Change
is really difficult. There's a reason we all get set into a routine,
because routine is safe. We keep our barriers up to the world and
stay in our set little movements where we can predict the same
outcome to every repeated action and expect the same emotions from
the same tried and tested people that we allow into our precious
bubble. Change brings with it the unexpected, and all the terrifying
consequences that our imaginations can conceive. To really embrace
change is to be vulnerable to the world and it's vast opportunities,
to experiences good and bad, and to relinquish control.
Sourced from google images.
The
quote I've used to title this post is one of my absolute favourites.
Every time I read it, it fills me to the brim with inspiration and I
see a movie style mirage from inside the brain of the young unafraid
PuddyGeeks; travel, photography, making youtube videos, road trips, falling
in love, making new friends, going to fashion week, looking however I
want, writing music, eating new foods, going on holiday with friends,
having a shopping spree. All adventures that might seem thoroughly
normal to most of you. Things that you have done as a young person,
or small things that don't even cross your mind as a significant
experience. But for someone riddled with anxiety, these things and
many, many more have become bottled up in the jar of things that
could make me so happy if they weren't so damn terrifying and
impossible for "someone like me".
As you can see from the watermark, this was done at photovisi.com
This
is one of my first mistakes. Labelling myself as someone different.
Acknowledging that anxiety has changed the person that I would have
become in all these years, and then accepting that this is who I am
now. Allowing myself to make changes that make life easier for this
weak, frightened person that has taken control of my body, and
creating a safe, miserable routine where I don't have to be afraid.
Somehow over the years I have become an "avoider", someone
who avoids anything that I do not feel that "someone like me"
can do so I make lame excuses. Instead I stay at home alone, thinking
and feeling myself sinking further into anxiety's grips as I add one
more dream to the jar.
It's
an ongoing cycle of fear, avoidance and longing for something more.
Recently, my mum suggested I do something new. I can't remember what
it was now, but something perfectly mundane, like going out with my
friends. I answered with "well that's easy for you to say, but
that's just not possible for someone like me." And she said
something that really reminded me of the Walt Disney quote, that I'm
not "someone like me" I'm just someone, and that I can do
whatever I decide I can or can't do.
Anxiety
really is a prison that you build for yourself, you build the walls
and set the perimeters with good intentions of keeping your heart
safe from all the scary things in the world. It begins as your
fortress, an existence without a few things that make you panic, a
place where no-one can wound you, a way of living to avoid that tense
feeling in your chest. Just making sure you are safe, happy. But as
soon as you start to build those walls, your fortress takes on a life
of its own and it expands, sometimes slowly but if you are like me it
escalates quickly. Before you know it, you've built a enormous prison
where you are the captive, and by shutting out all the scary things
you have also shut out all the fun, all the people you love and all
the opportunities that life could have given you in the time you have
been prisoner.
Sourced from google images
Breaking
down the walls is a bigger challenge than you could ever have
expected when you started to build yourself in. At first, the more
you tear out of the prison, the more panic you experience. Things
feel even scarier than they did before, the world is louder and
brighter and busier and you get swept away in it all. They always
told you it would get worse before it got better, but you couldn't
ever have imagined it getting any worse than the empty hole you felt
inside your chest from all the wasted time. Until you start to feel
that familiar panic rising, the tightness in your chest, the block in
your throat as your breathing becomes raspy. Your muscles ache, is
that normal? Everything becomes brighter and louder in your head and
you can barely hear yourself think or see a way out. It was so much
worse than you remembered. Maybe you weren't ready for this? Was it
too soon? Maybe your anxiety voice was right. You can't do this.
You're not brave enough or strong enough. All you will ever be is
that anxious little mess crying in the corner. You will never be
normal.
Your
first breakdown. Breathing is difficult. You can't move your body.
You can feel the tears rolling down your cheeks but you don't feel
like you are crying. Everything is so quiet all of a sudden, but the
only thing you can hear is that jar of dreams smashing in your ears.
It echoes over and over again, ringing around the room. You feel so
small and broken, insignificant in comparison to every thing else big
and powerful in the world. How dare you feel like this? People in the
world are starving, dying, being tortured, raped, murdered. There are
children that are born only to die of starvation. Women whose
existence is only to be beaten. Men who are at war that shoot other
men and watch their friends die every day. And you are on the floor
because you are too scared to go shopping?
Sourced from google images
You
try to use guilt to motivate yourself but now you just feel worse.
You try to use dreams to inspire, but they are broken too. You think
about how sad every one would be without you but right now you are a
burden. You think of the woman you one day will become and how she
looks down on you, but you don't care because what does she know.
If
you reading this and have experienced anxiety you are likely familiar
with a lot of this already. No guarantee, as we all suffer different
kinds of pain, but this is for the people who have not experienced
it. The people who don't know how it feels to be too terrified to go
to the shops for some bread because of the million things that could
go wrong if you do. To be too afraid to sleep because the nightmares
are almost worse than staying up all night worrying about what will
become of your wasteful life. Almost.
Sourced from google images
The
rest of this post is for everyone, but mainly for those who can
relate. NOT. THIS.TIME. This year I concur my demons. This year I
look back on that first break down, and I thank the occurrences and
life choices that bought me to it for giving me clarity. For me, it
took that break to see how far I had really crumbled, I had to have
my dreams broken to remember that they were still there, waiting to
be loved. I needed to come home to remember the girl that lived deep
inside my head, that dreamed of adventure and of all the things she
could do with life. I needed my family to remind me of the woman they
raised, the woman who could do anything she set her mind to.
In
6 days, I have my first CBT session. Today I had my consultation on
why I needed it. It dug up some nasty demons, but I barely struggled
to squeeze them back into their box. CBT may not be the magic cure,
but that's okay because I stopped looking for that a long time ago.
It will give me the tools to fight the panic when I feel it coming,
to re-write my brain without having to do a full reboot every time.
Next time the demons escape their box, CBT will be ready to help me
to fight them back in quickly and quietly, and lock it behind them so
that I can continue to grow healthy. [When I think about this I kind
of picture a little cartoon me with a little shiny sword, standing up
to a big smoke demon like “Bwaha! Time to die demon!” It reminds
me of a picture I saw a while ago of a teddy defending a sleeping
child from nightmares and monsters. I think I still have it on my
laptop somewhere, hang on. Ah, here it is. I love it very much :) ]
This
year will be different, because I have decided it will. My jar is
fixed and ready to burst with dreams from those painful years and I
fully intend to experience as many of them as possible before my 23rd
birthday. Even more ambitiously, I have written a list of things to
do before I die, and money permitting, maybe I'll make a start on
that too. I'll keep blogging you along the way, with some beauty and
fashion seeping over from my youtube channel too, because lets face
it, if I talk about this every week I might just end up giving all of
you depression! However I feel I should share my journey, because if
it inspires just one person to keep on fighting then it's worth it!
As
always, thank you for every read and comment, it all makes the
journey easier. God bless you all and remember no matter how bad it
gets, or how desperate you feel, it will always get better if you are
ready to make change. You are the owner of your life, no one else. <3
Puddy <3
P.S
If you feel like this post rapidly changed direction from the
beginning, it kind of did. This wasn't the post I was planning on
writing at all, I was planning on a much more light hearted post on
struggling to change my diet and regular habits, but I just went off
on a tangent. I feel like that is the best kind of post, where my
heart takes over and I just write what I feel what needs to be said.
I hope you like that too :)
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