Battle Kitten: Ascension

[fleaball]

21 hours ago, Wobbegong said:

Is that the one you recommended to me? I ended up not getting it because a bunch of the Amazon reviews indicated it was really poorly written in ways that I thought would bother me. I got "The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control & Becoming Whole" by Arielle Schwartz instead. I'm only 15% through according to kindle but it's short and so far it seems pretty good. The forward states explicitly that it is for people who are aware they need therapy but have not started yet and are not sure what kind of therapy would help them most, but so far I haven't gotten into any of that part as far as I can tell. 

Yeah. I read the introduction and it wasn't bad, but the formatting of the book itself is just a hot mess. People on Reddit swear by it, but I wonder if they looked past the flaws because the information was so important. I can't do that, so the book is getting returned to Amazon and I'll order the one you have. I mean I've literally noped out of AO3 before because a fic had too many empty lines between paragraphs, or quotations marks in the wrong places, or other stupid things. There's no way I can handle a 300-page book that doesn't even have spaces between sections in the table of contents. Yikes. 

 

6 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

So ironically, I wasn't feeling 100% and I went to Starbucks to get a mint tea with lemonade ala your thread.

 

Apparently now, they have a Citrus Defender beverage which is with the Defense tea, lemonade, and honey. 

 

Not too shabby. But forewarning, they put 2 honey packs in a Venti. 

that's so much sugar omg. I have no idea what the defense tea is because they changed all the teas after I quit but it sounds tasty. I saw on the app that they have one that's peach tea, mint tea, water, and lemonade. I kinda want one just for the hell of it, but I don't want to tempt the universe. 

 

6 hours ago, Severine said:

FWIW, many years ago, my old doctor noticed that I was super uncomfortable when she was examining me and she asked if there was something wrong or if she was alarming me with anything she was doing (yay for trauma-informed doctors) and I explained I was self-conscious about not having shaved (and then got even more embarrassed about getting embarrassed). She just stared back at me confused for a second, and then laughed a bit. She said hadn't even noticed (which, surprisingly, I believed) and I should totally not worry because when you've worked with so many bodies it becomes totally uninteresting and not something doctors process/judge in the same was as normal people.

 

Obviously not all doctors/PTs/whatever are the same, but thinking of that does give me comfort when I'm self conscious. When something is a daily part of your job you get really desensitized, for good or ill.

5 hours ago, Echocheanic said:

Believe her. People don't notice if they aren't looking for it, and even then they might not. 

 

Yeah every medical professional I've ever apologized to for not shaving or for missing giant swaths of hair (how?! after 20 years how do I manage this?!) has been like "please, we don't even notice and also we've seen much worse." And I also remind myself that they regularly deal with men who are much hairier than I am at my worst, and those guys probably never think to apologize for being hairy, so my brain can fuck off with its misplaced guilt. 

 

I do genuinely like having smooth legs, I just am way too lazy to shave. And razor blades are stupid expensive. If I ever hit the lottery I'm 100% going the laser route. 

 

5 hours ago, Echocheanic said:

 

If you ask me, the very fact she offered for you to get away from your family is proof enough that she understands that you can't have her there because of outside reasons.

 

You are doing better don't worry. It's small steps but you're making progress in a terrible situation.

 

Very true. I think it mostly bothers me on a personal level that if I ever wanted to invite someone over it would require super advance notice and a shit ton of effort. After I already spent a shit ton of time and effort over the summer cleaning up after the 3 adults that lived here. 

 

Turned out to be a moot point anyway because a) it's too expensive for her to come here first then go meet her friend and b.) she said she'd never invite herself here/expect to be hosted, and had planned on getting a hotel anyway so she could come and go as she pleased without worrying about my potential work schedule. So anxiety was a dick for nothing but oh well.

[Wobbegong]

13 minutes ago, fleaball said:

I've literally noped out of AO3 before because a fic had too many empty lines between paragraphs

I do that sometimes too and the other issues you mentioned are legit but I will say as someone who has posted on AO3 their auto-formatting is bullshit and randomly adds a bunch of extra paragraph breaks for no reason sometimes. :/ So it might not be the author's fault, is all I'm saying. 

 

 

[fleaball]

8 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

I do that sometimes too and the other issues you mentioned are legit but I will say as someone who has posted on AO3 their auto-formatting is bullshit and randomly adds a bunch of extra paragraph breaks for no reason sometimes. :/ So it might not be the author's fault, is all I'm saying. 

