mentally. Writing has always been my go to outlet. But I have seemingly punished myself by hiding my writing away because my anxiety reached an agoraphobic level. I have notebooks filled with stories, both fiction and non, hidden away because I was too scared to put it out there.
My greatest fear is what others think. I hate it. I want to be one of those “Fuck it!” people. I don’t WANT to care what others think.
But I do, and it has caused a ridiculous amount of anxiety and depression.
So if you’re interested in one weird, nerdy, crazy woman’s journey through depression and anxiety, then maybe this blog is for you.
I should warn you though.
I say fuck. A lot.
A Hermitess 