Learning to Live with my Fears

Stuff No One Told Me #22 By Alex Noriega

When I first saw this drawing by Alex Noriega I probably said something like Holy Shit! It couldn't have been more perfect if he had drawn it just for me. It looks like me, I drink tea alllll day and I am pushing myself out of a deep anxiety rut.

A few yeas ago I went to see a new age therapist while I was working through some childhood issues. It wasn't anxiety based but we did touch on it, since it's such a large part of my life. Agoraphobia is like a scar. You can definitely get better and function normally but there's always a part of your brain that won't forget.. especially if you keep picking at it.

I remember one session she had me sit on the floor with my shoes off and draw on a huge pad of paper with those fat Crayola markers. She would tell me to draw abstract things like where I see myself in 5 years or what would be inside a gift box that I gave to myself. I think I gave myself a ball of glowing light that would give me energy. (I should have given myself a car or a mortgage-free house.)

Most of the things she asked me to draw were simple and didn't require too much thought, until she asked me to draw my anxiety. I remember just sitting there looking at the ceiling trying to visualize what my panic disorder would look like if I could get it down on paper. It was huge, looming, scary. Evil.

I took the purple marker and drew a big giant blob the size of the paper, with a messy, jagged edge. I added horns, to make it more evil. My therapist was asking me about it while I was drawing it and I remember saying that it was just a really, really, big menacing monster. After looking at it for a while I decided to draw on eyes and a mouth, to give it a face. This ended up making me laugh instead of scaring me. My anxiety was adorable! He had googley eyes and a little grin, like he was in on the joke with me. I added little stick arms and legs and that was that. I couldn't believe I had been so afraid of this guy. He was a big scary monster sure, but he was easy to tame.

After that things actually did get easier. When I felt the shadow of panic creeping over me I would picture the monster behind me, tapping me on the shoulder and running away. It still sucked (and sucks) but it would at least make me smile for a moment when I thought I would go out of my mind with panic.

He's been coming back to bother me lately, but instead of worrying about him I think I'll just offer him some tea. I don't think he's going anywhere so we might as well get reacquainted.

Wear Sunscreen. And Leave the House.

"Be Free" by pennywishes

The other morning when I was watching old videos on youtube (I do this every day) I came across "Everybodys Free To Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann. I remember Much Music playing the video over & over & over back in the day (they had a way to kill everything good) but rewatching it 10 years later I was struck with the soundness of this advice. If only I had listened, but advice is one of those "best seen with hindsight" things, intentions are all well and good, but you have to live through things yourself to be able to understand the advice.

The line "Do one thing every day that scares you" stood out especially for me since I have become so complacent in dealing with anxiety. Lately I have been feeling motivated to pull myself out of the rut I've created and find myself again, so to speak. I feel like I'm coming out of a fog. I feel like myself again. It feels good.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future,
sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked…

You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t,maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen…

The re:365 Project - Take Two, Day One

I finally remembered to throw my camera into my bag today when I went out to the shops to buy ingredients for supper. I find myself saying "I wish I had my camera" almost every time I'm out. (I wish in a way that I had a cell phone with a camera, but that would involve having a cell phone in the first place.)

So on my little walk this afternoon I decided that I should attempt to do a 365 again as a twofold sort of project - one, to get out of the house more often and two, to take more photographs. My anxiety has been acting up the past few weeks so getting out of the house as much as possible will be a good therapy.

This photo was taken in the parking lot outside my building. The arrow points up to a light standard. I'm not sure who's watching, or where they're watching, from but I hope they enjoy the view.

Flashblack Friday #2

While looking for the elusive blanket photo from last weeks Flashback Friday I unearthed a box of photos and trinkets from my last boyfriend that I had hadn't seen in years. I actually thought I had gotten rid of it but when I lifted the lid off the pink cardboard box and saw the stack of photos with ribbon tired around them I was instantly glad that I had decided to save them. I can vaguely recall thinking at the time that I might want to look at them one day.

I started dating Blake right around my 19th birthday. Unfortunately for Blake this was also around the time when I really descended into depression and anxiety. When we met I was a functional girl, working as an admin assistant at the cable company. When we broke up three years later I was a housebound agoraphobic and 80 lbs heavier. It's a really hard period of my life to think about and I still have some guilt towards the way I treated Blake and his family.

Sometimes I think "If I could only go back..." but I can't. It is what it is. I try to keep in mind that I am the person I am today because of the lessons I learned during that period of my life. It was a long time ago now. It was nice to be able to look at the photos and feel happy at the good memories: our first apartment, our cat, our camping trips, our last apartment, the last photo of us together with him putting me in a headlock - how appropriate.

There was a time when I was terrified of running into him when I was out. We have a mutual friend so I know he's married with two children and doing well. I hope he's happy and I hope he's been able to forgive me so that if we ever run into each other we'll be able to say hi and introduce each other to our new families.

Here is our first picture together, taken in Polo Park Mall in 1998. So young!