I believe it. I remember it happening to me on ff.net. I don't necessarily blame the author, but I still can't read it that way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Wobbegong]

11 hours ago, fleaball said:

I believe it. I remember it happening to me on ff.net. I don't necessarily blame the author, but I still can't read it that way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No I totally agree it's unreadable. Ugh. But yes the CPTSD book I have, I got for Kindle so the formatting might be slightly different, and I didn't really look at the table of contents, but I suspect they paid a lot of attention to the formatting when transitioning because 1) it's super duper readable 2) the sections are really clear and 3) they added in a note to kindle users at the beginning saying "here is how to annotate books on kindle in case you didn't know, this is a workbook so please annotate." 

[fleaball]

Endodontist didn’t find anything obviously wrong with my tooth despite my saying it’s been happening for at least 2 months now. (I kept ignoring it assuming it was related to clenching my jaw but then when it was stupid cold last week the ice cold tap water pissed off that tooth and that tooth only, so I got worried.) I have to go back in two weeks for a recheck to see if anything changes. Luckily they don’t charge for that. 

 

I also have a prescription for new glasses. Apparently the ones I’ve been wearing for the past year are more of a reading prescription than reading and computer, which makes a difference because you obviously don’t get as close to a computer screen as a book. Or you shouldn’t anyway. So she said I could keep my current ones for reading and just get the new ones for the computer. Uggggggh. 

 

I really need my body to just take a fucking break and stop trying to wreck itself. 

[Severine]

38 minutes ago, fleaball said:

Endodontist didn’t find anything obviously wrong with my tooth

 

I'm honestly not sure if this is good news or bad news. Like...good? Except...why does it hurt? Frustrating 

 

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, Severine said:

 

I'm honestly not sure if this is good news or bad news. Like...good? Except...why does it hurt? Frustrating 

 

Right?? it’s like “good news, you don’t need a root canal! Bad news... you don’t need a root canal?”

[fleaball]

So much anxietyyyyy. Probably because of the stupid fucking driving. I probably won’t be able to drive tomorrow because there’s a flood warning for the entirety of southern New England. Rain is supposed to start early in the morning and go all day. So I’m hyper aware of the number of rides I need to get a credit toward my rental and keep more money, but I’m not getting them so I’m getting more and more stressed. I’m reminding myself to do what I can and see what happens but some part of my brain is not getting the memo. :/

 

eta: hurr durr bleeding probably has something to do with it too. 

[fleaball]

Yuuuuup driving tomorrow isn’t happening. Streets are already a mess without the rain. 

 

Also, did calf raises when I stopped to pee. Ankle feels okay doing it, but my knee is pissed. Womp. 

[Severine]

Yeah today we're supposed to get up to 3" of rain (which is how much MA usually gets in like 3-4 weeks normally) plus all the water that's going to melt from the rain and warmer temps...so they're predicting flooding. And then the temperature is going to go way below freezing again so all the water will freeze? So much fun.

 

I can't blame you at all for not wanting to drive in that. D decided to work from home so as not to deal with the roads.

 

 

[fleaball]

Anxiety buster moment: noticed in the Lyft app that I have to go back to the hellstore to renew my rental on Tuesday. App also says "your rental provider limits the number of consecutive renewals" something something if you reach the limit you have to return the car and they'll try to give you another vehicle. And of course I panic because what the fuck if they take my car and I have to wait another week to get a new one I'm going to be so fucked and it's not fair etc etc. So I called the place (repeatedly, since no one was picking up the phone even though they're supposedly open at 10). And the dude said no, as long as the car is functioning you can keep the same one indefinitely. I feel like it's probably a case of "that's what we're supposed to be doing but we've decided it's too much of a hassle so we're ignoring it." But I did it and now the only reason I'm dreading going in is the typical "how fucking long will I need to wait there?" I also think I'm going to start posting more about how I make anxiety go away. I like the sound of "anxiety buster." I do this kind of thing as often as I can tbh but posting about it will reinforce to myself that I'm actually doing things about anxiety when I have the opportunity. It's not going to help the overall situation much, but giving individual anxiety episodes the finger is something. 

