Anxiety Management

Went to anxiety management today. I absolutely adore my group, but they are all in so much pain. When you get wrapped up in your own problems you tend to forget that other people have feelings and a story to tell. These session have been such a wake up call. It's good to feel that I am not alone. A couple of people have been getting emotional and every week we are revealing more about ourselves. There's less and less people turning up each week, most only turned up for the first session and I think it was too much for them. I'm sad that they are missing out and I feel these sessions could have been very beneficial to them if they had stuck it out, but the decrease in the number of people has made me feel brave enough to talk about my feelings and contribute the discussions. I am the youngest member of the group, everyone else is in their late twenties/early thirties upwards and many of them have children. They all look like normal people you pass in the street, you would never imagine the pain they feel inside and that they were all secretly fearful and anxious. I don't even think some of their friends or close family realise. People are so much more complex than we think. I've been making goals in each session. I haven't told anybody about them, they're my own private goals, but my main goal is not to beat myself up too much if I don't manage to complete some goals. It does more damage than good when I rush myself and push myself too hard, I learned that when school didn't work out. After the first session my first goal was to try and contribute to the next session. The next session arrived and I was so nervous, I kept trying to open my mouth but the words were getting caught in my throat. But a lady that sits next to me started talking and like me she was very nervous and deadly quiet in the first session. Her bravery made me want to talk and I plucked up the courage to contribute to discussions and I even started some of my own. After this session I made a goal to order something for myself. I have been absolutely terrified of interacting with cashiers when buying things so I usually get someone else to go to the tills for me. I achieved this goal but something didn't feel quite right. I made another goal to compliment someone in my third session. Not an insincere, forced kind of compliment though. A lot of people in my group have low self esteem and often say very negative things about themselves. The old me would have paid the a compliment and disagreed with what they were saying. But I am so painfully shy and so scared of rejection that I have just been keeping quiet. In today's session one of the women started crying when she was talking about how she used to want to commit suicide. This woman is so lovely and I really wanted to comfort her but I was too afraid. The woman that sits next to me who made me feel brave enough to contribute to the previous session kept saying really negative things about herself that are so not true. She seems to think she is useless and defective in some way and I really feel it would do her the world of good if I told her how she made me feel. But I am too afraid. I know I said I wouldn't beat myself up for not completing a goal but I can't help it right now. I really wish I had of been brave enough to say something, the old me would have. I spent so much time hating the old me and wishing I was someone else, but now I would give anything to be her.

Time To Allow Myself To Be Vulnerable

I've been avoiding posting anything that I feel is too revealing about myself in this blog. When I first made this blog I was posting about my time at school dealing with a guy who was sexually harassing me. But I felt ashamed to revealing how I felt so I deleted all those entries and now I wish I hadn't :(
So fuck it. I'm an emotional person who fells very deeply and I feel the need to get it all out. I try to convince myself that I don't need to reveal my emotions and I bottle it all up but I'm not going to do hat anymore. I will always be a private person and I won't readily share what's on my mind but I hide things too much. I'm surprised my mother isn't grey yet from worrying about me. I am so secretive but you can still tell something is up with me, I just refuse to reveal what - which makes people think of all the worst case scenarios and worries them unnecessarily.
So I have made a promise. Next time my mom or my boyfriend etc ask if I am okay I will answer trufully. Being secretive isn't protecting myself. It's very isolating behaviour and it's just making me lonely. So it's time to open up more.

I am sad. I have been sad ever since the sexual harassment ordeal. I just can't get my life back on track. I tried to go back to school and I well and truly fucked that up.
I made a promise to be myself and stop putting on a front. But I was trying so hard to be myself that it didn't go according to plan. I was desperate for people to realise that I am a good person and as irrationa las this sounds I was afraid that they would find out about what happened to me and think it was my fault. So I thought if I proved to them that I was good that they would have no reason to think I deserved what I got. I was too accomodating and let people walk all over me. Being away from a school environment for over a year I had forgotten what girls were like and I was awfully guillible and naive. I forgot how bitchy they can be and their hurtful behaviour came as a surprise, especially when I was trying so hard. Before I went back to school I worked hard to lose weight and hardcore dieted and exercised excessively. When I started school I was underweight but I was convinced I was overweight. They guy who sexually harassed me was often unkind about my weight and I was desperate to never be called fat again. But I became obsessed over food and quite afraid of it. I was terrified of putting on weight and would feel guilty and ashamed for feeling hungry, mistaking what is one of teh most natural feelings in the world for greed. We all need to eat but when I ate a normal sized portion of food I felt like I was being a glutton. I was living on hardly anything and it showed. So of course, this made me a target for name calling. The girls were so horrible to me and I was shocked at this. Surely being thinner meant I would never hear an unkind comment again? I felt stupid for thinking this and really beat myself up for it.
In order to further prove that I was a good person I was always standing up for people. This of course made me a target. I thought people would be happy and see that I was a loyal and dependable person but people just saw it was irritating. I was refusing to agree with the majority and refusing to back down...that doesn't exactly make you popular. And the people I stood up for paid me back by siding with the bullies when the attention became focused on me.
I began to feel that I just couldn't do anything right and my obsession with food got worse. I was aware that everyone thought I was too thin but I didn't care. I was clearly not good enough and I needed to change it. I eventually couldn't cope with lack of food, long days at school, lots of homework and bitchy girls so I left. This made me feel like even more of a faliure and I basically starved myself. My life had fallen apart again and I thought it was all my fault.
My mom realised something was wrong just before Christmas. I have been seeign a Psychiatric nurse who has put me on anti depressants and is also my counsellor. The anti depressants stimulate my appetite which greatly distressed me asI was terrified of putting on weight. But they alos help you to feel more balanced and because of this they have saved my life. I started to see what was actually in the mirror. I wasn't fat...I looked awful. My bones were sticking out and I was losing my feminine curves. And I realised that I shouldn't modify myself to please others and there will always be someone who doesn't like you. And they are entitled to their opinion, but you are also entitles to disagree with it. I realised that I am a good person and I don't need to prove that. People will realise that the more they get to know you.
I attend Anxiety Management classes as well and the yare really boosting my confidence. I was terrified of going on medication but I am so glad I did. They are not happy pills, but the ytake the dge off the depression and anxiety so I can rebuild my confidence and my life. I don't like the saying "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger". I always think what doesn't kill you, you can learn from. And I have learned that I was a strong person anyway, I just allowed people to make me feel weak and inferior. I have learned that I have a good heart andI may make mistakes but that doesn't make me a bad person and there;s no need to obsess about proving what a good person I am - I don't needto constantly justify my existence. I am me and for some people that will never be enough. But it;s the people who feel it's more than enough who matter :) Time to allow myself to be more vulnerable with those people as it doesn't make me weak, it just makes me human. And as they have taken the time to get to know me it's only right tha tI take the time to be honest with them :)
So how am I today? Sad. I am sad most days. But I know things will get better, I will make sure they will :)

Surprise surprise...school did not work out.

I left art college. I tried to stick it out but it wasn't right. I had started school again too soon and it sent me 50 steps backwards after I had made so much progress. I have been put on anti-depressants and I'm going to an anxiety management/assertiveness training class soon. I feel a bit frustrated that I'm pretty much back to square one but I suppose that's life. It's unpredictable, not to mention annoying.
Hopefully I can get my confidence back sometime soon. I am worried that it will hold me back and I will amount to nothing :(