This year I really wanted my focus to be on fixing all the things that I think need fixing in my life. I know sometimes it's two steps forward and two steps back. Lately it seems to be two forward, five back but that's probably the pessimist in me talking. Maybe I should pick just a few things to focus on all year instead of all things?
I suffer from social anxiety and the occasional panic attack. I am learning a lot about myself. Learning my triggers, learning how to work around them. It doesn't help that I am doing this without medication and therapy. I despise (read DESPISE) having to take medication and I am not opposed to therapy, just haven't found someone that I like. And to be clear, I don't want someone to sugar-coat things but I want them to be personable and relatable. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not.
Lately, due to a few "altercations" or so I will call them, I have had a lot of anxiety attacks and a few panic attacks. For me, the anxiety attacks just give me a stomach ache and make me jittery. The panic attacks feel like what I imagine a heart attack would feel like. They are awful.
I am not a social person. I know this. For lack of a better term, it must be the Asperger's in me. No, I don't have Asperger's, or I am not diagnosed with it but my son does. So it's like saying "I'm having a blond moment or an ADD moment". Not the best of terms, I agree, but using these terms generally explains a lot in a few words and that's why people tend to use them. Or they are just plain mean.
I am not a social person because meeting new people and worrying about whether they will like me or not causes me a LOT of anxiety. I know, at this age, I shouldn't care but I do. I know the "why" but don't know quite how to fix it. I tend to say what I think and some people don't like that. I try not to but it's too much work to not be honest and to be me. I am too tired to be fake. And, if I have to be fake for too long, it usually ends up in a panic attack. So for me, it's not something I do a lot. I guess I can see how that offends people. I try very hard not to say anything but I often get dragged in to these conversations and then when my opinion is asked, I give it. No glitz, no glam, just me.
So, it doesn't help right now that I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I am trying to do so much for so many and I often don't get back anything. Well, nothing tangible. I expect that to some degree but then when I need help, there isn't a lot to go around. Add to that my husband being deployed during the busiest time of year next to Christmas, drama in one volunteer job, past drama in another, and all the usual things that go along with raising kids and I am one step away from a mental hospital with an IV of anti-anxiety drugs.
I won't even get into how inadequate I feel as a parent all the time. Let's just say the following causes me an small panic attack; opening one child's backpack to find he STILL has not done his math work from last week (not sure how I missed that) and the notes written in red all over his papers and sticky flags saying he's getting recess and lunch detention and then a call from the school, which I thought was from his teacher who doesn't like him because he's not a perfectly well-behaved child, only to find out it's my other child who didn't give me his permission slip and he has a field trip today. I hung up the phone thinking how awful it must look to them that I can't keep up and then I start feeling the knot in my stomach and the tightening of my chest. By they way, I usually cry here because it frustrates me so much, but I didn't. Well, not yet anyway.
So that's me. The weight of the world, taking on too much, trying to do for others and then I want to do a house project? Yeah, because I am tired of backseating my life and plans for everyone else.