 

4 hours ago, Severine said:

Yeah today we're supposed to get up to 3" of rain (which is how much MA usually gets in like 3-4 weeks normally) plus all the water that's going to melt from the rain and warmer temps...so they're predicting flooding. And then the temperature is going to go way below freezing again so all the water will freeze? So much fun.

 

I can't blame you at all for not wanting to drive in that. D decided to work from home so as not to deal with the roads.

Yeah, I'm already leaning toward not going out tomorrow if all this shit is going to freeze. I'm pissed. I'm glad the snow is mostly gone but rawr. D: 

 

Oh lame, I was considering getting Chipotle tonight with my gift card (  ) but the street and parking lot flood constantly so that's probably out. Boo.

[Echoceanic]

On 10/01/2018 at 5:13 AM, fleaball said:

I believe it. I remember it happening to me on ff.net. I don't necessarily blame the author, but I still can't read it that way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After I became a typesetter, I started paying attention to the formatting and now some books I have are embarrass me. 

 

6 hours ago, Severine said:

Yeah today we're supposed to get up to 3" of rain (which is how much MA usually gets in like 3-4 weeks normally) plus all the water that's going to melt from the rain and warmer temps...so they're predicting flooding. And then the temperature is going to go way below freezing again so all the water will freeze? So much fun.

So a recipe for failing on your butt five times a day. 

 

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

So I called the place (repeatedly, since no one was picking up the phone even though they're supposedly open at 10).

Oh buy do I hate these types of people. I have yelled 'answer the fucking phone' too many times in my life.

 

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

But I did it and now the only reason I'm dreading going in is the typical "how fucking long will I need to wait there?"

I used to hate waiting but headphones help. Especially in places where you don't need to hear your name being called but watch for a number.

 

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

I like the sound of "anxiety buster." I do this kind of thing as often as I can tbh but posting about it will reinforce to myself that I'm actually doing things about anxiety when I have the opportunity. It's not going to help the overall situation much, but giving individual anxiety episodes the finger is something. 

Yup this is a great idea. Looking forward to the buster moments  

[fleaball]

UGH. My father came home early and tl;dr I wound up driving to the supermarket in the neighboring city because we needed cat litter and our store is perpetually out, then helping him pay his credit card bill, then helping him buy a watch on Amazon, then finally making him dig out my grandmother's estate paperwork from the abyss of the back porch. An hour and a half later I've been dismissed and now I have no desire to do any of the things I wanted to get done today. >> I'm looking at my to do list and realizing there are way too many things on there to realistically get done in a day anyway, but job applications have to happen, at minimum. 

 

Still can't figure out if Lyft is desperate for people or if they're just trying to woo me back, because like Monday I've gotten 3 different bonus offers today. Trust me guys, if I drove Chitty Chitty Bang Bang I'd be out there tonight. But I don't, and I'm not keen on getting stranded in the middle of a street somewhere, so fuck off. 

 

15 minutes ago, Echocheanic said:

After I became a typesetter, I started paying attention to the formatting and now some books I have are embarrass me. 

Oh man I can't imagine what it must be like from a professional POV. Books with wonky layouts and spacing bother me way too much already and I don't even know how they're supposed to be. On a technical level, I mean. 

 

17 minutes ago, Echocheanic said:

I used to hate waiting but headphones help. Especially in places where you don't need to hear your name being called but watch for a number.

Ha, you have yet to experience "Flea waiting at Lyft" days. I have literally spent upwards of two hours at this place waiting to do a 5-minute transaction. It's first come first served (you sign in so there's an order they follow) so you can't make appointments, they seem to change their working hours on a whim, there's always at least one technical problem that holds everything up and usually also a problem where the cars they're supposed to be renting out to people haven't been released in the system for renting out so they have to get a hold of some guy who's never available and everyone has to wait for that to get resolved, the last 3 times I've been there at least one person has walked up with "I just have a quick question" and winds up cutting the entire line because it's not a quick question... the whole thing is a clusterfuck and I usually wind up posting a play by play out of frustration and boredom. I bring my headphones and I've learned now to make sure my phone is charged before I get there, but it's still utterly obnoxious to wait two hours to either turn in your keys and return a car or to say "yes hello I would like to keep this vehicle, please print me a new contract to sign."

 

I also complain. A lot. About everything.

