My Constant Uphill Battle.

It's been a while since I talked about my anxiety openly. I think I just needed a break from it, things were going well and so it wasn't the #1 thing that was on my mind all the time like it used to be. This has been a LONG healing journey. It's lasted a lot longer than I expected and hoped it would. And I'm now realizing that I'm not sure this one has an end. Which is absolutely heart breaking to me. Like, on a scale of 1-10 I am sad about it a solid 11. I didn't want this to be something that stuck around. I didn't want to have to work on myself every single day. I didn't want living a "normal" life to become a challenge for me. But it is. And if I could just get over myself and ACCEPT it, my life would probably change for the better. I know that. But I am stubborn and it is SO hard for me to accept that anxiety might (will) be apart of my life forever. I just can't get it through my head.

It's hard to accept because I don't want it to define me. I don't want it to damage my relationships. I don't want it to affect my daily life like it did at the beginning of the year. I don't wan't it to make me not able to function. I don't want it to make me a bad wife/mother/sister/friend. I don't want it to hold me back. I don't want it to ruin my life. I don't want it to make happiness unattainable. Those are real fears of mine because at the beginning of the year it was all of those things for me.

It's hard to accept because I simply do not want it and I am not okay that I experience it. Like, duh who would- but I just resist it so much because I hate it. And that's probably the first thing a therapist would tell you is that resistance makes anxiety SO much worse. That anxiety is just heightened and feeds off of resistance. I get that. I understand that. That makes sense. But it is so freaking hard to no resist something that you hate and don't want. 

I do realize that my life did make a HUGE turn around once I had that huge "break through acceptance" moment at my therapist office in May. You can read about it here I can't wait to get back to that mindset. Just shows you this whole anxiety is constant ups,downs,twists,turns- you get it. It's not an uphill process. I can sit here and tell myself- just ACCEPT it. and drill that word into my head, but until I FEEL it, it doesn't do much. Until I believe it, it's just kind of a word. AND I KNOW I PROBABLY SOUND CRAZY BECAUSE THE ANSWER TO HELPING MYSELF IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME AND I AM TALKING ABOUT IT TO YOU GUYS BUT IT'S NOT THAT EASY. I wish it was. But I'm just keeping it real. And this will be my constant uphill battle with my anxiety.

When a panic attack or extreme anxiety sets in, it is hard to stay calm. and it is hard NOT to resist it. My first natural instinct is to try and make it so I am not feeling that way.  Obviously. But I've learned that makes it 1000x worse and it isn't until I distract myself by doing something, I am able to recognize it is just my anxiety and that I am not in any real danger, or I if I can tell myself "this is anxiety, it is okay that I feel this way, it is fine that it is uncomfortable. anxiety sucks, but it will pass and you've been through a lot worse" that I am able to get through it. 

These past few weeks have been really hard for me. I didn't have therapy for 2 months, and I got through it, but the last 2 weeks before I had another counseling appointment I felt like I was going backwards hard and fast. I hadn't had one of those weeks before and it was scary. I was anxious daily. Things that I had been able to do in the past few months were getting hard again. I wasn't feeling like myself. I was having to take my emergency pills again. I was having intense anxiety and ALMOST panic attacks. And I was very discouraged. So I went to my counseling appointment, worked through things, got on the right track again, and I am now officially "graduated" from therapy. Which scares the crap out of me because I do NOT feel like I am ready to be without my therapist because he has changed my life and helped me more than I could've ever even imagined. But I have the tools & I just have to live my life the best I can, even if it means with anxiety.

xoxo

Bailey