On my mind.

I think the hardest part about having my anxiety/panic disorder has been learning to live WITH it rather than running AWAY from it. It's not easy. But now when the panic attacks set in, I am able to better get through them rather than completely shutting down & passing out. They still suck. They still are the worst thing ever. They still feel like hell, but I can function better.  I've had to see small victories as huge ones. I've had to work HARD EVERY SINGLE DAY to even feel HALF normal and to be able to function! That's been a weird transition and a hard one to accept. Im not glad I went through what I went through during November - February. Everyone says eventually you will be grateful for your trials, but this one I'm not. Those were the worst and darkest months of my life. Emotionally I hit rock bottom. And I truly did not even imagine being able to HEAL. I thought it was impossible. I thougt I was stuck. I don't know WHY I went through what I did and I hope I never have to experience it again. I learned a lot, and I grew a lot, but I didn't want to have to do it that way. But I've been trying to accept it. And I'm so glad I'm slowly getting better. To be honest I don't know what made the biggest difference in this healing process. I don't know what of the hundreds of things I did to CHANGE and GROW made the biggest difference. I think a huge thing was TRYING. CONSTANTLY to get better. Doing everything I could and trying anything I could think of to try and get even a small amount of relief. It's funny cause now when I have anxious moments and bad days I get so devastated, when a few months ago those would've been considered my good days cause things were so rough. I definitely have a different perspective & feel like I have a completely different mental state than I used to. I don't know why I'm writing this post exactly or why I open up so much  but I feel like there's still not enough mental illness awareness out there. I feel like things are taken too lightly. I feel like people use the words "anxiety" and "anxious" and "panic attack" way too loosely. I feel like it's hard for people to truly understand, and so I try to be as real and as honest as I can to paint even a little bit of a picture for others. I am a happy person, I have a lot of friends, I like doing normal things, I probably seem like I have a lot of my life together- so that's why I'm speaking out and sharing things that make me uncomfortable and make me feel vulnerable.

 I'm not done with this healing journey, but I'm on the uphill and count myself to be one of the lucky ones.
Xoxo Bailey