 

21 minutes ago, Echocheanic said:

Yup this is a great idea. Looking forward to the buster moments  

[fleaball]

How to drive yourself crazy without even trying: 

 

Out of nowhere, this thought popped into my head. Once she finally got it through her head that she was going to die and no amount of obstinance was going to change that, she told my father not to even have a funeral mass. Just a small service in the funeral home. She told me she didn't want to be a hypocrite and have a mass. She didn't say why beyond that, but then changed her mind when I said her mother had had a mass and hadn't been to church in years. Part of me, a silly part, wondered if maybe the hypocrite thing wasn't that she hadn't been to church but that she realized she'd been a terrible person and fucked up her fucking kid. 

 

And then I remembered that half an hour later she was telling the priest (who was black and had a Caribbean accent and whom she questioned on being a Catholic priest purely for that reason) that I was her best friend and her baby and all kinds of other bullshit, so odds are no, she was not at all worried about how she ruined me.

[Echoceanic]

23 hours ago, fleaball said:

Ha, you have yet to experience "Flea waiting at Lyft" days. I have literally spent upwards of two hours at this place waiting to do a 5-minute transaction. It's first come first served (you sign in so there's an order they follow) so you can't make appointments, they seem to change their working hours on a whim, there's always at least one technical problem that holds everything up and usually also a problem where the cars they're supposed to be renting out to people haven't been released in the system for renting out so they have to get a hold of some guy who's never available and everyone has to wait for that to get resolved, the last 3 times I've been there at least one person has walked up with "I just have a quick question" and winds up cutting the entire line because it's not a quick question... the whole thing is a clusterfuck and I usually wind up posting a play by play out of frustration and boredom. I bring my headphones and I've learned now to make sure my phone is charged before I get there, but it's still utterly obnoxious to wait two hours to either turn in your keys and return a car or to say "yes hello I would like to keep this vehicle, please print me a new contract to sign."

 

I also complain. A lot. About everything.

 

This sounds like the hospitals here actually (though it has gotten better recently). The cutting happens so much that people race to the desk. 

 

23 hours ago, fleaball said:

Oh man I can't imagine what it must be like from a professional POV. Books with wonky layouts and spacing bother me way too much already and I don't even know how they're supposed to be. On a technical level, I mean. 

Oh and I'm also a writer so I also understand the technical side of that. 'this dialog tag is in the wrong place, this indent is wrong' are thoughts I have all the time. Though if you know how many times I have had to fix something I did right but the program messed up you'd cut them more slack, but rag on the proofreaders more.  

[fleaball]

Spoiler

 

Took the day off more or less for the express purpose of working on job applications. I did check the Lyft app a few times but it was dead even by Sunday standards so I don't feel quite so bad about that part. But the closest I've come to an application is pulling up the website for the highest priority one. Not even logging in, it's just sitting in a tab waiting for me to pay attention to it.

 

It's not pure procrastination so much as massive fucking anxiety. And it pisses me off because I don't know how to fix it. I'm afraid of being rejected, of actually being called for an interview and then fucking it up, of the stupid fucking salary question, afraid that I might actually get the job and then massively fuck up, I'm just afraid of everything. And it's stupid because none of these things is the end of the world. Don't get an interview? Apply for other things. Bomb the interview? Apply for other things. Fuck up the salary discussion? Negotiate or apply elsewhere. Actually get the job? They'll fucking train you and they're not going to let you near the big red button anyway. But I discussed all of these things with my therapist last year and clearly it didn't help. 

 

I'm so tired of living like this. I shouldn't be afraid of these things. I want to succeed but I actively avoid opportunities to do so. I want to be told I'm doing a good job but I immediately wonder what someone's ulterior motive is for doing exactly that. I want to make friends but every time I meet someone I wonder they the fuck they'd want to be friends with me so I pull away or at least have trouble trusting them. It is killing me that I'm constantly in my own way no matter what I try to do and that I can't just be a normal fucking human being. The only way I can think of to make it through this is to just keep going and show myself that I'm not a complete idiot. Except overcoming crippling self-doubt by sheer force of will isn't a viable plan. 

 

I hate that I'm like this. I hate that I'm 6 weeks shy of 30 years old and couldn't tell you a single personal strength if you paid me. (At least not one prefaced by "well someone once told me I'm good at X.") I have no idea what I want out of life. I have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm desperate for human connections but I'm terrified by the mere idea of a relationship because I'm afraid of losing myself entirely and just can't understand the concept of someone caring about me? I've spent 3 decades being alive and I feel like all I've done is take up space. I'm existing but I'm not living. And even if I can get a therapist to answer my fucking emails it's still going to take years to fix anything. I feel so fundamentally broken that I can't imagine ever being worth anything to anyone for any reason.

