figuring out what is true

Isn’t it awful when you can’t trust your brain? It’s really the worst. And that’s how it feels when depression and anxiety hit- that you can’t trust your brain and what it tells you.

I dated a person who was extremely skilled in manipulation. I am not pleased to admit it or happy to think about the person I was then. I have put in place many boundaries and developed a much healthier relationship with myself and with my husband.

Every once in a while, though, especially when anxiety and depression kick in hard, I catch myself falling back into these old and destructive patterns. It’s hard because then I struggle to define what is real. I want to validate my thoughts and feelings and I find myself trapped in circles and cycles of doubt and frustration.

I got incredibly upset a couple days ago. I felt dismissed and unimportant, my needs were not being met, and my ask for understanding was not heard. I left the situation and felt proud of myself for removing myself from potential fight. Then I realized how hungry I was and immediately started doubting my feelings- maybe things were made worse because I was hungry. Very likely. But does that invalidate my feelings of loneliness and being dismissed? Of course not. But now my brain is having a hard time deciding what was real and what I imagined because I was hungry.

I’m still hurting though. And though an apology came, it didn’t feel sincere and came with caveats and excuses.

Part of my brain is telling me to just let it go and move on and stuff this down and get over it. The other part of my brain insists I need and deserve better. Maybe in truth it needs to be a combination of both.

Real talk today. Even if my thoughts are feeling unreal and unreliable.

Thankfully I know that things will get better. I know these feelings don’t last forever. Light will come.

social anxiety

I always thought I was just shy. And maybe I was as a kid and that’s where everything started, but I have a very strong memory of sitting in a class in 8th or 9th grade and being forced to “choose” a career and having the clear impression that I needed to choose teaching because it would be good to force me to interact with people every day.

It makes me laugh a little now, but that was the definite impression and thought was that if I didn’t do something (like teaching) where I was forced to interact with people, then I wouldn’t. Interact, I mean.

Well, now I have the theatre and that sort of forced interaction, so I guess God got what He wanted even though I’m not teaching. Ha. The irony is not lost on me that I’m in the theatre, where people is the matter that makes it up, and a business owner, and that all I want to do is be alone with my family.

It’s definitely one of the hardest things of my job. Especially at the beginning, having to pretend to be confident and state people down and fight for funds and this idea.

But I don’t know if it would always have been called social anxiety or if that’s simply what it’s become. I don’t consider myself shy, definitely introverted, and I don’t need to call attention to myself, but beyond that there is a significant level of fear when I need to talk to people. Every time I go out in public, I am terrified to see people I know and be expected to talk to them. What if I say or do something stupid? What if I make a bad joke or say the wrong thing or trust the wrong person?

It eats away at me sometimes to where I struggle to even function.

Most of the time it doesn’t impact my relationships with those close to me, family and those I consider friends. But even then, sometimes I’m not sure if I can consider people friends and the anxiety ramps up. I doubt whether I mean to others what they mean to me. I want to be included but fight myself because part of me wants to stay away.

There is an event this weekend I have been invited to that I desperately want to attend… but my anxiety has been ridiculously high about it and whether I’ll truly be welcome or needed or wanted.

It’s so hard and yet so interesting to be in this position and try to figure out how to live my best life.