“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
Corrie Ten Boom
So… anxiety. I have known about my anxiety since I was in middle school. It started with just school stuff – taking all honors classes and freaking out about the workload. And slowly it turned into more. It was overthinking about every little thing. It was anxiety about everything that was happening and even things that weren’t happening.
I was having anxiety and panic attacks almost everyday and I was not dealing with it well at all, because I didn’t know how to deal with it. This was brand new to me. Middle and high school were kind of messy when it came to my anxiety, but I was slowly (very slowly) working on it. College came along and it was a whole new world. But for the first time, I felt like I was in complete control of my anxiety. Of course there were still times where I had anxiety – midterms and finals. But I wasn’t having panic attacks everyday. I wasn’t even having them once a week. It would happen maybe every couple of months and it was great. I felt in control and feeling in control of things makes my anxiety even better. And honestly, as an introvert, the pandemic really helped with my anxiety. I was in control. I wasn’t pushed out of my comfort zone. I was good.
I had a little bit of anxiety when I was starting my first relationship. But it went away so quickly. I felt good. I felt confident for the first time in a while. He made me so happy. And there was still anxiety but it almost never had anything to do with him and for the most part, I would say that it was manageable.
And then there was the breakup… and that messed up so many things.
Since my breakup, it feels like I reverted to my middle school ways. I have anxiety about everything. I overthink everything. I have been going to therapy and trying to work on it, and there have been a lot of helpful tips. But there is still so much about my anxiety that I don’t know how to handle anymore. I am constantly worried about what people are saying behind my back. I am worried about what will happen in the future. What if I really don’t find love again? What if I am destined to live alone? What if no one falls in love with me again? I am constantly worried that I am letting people down because I am not moving on fast enough. I am worried that I am letting people down by just not having much hope left. I even worried about even writing and publishing this because I was so nervous about how it would make me look.
It is a really hard time for me right now. And I have been going to therapy and I am working on it. But I never realized how much breakups affect you. In high school, I thought my friends were being just a little bit dramatic. And having never had been in a relationship, there was nothing I could even compare to that feeling. So I gave my friends crappy advice about how to move on and looking back on it now, I would have been so mad at my past self for the “advice” I gave to them.
I get anxiety when I see him because of the constant battle between my head and my heart. I get anxiety when I see him because of how affected I am by this change. I get anxiety when I see him because of all my inner panicked thoughts. There’s a lot that I think about that doesn’t need to be said because I don’t need to talk about him like that. The point is just how awful my anxiety has gotten. I cry every single day. Actually, definitely more than once a day but that’s not the point. I don’t get a whole lot of sleep anymore because I wake up in the middle of the night crying from anxiety that are caused by nightmares of him.
I think, and so does my therapist, that the reason for all this anxiety is really just not knowing how to deal with a breakup. And on top of that I was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder. Essentially this mean that I have an emotional or behavioral reaction to a stressful event or change in a person’s life. Let’s dumb it down a whole lot and just say that I really really hate change and it causes me so much anxiety that it affects me more than it does people without an adjustment disorder.
I am also a planner. I plan things. I planned a future with someone and then it disappeared overnight. Actually it disappeared after a 5 hour conversation about whether or not we should break up (which I clearly lost). And it wasn’t just me. We were planning a future together and then it all changed. I’ll never really understand why we broke up. Like, yes, I know why we broke up. But I don’t understand why I wasn’t worth fighting for while I figured things out. And that also causes me anxiety. So really, I am just a giant ball of anxiety.
I don’t think I have ever been this anxious in my life. I don’t think I have ever really freaked out like this. Everything gives me anxiety. Because of all this anxiety, I have had to make a lot of life changes, which doesn’t go great with the adjustment disorder. Let me make this super clear – I LOVE my church. I love my pastor and everything that he preaches and I love being a part of the worship team and it always makes me feel so connected to God. But as for right now, I cannot be there with him. I can’t keep looking at him when I haven’t moved on from him yet and know that he doesn’t want to be with me at all. I don’t think he ever wants to speak to me again. And I can pretend like that doesn’t hurt and I don’t care, but it does and I do. The thought of him actually wanting to talk to me right now is even more anxiety inducing though. I don’t know what he thinks anymore. We’re not in a relationship and that hurts. But it also comes with the unknown territory of not knowing him anymore. We’re not friends. We don’t talk. And all of that causes me so much anxiety. But the alternative would also cause me anxiety. Like, seriously, pick one. This is why I have been considering changing churches. It has absolutely nothing to do with the church, in fact, I would love nothing more than to stay at Converge for a very long time. But for once in my life, I have to put myself first, and I have to put my mental health first.
I don’t know what is going to happen (As we have discussed, this causes me anxiety), but I know how I feel. I want nothing more than to turn back time and fix everything, but I can’t do that. And even if I could, I don’t even know if that is what he would want. But I need to make changes that are going to affect me in a positive way. I need to do what is best for me and my anxiety. I need to find a way to be happy again and to see the happiness in everything around me. I want to be excited about my future again, because I have a very exciting future.
“Many people spend a lot of time thinking about the past or the future — a thinking process called ruminating. If you consistently make it a habit, it becomes a loop — and prevents you from living in the moment.”
For once in my life, I have to live day by day. I have to look at today and just focus on one day at a time. I have always lived one step ahead or too many steps behind. I need to live in the moment. I need to look at today for what it is and not stress about the future or how it will or could affect me. I need to not look at everything that has already happened in the past and let it cause me anxiety. Because it has already happened and there is literally nothing that I can do to change the past (not until someone invents a time machine and even then, it’ll probably cost more money than I will have on a teacher’s salary). Taking it one day at a time means not asking too much of yourself, or neglecting your own needs. It means recognizing the difference between what if and what is (I would love to take credit for this but it was in the article I found). I need to CHOOSE to focus on the happy moments in my life and right now, there are very little happy moments. But that means I need to create more happy moments.
Like today, I went out and saw my friend’s show and he performed amazingly and I got to see him when I haven’t see him in over a year. And I had a great time. I am going to another friend’s choir concert in a few days and I know that is going to be amazing and I can’t wait to see her either.
Creating happy moments in life is hard for me. I have social anxiety along with just normal anxiety, so I would really rather spend my time at home, but maybe it is time to get out of my comfort zone and push myself to be a little bit more extroverted. Everything is easier said than done. And naturally there are going to be hard days, and really hard days, and easier days. But I have to move on. I have to. I have to stop putting hope in things that are never going to happen. I have to stop dwelling on the past. Whatever happens is going to happen and stressing about it now does nothing and it defiantly doesn’t help me.
Anyways, those are my two cents.
“Live long and prosper.”
Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
Link to article
Georgia On My Mind 
You are so my kid! I’m really proud of you.
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