 

This whole thing is stupid. I feel stupid for even writing it. But god I would give anything to live in a world where I wasn't afraid of my own shadow and thought I might be worth something and didn't question the motives of anyone who gives me the time of day.

 

 

[Emma]

I totally get the anxiety thing. Not trusting people, being afraid of people, being afraid of what people might think of you. Stop telling yourself you shouldn't be afraid. You are afraid and it's legitimate and you are not the only one. Take baby steps. (Watch the movie "what about Bob?" Bill Murray) The second step is a little bit easier and then the third and it will take  a while but eventually you will be running. 

The way to gain confidence is small successes. And small successes lead to more confidence and bigger successes. So break it down into baby steps and just start there. Maybe just looking at job website is the baby step you need to do. 

Have you ever considered a life coach instead of a therapist? They have a different approach and mine helped me a lot after the divorce when I was trying to join the mainstream culture.

 And I'm pretty sure a lot of your anxiety is related to your dad. Hang in there.

 

 

[Plazmotic]

7 hours ago, fleaball said:

I feel so fundamentally broken that I can't imagine ever being worth anything to anyone for any reason.

I can relate to a lot of the things you’re feeling. Like, I totally wrote up a whole question to submit to Ask Polly that basically boiled down to “I just turned 37 and I’m afraid of life HOW DO I STOP BEING AFRAID OF LIFE??” Hugs.

[fleaball]

8 hours ago, Emma said:

And I'm pretty sure a lot of your anxiety is related to your dad. Hang in there.

He's not helping, but that's not the whole story. I've always been like this.

 

8 hours ago, Emma said:

Have you ever considered a life coach instead of a therapist?

I have nothing against life coaching but I absolutely need to see a therapist to work on past trauma if I'm going to have any hope of becoming a functional human being.

[Echoceanic]

I've been anxious but I've never had anxiety, so I don't have any advice for you on conquering that. But I can say this, everyone is worth something. Your age doesn't mean anything. You can be 50 and still not know what to do with your life. And there is no checklist that you need to fill out before you hit a certain age. Everyone does things at their own speed and you have already come a long way by realising that it's a thing that you can work on. There are people that never get there. 

There are a lot of people who care about you. Heck I've know you for only a few weeks I think (minus the lurking I did before we crossed paths in a post) and I care about you. You're a good person that is going through a lot and also battling her own brain. It's like playing a game where your controller just stops working at times. You'll figure it out, don't be too hard on yourself.

[Cataleya]

I've been anxious but I've never had anxiety, so I don't have any advice for you on conquering that. But I can say this, everyone is worth something. Your age doesn't mean anything. You can be 50 and still not know what to do with your life. And there is no checklist that you need to fill out before you hit a certain age. Everyone does things at their own speed and you have already come a long way by realising that it's a thing that you can work on. There are people that never get there. 
There are a lot of people who care about you. Heck I've know you for only a few weeks I think (minus the lurking I did before we crossed paths in a post) and I care about you. You're a good person that is going through a lot and also battling her own brain. It's like playing a game where your controller just stops working at times. You'll figure it out, don't be too hard on yourself.

Basically this. One of my best friends in undergrad (and now) was a guy in his 50s who was going for his degree, ended up with an MSW, and is a badass. His wife didn't get started at her new job until around her early to mid 50s either, and it's her life calling. I know it's hard as an honors kid to not judge yourself by impossible standards but you're totally worth the investment, even if you're not where you want to be right now. Just keep moving forward. Things will get a lot better once you're out of your current situation, and we're all here for you in the meantime. And always.

[fleaball]

3 hours ago, Echocheanic said:

I've been anxious but I've never had anxiety, so I don't have any advice for you on conquering that. But I can say this, everyone is worth something. Your age doesn't mean anything. You can be 50 and still not know what to do with your life. And there is no checklist that you need to fill out before you hit a certain age. Everyone does things at their own speed and you have already come a long way by realising that it's a thing that you can work on. There are people that never get there. 

There are a lot of people who care about you. Heck I've know you for only a few weeks I think (minus the lurking I did before we crossed paths in a post) and I care about you. You're a good person that is going through a lot and also battling her own brain. It's like playing a game where your controller just stops working at times. You'll figure it out, don't be too hard on yourself.

