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Monday, February 29, 2016

I am an Anxious Person

A serious post today about some personal and kind of dark topics, so if you like lighter fare, maybe skip this one. I saw a tumblr post today that got me thinking in a kind of depressing spiral, and so instead of simply being moody, I thought I'd write about it.

To start out with, I've suffered from anxiety and depression my entire life. I honestly don't remember a time that I didn't have high levels of anxiety. Sure, there were periods where it was better than others times, but I can remember intense anxiety as a toddler. While I've suffered from varying levels of depression (never really at the same level as anxiety, so I think of it as a much lesser thing much of the time) most of my life, that didn't really onset in a real way until I was in middle school.

The tumblr post I saw was talking about how when you have depression, you aren't a person sepperate from it anymore. You can't remember who you where before, and that can be terrifying. The depression is your identity.

This is something I identify very strongly with. The first time I went to see a therapist, I was 12. I was totally unwilling to participate, but I went for a while and we both got more and more frustrated until one day I simply refused to go.

At that point, I was not ready to deal with my anxiety. I knew it existed. I knew it caused me problems. I was very emotionally intelligent and self aware at that age, and I knew exactly what was going on, both in the world around me, and in my own head. But I wasn't ready to deal with it.

It took a very long time for me to be ready. Over the next five years, I dealt with a few years of depression. That combined with the anxiety I had, which was being constantly amped up by external life factors, meant that the ages of 12-15 were kind of awful. I honestly don't remember large chucks of those years (just because part of me blocked it out), and I have a lot of memories that are very, very negative, just because of my mental state of the time.

Then, the fall I was 16, something happened. Actually a number of things happened, all at the same time:

1. I started going the the local community college, and, for the first time in years, was really able to develop my own life and relationships seperate from the negative memories of the past.

2. Some of the circumstances in my family dynamic changed, in a way that I was at first terrified by, but that I later realized was a very good thing. This lowered my general anxiety levels.

3. Lastly, and this is the big one, I ended up in a position where I was esentially mentoring a friend through a very intense period of his life. This turned out in the end to be a very negative experience for me, and after months of drama, anxiety, sleepless nights, and a few tears, I ended up in a position where I had to let him go. He had done things that I could not condone and I felt that if I stayed in any sort of relationship with him I was going to end up getting hurt a lot more than I already had.

Letting go of that was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I was very close to this person, and I had sunk months of my life into trying to help him. But in the end, there was nothing I could do unless he realized he needed to change. And he just wasn't ready.

All of these experiences combined, but particularly that last one, made me realize that I needed to be a more mentally stable person on a day to day basis. Being in school helped me realize the most important factor in all this: I was a person seperate from my anxiety. Having an identity seperate from that allowed me to decide to go find outside help.

For years and years, I had been terrified that if I wasn't anxious, I didn't know who I would be. I was a person who was anxious and depressed most of the time. If I didn't have that, what did I have? Losing my identity terrified me.

The situation with my friend also made me realize a lot of things about myself. I was holding myself back by not allowing myself to take full advantage of whatever help I could get. There was still a long way to go from there, but that was the all important and totally vital first step.

Every now and then, I think about that friend, who I haven't talked to in nearly a year. I often feel guilty about some of the events that took place. I was the person closest in the world to him, why couldn't I help him? In the end, all that really happened was that I was used by him, but why couldn't I help him while I had the chance? Why couldn't I keep over negative events from happening? I was the only person with any hope of doing that.

But I have to remind myself: He wasn't ready. And while I poured all of myself that I could into helping him, if he wasn't ready to be helped, there was nothing any of us could do. Accepting help is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

I am not just a person "with anxiety" and a person "who suffers from depression." I am an anxious person. I am a depressed person. These things are part of my identity.

I don't want to not have anxiety. I want to know how to manage it. I will never not have anxiety. I will never not have depression. But I don't let them own me. I own them. I couldn't do that at age 12, or 14, or 16. It took time to get here, but I did. Every person's journey is different. I wish mine had been faster and easier and less painful. But I had to do the things I did to end up here. And that journey certainly isn't over. I know it'll probably get a lot worse at some point in the future. I'll struggle with this my whole life. But that's okay, because that's who I am.

And it's certainly not always great even now. Yes, I was ready to accept outside help, but that doesn't mean everything was fixed. I struggle a lot with all of these things. My life in general is in a place where I am doing much better than in the past, but it's a journey that never ends.

If there are people in your life who are anxious or depressed, be there for them. Don't try to fix them. You can't help them unless they are ready to help themselves. Hug them. Make them food. Invite them to do things with you. But let them go on the journey they need to go on.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

New Adventures!

Many exciting things have been happening lately and keeping me quite busy.

The first is that I, with a group of my fellow students at Whatcom Community College, am working on a project to start up a magazine! It is called the Kulshan Digest, and will feature the creative writing of students from Whatcom and Skagit counties. We're planning at the moment to have a prototype issue ready at the beginning of the summer, and have our first official issue out in September.

For more information, and to keep up with what we're up to, go like our facebook page and follow us on twitter! You can find us as "Kulshan Digest" on both.

The second exciting thing I'm doing is a little bittersweet. My lovely Irish Dance teacher is leaving us for three months to go to Ireland, and while she is gone, I and another of the advanced students are picking up all her classes. I'm teaching the beginner class by myself, which should be an adventure, and then my friend and I are co-teaching the intermediate and advanced classes.

