It won’t just go away…

My mental health. My anxiety. It won’t just go away. 

I can’t just decide that after a life time of anxiety that I’m going to be just ok. My mental health doesn’t work for the convenience and comfort of other people. 

I don’t wake up every day thinking “how can I make other people’s lives harder by being anxious and not coping with things other people don’t struggle with? How can I inconvenience other people with my mental health today?”

I can’t just wake up one day and decide I’m cured and be ok.

I can’t just snap out of it, get over it, decide to be fine. 

I don’t want to feel this way. I would love to not feel like I live life on a knife edge. 

But I do. 

I don’t want to inconvenience others, I don’t want to have to manage my life in a way that doesn’t suit others, to protect my mental health. I don’t want to be almost broken, trying to glue myself back together. I want to be ok but I’m not there yet! 

I am not this way because it is enjoyable or fun. I’ve lived a lifetime of this and it hurts and it scars and it sits lurking, waiting to rob me of all my joy. 

I don’t want to be this way, I fight hard daily. I am better than I have been. I have come along way. I recognise triggers, I know what punches to take and what blows to avoid. I can see the dark tunnel closing in on me and I know now what to try and do to stop it swallowing me whole for weeks and months. I make mistakes. I am fallible and I fail as much as I succeed.

But I am a work in progress and it takes time to undo the habits of a lifetime. To mend a mind that only sees life one way. 

It isn’t easy. 

Sometimes it’s ten steps forward and a couple of steps back. Sometimes it’s staying in one place for a while then a leap forward. Sometimes it’s a lot of hard work and triumph at the end. Sometimes it’s a lot of fear, tears, frustration and a backslide a bit until I work out a way to drag myself back. 

Sometimes it’s medication and therapy and sometimes it’s just making sure I practice good self care and make sure I’m accountable to others. It’s learning how to trust myself and to see life a new way. 

But it won’t just go away. If I could make it go away I would. I can’t. 

I am trying and I will succeed but it takes time and it’s not a perfect journey and I don’t need to be given a deadline or a goal by other people watching me climb and fall. 

I will rise, I am strong but I also fight hard. 

This is me. I am ashamed and I am not broken but I am a work in progress. 

It will not just go away. Stop trying to make me make it! 

Posted in Mental Health and tagged Anxiety, anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, managing your mental health, mental-health.