 

13 minutes ago, Cataleya said:

Basically this. One of my best friends in undergrad (and now) was a guy in his 50s who was going for his degree, ended up with an MSW, and is a badass. His wife didn't get started at her new job until around her early to mid 50s either, and it's her life calling. I know it's hard as an honors kid to not judge yourself by impossible standards but you're totally worth the investment, even if you're not where you want to be right now. Just keep moving forward. Things will get a lot better once you're out of your current situation, and we're all here for you in the meantime. And always.

 

it's less "omg I'm 29 and I can't believe I haven't gotten a Nobel prize yet" and more just feeling like I've done literally nothing of value, ever. Have done nothing with my undergrad degrees. Got fancy scholarships in undergrad to study Arabic abroad and literally haven't used it in 7 years. I'm questioning whether I should even have gone to grad school. All of these things that are supposed to mean success have turned out to be a waste. I know that having a life plan and knowing what you want to be when you grow up is kind of unrealistic because things change (picked my undergrad major when I was 13, switched it after 3 semesters in college) but I feel like all I've done is waste time and money, and I don't even have a good reason for it. If I'd majored in finance or something and then left my career at a fancy mulitnational corporation because it was eating away at my soul, that would be one thing. But it's just like, I've had these opportunities that some people will literally never have, yet I spend my time chauffeuring drunk college students around for nothing and reading gay fanfic about two assholes on a shitty genre show simply because I'm so convinced I will never be capable of anything better.

[fleaball]

In other news, the Father story of the day: I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to collect all the forms he needs to be appointed executor for my mother's estate. Shouldn't have taken that long, but for some reason I couldn't get any of them to open in a browser other than IE. And then I had to fight with the printer downstairs to connect my computer to it, only to find out there was no ink. But I digress. Spent time collecting all these forms. Emailed them to him so he could print them at work. 

 

He comes home today and while I'm in the kitchen is like "So I actually printed all those forms and I even started working on them at work."

"But you forgot to bring them home with you?" He actually got indignant and told me I ruined the whole setup of his story. "Well you're a little predictable at this point." He didn't like that much either. 

 

I'm waiting to hear that he's taken a day off later in the week to go to the courthouse and file all this shit, despite my reminding him constantly that the instructions say you have to mail a copy of everything 10 days before you intend to go file it.  And then he'll get mad and it won't be his fault that he's an idiot.

[Severine]

I was ruminating on this reply for quite a while before I wrote it because it's big important stuff and I have so many different thoughts and reactions that it's hard to sort through. As you know, I go through a lot of similar anxiety stuff and I feel like sometimes that helps me relate but sometimes it also just means my own feelings get in the way when trying to talk about your stuff. So forgive any of this that turns out to be nonsense.

 

On 15/1/2018 at 1:39 AM, fleaball said:

I'm so tired of living like this. I shouldn't be afraid of these things. I want to succeed but I actively avoid opportunities to do so. I want to be told I'm doing a good job but I immediately wonder what someone's ulterior motive is for doing exactly that. I want to make friends but every time I meet someone I wonder they the fuck they'd want to be friends with me so I pull away or at least have trouble trusting them. It is killing me that I'm constantly in my own way no matter what I try to do and that I can't just be a normal fucking human being. The only way I can think of to make it through this is to just keep going and show myself that I'm not a complete idiot. Except overcoming crippling self-doubt by sheer force of will isn't a viable plan. 

 

I hate that I'm like this. I hate that I'm 6 weeks shy of 30 years old and couldn't tell you a single personal strength if you paid me. (At least not one prefaced by "well someone once told me I'm good at X.") I have no idea what I want out of life. I have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm desperate for human connections but I'm terrified by the mere idea of a relationship because I'm afraid of losing myself entirely and just can't understand the concept of someone caring about me? I've spent 3 decades being alive and I feel like all I've done is take up space. I'm existing but I'm not living. And even if I can get a therapist to answer my fucking emails it's still going to take years to fix anything. I feel so fundamentally broken that I can't imagine ever being worth anything to anyone for any reason.

 

This whole thing is stupid. I feel stupid for even writing it. But god I would give anything to live in a world where I wasn't afraid of my own shadow and thought I might be worth something and didn't question the motives of anyone who gives me the time of day.