It's going to be fun, but also a little scary. I have some plans for what to do with the kids, including some kind of ambitious secret long term ideas that I don't want to say because they're secret!

Both of these projects are things I'm excited about, but also things that take a lot of time, so that's part of my recent quite spell on the blog. I am also as busy as always with school, and in fact even busier than usual with that right now. My english class is really hard, and my german and math classes are both getting more demanding very quickly.

But on the whole, I'm pretty happy and excited about the stuff I have going on. Stay tuned for more about both of these projects!

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Not Going Crazy (Hopefully)

Some days are just tough. Some weeks are harder than others. But the key is to keep going and not be overwhelmed. Sometimes I'm okay at that. Sometimes I freaking suck at it. This is one of those weeks where I'm staving off emotional breakdown.

My classes are going okay right now, but they are all tough. German stresses me out just because I don't know how I'm doing for sure, and I know it's not terrifically. I'm not failing by any means, but I kind of feel like I'm barely skating along.
We just got a new puppy!

My English class is slowly crushing me. Despite being a children's lit class, which is so totally something I would usually love, I kind of hate it. For one thing, it's a 2.5 hour class two days a week. That's not an uncommon class time here, but I hate it with a passion. Two and a half hours in a class is too many. And in this particular class, it's very challenging. I just don't really like any of my classmates all that much. Not that I *dislike* them, I just don't *like* them. I also have a lot of frustrations with the assignments and grading. I like my teacher, but I have a hard time with the way she does things sometimes.
So, to offset the angst, have puppy pics!

Math is always a struggle. It's up and down, and right now, as we move into a unit on logs and exponentials, it's definitely another down. I hate logs. Most things in math I just sort of vaguely dislike, and some I even make peace with once I understand them, but not logarithms. I understand how they work and why I would use them but I just have a deep seeded hatred for them.

Working at the Writing Center is awesome, but there have been lots of little stresses there recently, and I am finding more and more extra projects and hours getting piled on. I don't really want to complain, because I need every hour I can get, but it's just another thing.

She's super cute.
Dance is strange right now. I don't want to say too much cause I don't know what will happen, but there's a good chance I won't really be dancing much for the next few months. I'll write more about that a little later, once I know more about where things are headed.

I'm also getting involved in a new very exciting literary project which I am super pumped about. Again, I'm not going to say any more right now until it's a little more common knowledge, but I'm super excited. It is however another thing to budget time and energy for, and I really need to be careful about taking on too many things as this grows.

She did not enjoy her first bath in the slightest.
On the whole, that's why I haven't been blogging. Life is crazy. I'm so insanely busy right now I don't even know what's going on anymore.

Friday afternoon I was sitting at school after a day full of: math class (8:30-9:20) work (10-11:15) german class (11:15-12:55) and a meeting (2-3:30) and I was so done and basically in breakdown mode. I sat on the couch where I basically live (anyone who goes to WCC knows where I'm talking about) and thought about all the things I had to do this weekend (a few pages of german homework, 100 pages of reading and a 2 page response for english, a presentation to prepare for Tuesday as well as a 2 page write up about it, and some optional math homework as well as a video to make for work).

Seriously, I live on this couch. It also has a pretty good selfie background, and excellent lighting most of the time.
I was sitting up there by myself and freaking out and sent some panicked texts to my boyfriend before he helped me realize that what I really needed was to relax a little bit. I have a really hard time letting myself relax. If I have things to do, even if I'm not doing anything, I'm constantly thinking about all the things I need to do.

Yesterday, I went and hung out at the library at WWU for several hours with my boyfriend and while we did get some productive things done, we spent a lot of the time just talking and hanging out. I came home was more relaxed and ready to work, and I've been in a way better state of mind today to get things done. When I panic, I'm way less productive.

This should be a lesson to me to relax a little more. Though life doesn't always really allow it, I have to put in an effort to sometimes just do nothing.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

January 30th-31st 2016

Saturday

-Slept in and got up late, which is something I really appreciate so much more now that I get to do it so infrequently.

-Ate breakfast with my family, then basically just tried to do homework all day. I didn't get as much done as I had intended, but I did get a lot of German study time in, which I desperately needed.

-I listened to a lot of music, and spent some time curating Spotify playlists, which is always a fun distraction.

-Watching Downton Abbey with my mom and Isabelle.

-Skyped with Spencer! It was super fun and way overdue. We chatted about our respective crazy lives and I filled him in on a lot of Bellingham gossip. We reminisced for a bit about park day and what it used to be.

-Went to bed.

Sunday

-Got up a bit earlier than Saturday, but still didn't get very productive for a while. Chatted with Mom over breakfast about all sorts of things.

-Worked a lot more on German stuff. I was a bit behind on the workbook, but managed to get caught up. I'm feeling a little more prepared for the upcoming test than I had thought I was going to be.

-Did some reading for English, and wrote a reading response. The topic was Historical Fiction, and I swear I could have BSed my way through a paper on that topic in my sleep, so it was pretty easy.

-Went over my math take home quiz with one of my classmates. Luckily we both were pretty confidant and had the same answers. I actually am not too worried about the test I have coming up in that class.

-Watched Downtown Abbey with mom and Isabelle and went to bed.