I wrote this back when I was 17 and cared way too much about what everyone thought of me. I worked myself up over things that may or may not happen. Instead of living in the moment and embracing each day, I created an inner turmoil that kept me trapped in tunnel vision. Looking back, I realize the world didn’t revolve around me. Most people were too concerned with their own lives to care about what I was doing. I was the one who made it feel like everyone was laughing at me or that I was stiff, awkward, or would say the wrong thing. I worried that I wasn’t interesting enough, cool enough, smart enough. In reality, everyone else was dealing with the same worries. We were all too busy comparing ourselves to what others had, allowing anxiety to take over.
I truly understand anxiety—it’s a daunting, lonely feeling, especially when it seems like no one around you gets why you’re worked up about going to work or school, places you’ve been a thousand times. But I also know that we don’t have to let anxiety control our lives. There are ways to manage it, to even lessen the weight it carries.
It may seem easier said than done, but I’m proof that it’s possible with a few mind-training techniques and exercises. Read my entry below from when I was 17, and then check out the Power of the Mind and Mental Health & Self-Care categories to see my personal growth and learn techniques you can practice yourself.
November 7, 2013
Are they laughing at me? Was that supposed to be funny? I better not say the wrong thing.
Was that supposed to be funny?
Was I supposed to laugh?
Are they looking at me?
Can I leave yet?
Thoughts become your worries, worries become your thoughts. Ruminating on your negative thoughts is never helpful. They say the psychological response to events happening is even more paramount than the event itself.
Horrible flashing images, constant reminders nagging at my brain, the most negative form of “what if” imaginable. Outing myself to fit in.
Questioned non-stop. Or do I question myself?
Walking through a room with broken glass.
Or in a lower-level room that starts to fill with water until it’s up to my chest, suffocating me. No magical button or lever to make it all stop.
And the worst part is, no one sees it stalking me.
Never knowing when it will come. He creeps up like an unwanted dinner guest. And I never have enough food for him; he always wants more. He eats ferociously, draining me, and leaves with no thank you or sorry for sucking up everything in me.
Avoid situations because I don’t have the energy to explain why I become unraveled whenever I am in the presence of people.
The scary thing is that anxiety is something the brain makes up, and your body starts to believe it. Because why would a part of your body lie to another part? Why would you lie to yourself?
Anxiety gives me anxiety. A self-destructive cycle. If I could calm down, I would.
Scratch myself raw and beat myself purple, trying to force the feeling out of my skin or beat it out of my mind.
All the words of encouragement, of hope, the hugs, the safe rooms, the dark closets, the songs, the books, and poems that seem to calm me, all the therapists in the world, could not get rid of this lingering feeling I harbor.
It’s dug itself deep into my core. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to grab the knife and dig it back out.
I fear all and fear all of my fears. I try to fill my mind with distractions. Substances. Nothing helps.
Retracing every step, constantly checking and rechecking. Doubting.
Hands shaking so others can see how unbalanced I am. Shoulders stiff, body tense, looking out of place. Nothing feels right.
I notice everything. Changes in tone, attitude, posture, mannerisms, and moods. It’s exhausting. Overwhelming.
I’ve learned that the door I’ve felt locked behind my whole life was to keep me in, not to keep others out. For my benefit, but mostly for theirs.
Stuck somewhere between what if, what might, what should, what could have, and what never will. But all I want to know is, what actually IS.
I have become a master at breaking my own heart. Holding onto such grand expectations, I demand perfection in all aspects of my life. So much to live up to, so many self-imposed ends to meet. When I continually fail to add up to my expectations, I find myself falling deeper into my little rabbit hole I’ve dug for myself.
All I’m doing is setting myself up for disappointment. Nowhere close to free. I trapped myself long ago in a cage that kept me inhibited by my worst fears: feeling inadequate, losing a sense of self, and feeling entirely alone.
This cage led to feelings of overwhelming tension, isolation, self-hatred, and apprehension about being able to control my emotions.
Which seemed to result in a frightening sense of unreality and emptiness that created an emotional numbness within me. Depersonalization. Maybe that’s why my evil side is brought forth more these days.
I’m slowly self-destructing. Something increasingly toxic is taking over the me I once knew. It’s taking over my life. I try so hard to keep it under strict control, but to no avail.
The voice that tells me everything is going to be okay no longer sounds friendly. I see through him. He has my destruction as his goal, not my happiness.
Caged in a life of attachment, desolation, the destruction of myself.
So caught up in my “intelligence,” thinking my way is the only way, not realizing that it’s slowly killing me.
Other species use their given intelligence to survive, but we humans use it to destroy ourselves.
Do I want this or something else?
Can I crave the feelings I withhold while destroying myself but also long to live a successful life and make my mark in this world?
The tug of destruction seems to pull me much harder.
Is it possibly a crucial part of us, necessary in order to transform ourselves? To be the people we long to be?
Others seem to be tugged the other way a little harder. Clearly special beings.
How could an ordinary girl like me, with no willpower, no talent, ignorant to the ways of the world, possibly soften the fear, doubt, and self-hatred that stalks me down every corner?
How do I eliminate the ruminated feelings, shut in mind the dangerous and crippling thoughts that turned me into a careless beast?
Should I simply accept my future as a winding road that never ends, trapped inside that door by my timidness and unjust expectations?
Or is it possible to awaken myself from this zombie-like state of spiritual numbness?
I’m too afraid to fall again. Rock bottom almost seems like a good spot to lay my head. This low is feeling a lot safer than embarking into the unknown. I could fall again, and it could be worse this time.
But I know that anger and sadness are acids that destroy their own container. I don’t want to destroy myself anymore. I will do my best to no longer deface or destroy myself as a means of feeling something.
But I can’t lie, I really never had seen battles quite as tragically beautiful as the ones I fight when my mind flees and misfires, enveloping me into my own decaying madness once again.
But I am sick of seeing beauty in my sadness and searching for tragedy in my joy. For once, I want to know that what is, IS. With no confusion and no pain in the process.
I want to open this heavy door I’ve been locked behind my whole life and let people in, but most of all, get out there and feel what it’s like to really live.
