starting over

I haven’t posted anything in a while (doesn’t this sound repetitive? oh, yeah, that’s because this sentence has appeared in probably my last 10 posts). Truth is, I’ve been unfaithful to you. I have continuously given up on this blog, but then I keep coming back to it weeks later. In the interim, I’ve been trying other ways to deal with my anxieties. I’m still unsatisfied with the state of the insurance industry — I can’t afford the therapist I was seeing even though I have insurance. For a while, I cut back to one therapy session each month, but even that became a little difficult to juggle financially.

Luckily, I found out that my employer offers 10 free therapy sessions through our employee mental health program. They started out as weekly sessions, but the therapist I’ve been working with has recently made them biweekly. That’s a good thing, because I’m about halfway through, and once I use all 10, I can’t get more. Those are the rules of the program.

Other life developments: I’m in a happy relationship now. A relationship I’m terrified my anxieties will make impossible to maintain. It’s good therapy though. It forces me to combat my fear of abandonment on (almost) a daily basis.

Also, now we think I might actually have OCD. My social fears act more in accordance with symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder than straight social anxiety, although it’s also possible that I have both. For example, when it comes to my fear that people won’t like me, I obsess over whether people like me, and the compulsion in these cases is to seek some kind of reassurance that they do. I exhibit other symptoms of OCD, which I would share here, but I’m thinking of detailing them in another section of the blog. A.K.A. a revamped version of the old “crazy things i enjoy doing” feature, except this time I think I’ll call it “crazy things I do” because I don’t really enjoy all of them.

My final update: I have recently started taking anti-anxiety medication. I’ve never trusted drug companies. I usually think of them as snarling, evil weasels. When I started this blog, I started it as a way of self-medicating (sans illegal drugs) and coping with my issues (which at the time I thought was a form depression — man, I have learned so much since then).  But I also know that sometimes drugs can help. They might not be for everyone, and I am in no way advocating for or against general use of medication. Everyone has to do what feels right for them, personally. It got to a point where I felt like my anxiety had taken over my life for so long, and I was so worn down from dealing with it, that I thought I needed some extra help. I’m going to continue to work with a therapist and research ways of dealing with my anxieties on my own in the meantime. My family doctor suggests I stay on the medication for a year. I guess we’ll see what happens in that time.

I’ll be chronicling my journey here.

I’d also like to share one of my new favorite quotes. It comes from an odd source — for an inspirational quote, anyway. That’s probably why it appeals to me.

“Whatever you fear most has no power over you. It’s the fear that has the power.” — Lyn Cassady, The Men Who Stare at Goats

Although a fictional character (albeit one based on a real person), I think the man makes a good point.