11 hours ago, fleaball said:

it's less "omg I'm 29 and I can't believe I haven't gotten a Nobel prize yet" and more just feeling like I've done literally nothing of value, ever. Have done nothing with my undergrad degrees. Got fancy scholarships in undergrad to study Arabic abroad and literally haven't used it in 7 years. I'm questioning whether I should even have gone to grad school. All of these things that are supposed to mean success have turned out to be a waste. I know that having a life plan and knowing what you want to be when you grow up is kind of unrealistic because things change (picked my undergrad major when I was 13, switched it after 3 semesters in college) but I feel like all I've done is waste time and money, and I don't even have a good reason for it. If I'd majored in finance or something and then left my career at a fancy mulitnational corporation because it was eating away at my soul, that would be one thing. But it's just like, I've had these opportunities that some people will literally never have, yet I spend my time chauffeuring drunk college students around for nothing and reading gay fanfic about two assholes on a shitty genre show simply because I'm so convinced I will never be capable of anything better.

 

Quoting the main stuff that I'm responding to, just for clarity. There are obviously a bunch of recurring ideas here, but the one that stands out to me right now is the feeling of standing on the sidelines and watching time pass, feeling paralyzed by anxiety such that you feel like an frustrated spectator of your own life, unable to take action or find fulfillment from what's going on.

 

The first impulse of people who care is going to be to disagree with you. It was my initial impulse, too. "No, look at all you've accomplished!" and "But you had all these challenges to overcome so it's totally understandable that you're in the current situation" and "But you have so much time left and anything is possible." And all of that is true (all of the things people above said, too) BUT...I am not writing a post like that. Because when I read your post and find myself nodding along and relating to a lot of what you're saying, I realize that it's because I feel that way a lot too. And guess what? We feel like we're falling short of our full potential because it's fucking TRUE.

 

Anxiety fucking sucks. It DOES diminish people's capacity and resilience. It does make it harder to take chances, to do things, to dream and plan and live life fully. That's why it's such a shitty, shitty disorder. No amount of me trying to tell you that you're being too hard on yourself and actually you're fine the way you are is going to help because it's not true. The truth is that you had the bad luck to inherit/develop an anxiety disorder and it takes effort to manage and cure, just like any disorder or illness. 

 

Your anxiety is very real. It is harming you, and denying you things you would otherwise have. It has led to you missing out on friendships and opportunities. It has played some part in landing you in a place where you are not currently happy with your situation or trajectory. It has you in a mindset where even your accomplishments and strengths seem like liabilities because they just make you wonder why you didn't do more with them, etc. You have piles of experience and evidence to remind you that yeah, anxiety really does reduce your options and energy and abilities below their true potential.

Of course you're frustrated and tired of dealing with it. It's so so much to deal with, and our society sucks at supporting people in your situation emotionally or tangibly. But it is not the end of the story. There are treatments that can work. Moving out will make a huge difference. There are coping mechanisms and therapy techniques and adaptations that make it easier, some of which you are already using.

 

I think it's important to separate honest frustration (which is healthy and understandable) from blame (which is unfair and makes things worse). The mental-health-to-physical-health analogy is overdone but I'm doing it anyway: if you found it hard to initiate friendships or apply for jobs or find a career direction or whatever because you had leukemia or lupus or whatever, you would still feel frustrated, but probably not so quick to blame yourself. Embrace the frustration - it's the part of you that realizes this shit ain't right and needs to be fixed, because you are awesome and capable of so much more once you're not lugging this burden around constantly. That's the part of you that makes you keep emailing therapists and wading through insurance bullshit and posting on NF and all that. But fuck the part that is trying to blame you for it and make you feel like you're worthless or unlovable because of it.

 

The world is full of people with anxiety disorders who are in relationships that make their lives better, who work at jobs that use their skills and let them contribute, who mostly feel like life is something that can be tackled and enjoyed. You are going to be one of those people. You might need to tackle one part at a time - job search, then moving out, then meeting people, or whatever. Every step is going to be harder than if you didn't have anxiety. But I swear, you absolutely can do it. And you have a whole collection of people on here who care about you, and find you worth their time and friendship. People are not particularly charitable when it comes to friendship, on average - people are not here for community service. People are here because of YOU. Eventually you will start to see what they see, and trust that they really see it.

[Severine]

Oy, sorry that was so bloody long. Somebody stop me.