Tag: panic disorder

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Psychosomatic Symptoms

For as long as I can remember, I have not felt 100% physically. I honestly can’t remember the last time that I felt energetic, happy, and healthy. I have definitely felt one or two of those things, but I can’t remember the last time I felt all three.

For a while, I searched for a physical reason why I physically felt so crappy. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that a doctor looked into my mental health as a reason why I felt the way I felt. Here are some of the ways that physical symptoms crop up when I am experiencing depressive or anxious episodes.

Headaches/Migraines

I started experiencing headaches and fogginess during high school. I admit that I didn’t have great attendance during that time of my life. I missed the absolute maximum number of days that I could without seeing my grades suffer. I couldn’t really explain why I felt sick so often, but there were so many days where I felt like I couldn’t possibly lift my head up from my bed. A general heaviness in my head that caused a bit of fogginess and confusion plagued my years of high school. Once I ran out of missed days to burn, I would force myself to go to school completely dissociated. Outwardly, I displayed a chipper and happy-go-lucky persona. Inwardly, I couldn’t feel much. Everything felt like an act that I was doing on autopilot. I didn’t have the vocabulary to advocate for myself. I didn’t have the awareness to admit that I was depressed.

I became intimately acquainted with migraines later on in high school and during university. They would hit me at the end of a long day. It was almost as if the migraines served as an anchor to bring me back to Earth from a day of dissociation. They were horrible. They were likely brought on by a lack of sleep, dehydration, and hunger. All of those things a result of depression.

Stomach Issues

I have always described my gut as “sensitive.” I have very real and very physical reactions to anxiety. Feeling “butterflies” in my stomach is a very nice way to describe an upset stomach brought on by my nerves. During especially anxious periods, I have sharp pains in my stomach that result in indigestion or diarrhea. Nothing feels good to eat. My appetite is ruined. The hunger that results from a low appetite becomes a vicious cycle of feeling anxiety due to being physically hungry.

Neck and Shoulder Pain

For as long as I can remember, I have been tense in my neck and shoulders. I find myself clenching when I am anxious and slouching in order to minimize my body when I feel depressed. This pain contributes to the constant and general discomfort I feel on a daily basis.

Rapid Heartbeat and Shortness of Breath

Panic attacks really showcase this very physical symptom. I have confused panic attack symptoms for an actual heart attack. I still remember the first time I really experienced being unable to take a deep breath. It has been a long time since I have experienced a panic attack, but the aftermath of a panic attack brings on many of the above symptoms as well.

If you are also struggling to find the reason for your very real and very physical symptoms, discuss exploring mental health issues with a physician and mental health professional.

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Too Much to Look Forward To

I never thought I’d be complaining about having way too much to look forward to. During 2019 and 2020, I was constantly working with having nothing to look forward to. I felt trapped in pattern of constant grind. I was treading water with my head barely above the surface.

I’m so happy and grateful to say that with the end of 2021 drawing near, I have a plethora of things to look forward to in these last few months and the beginning of 2022.

However… this has really triggered a bad case of anticipatory anxiety. No. This is not some new anxiety disorder. It is simply a common symptom of my Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis. The main trigger of my anticipatory anxiety is the fear I have of the worst case scenario.

Many sufferers of GAD have trouble “turning off” their brain. I’ve been told that I have a vivid imagination, and a knack for imagining the worst of any scenario. It’s frustrating and terrifying to frequently be jumping to terrifying conclusions about the future. Here are some things that have helped me cope with my brain running off to “What If Land.”

  1. Talk it out with someone. I am so lucky to have friends and a partner that are able to objectively look at some of my thoughts and fears and gently help me through them. Sometimes, just saying the fear or distortion out loud is enough for us to recognize the flaws in logic that the anxiety disorder is creating. Having a trusted and level-headed confidant listen and help you through the logic can be even better.
  2. Work through your cognitive distortions. Often times, anxiety is convincing us of a very unrealistic or unlikely worst-case scenario. By simply asking, “How likely is this to happen?” we are able to start sorting through the distortion and give ourselves a more objective lens to look through the thoughts. This doesn’t just work for anticipatory anxiety, and is a great CBD method that I learned through therapy.
  3. Take a breath. Sometimes, our brains get a little too loud. Take a deep breath. Inhale for 5 counts, hold for 5 counts, and exhale for 5 counts. Repeat. Grounding does wonders to calm that inner dialogue and helps you focus on you and your body. I practice deep breathing several times a day as a habitual self-check. Obviously it doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s important to check in and recalibrate periodically.
  4. Take care of your body. This seems like a no-brainer, but anxiety can make it easy for a person to forget meals, skip out on sleep, and skip out on showering and exercise. Sleeping and eating properly is very important for our brains to keep our moods and emotions in check. When I get spikes of “doomsday” thought patterns or anxiety attacks, my partner has a habit of asking me, “How does your stomach feel? Are you hungry?” It seems silly, but my anxiety symptoms and my gut are very connected. A hungry stomach means that my brain starts thinking about survival and keys into the fight or flight mechanism.

So, yes. I’m very excited for what the coming months have in store. I’m terrified that everything is going to fall apart somehow. Sometimes, I wake up terrified of what the future will bring. This is all familiar territory and it sometimes feels like I really haven’t “gotten any better.” But I remind myself that the last time I felt this scared, I was ready to run away. I was ready to quit. This time, I’m scared but I still choose to get up every day and take on those fears. I still find things to be excited about. That is progress.

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The Insecurity in Codependency

A few weeks ago I came across a post on Instagram about this topic, and I have been doing a lot of soul searching and research since.

Often times, we attribute codependent relationships to an unhealthy dynamic with a partner. This puts a lot of focus on the partner or friend that you are in a codependent relationship with. There is some merit to this, as it takes a certain kind of reaction and personality to create an unhelpfully codependent relationship. However, I realize that when I started to do work with myself, the need for the codependent relationships fell away.

I’ll briefly, and vaguely, start with my history of codependent relationships. Since early adulthood/late teens, I have been in romantic relationships that were very long term. My first serious relationship dragged on for four years. During year number two, I realized that being with this person was not great for me or him. We did the on again off again thing mainly because I (maybe even we, but I can’t speak for him) were terrified of what it meant to be without a partner. Not long after that relationship ended, I was in a relationship that 5 years long. It ended when I realized that it wasn’t the person that I was in the relationship for, it was the security of having a significant other that kept me there. Yikes, right? You’d think I had learned my lesson… but I didn’t.

I hopped into another relationship in which I developed severely codependent habits. If you’ve been following along for a while, you may recall mention of this relationship. Now, it was, for the most part, a great relationship in terms of personal growth. I learned so much about myself during the (comparatively) brief time I spent with my former partner. The greatest lesson being how the major theme in all of my relationships is that there were severely codependent habits that I developed during them. I was part of the problem.

I needed to step back and take a good, hard look at how I contributed to the problems in my past relationship. I, now, truly believe that it takes two people to fuck up a relationship. We can spend our time hating our exes. We can also spend time hating ourselves. Neither are productive. I chose to spend time getting to know myself in the hopes of never having to work through the same issues that caused me stress and trauma in previous relationships. Here are some things I realized about my codependent habits.

  1. I always needed someone. It didn’t matter if they were a friend or a significant other. I always had someone. Between relationships, I would lean heavily on my friends and my siblings to fill up my time. There was a period of time where I wouldn’t go anywhere without my sister. I did not realize that this was a symptom of my social anxiety. I hated being in public. I hated being with strangers and being with someone that I was close to helped me cope with this. It became a necessity.
  2. I only felt safe leaving a romantic relationship that was not healthy if I was fully surrounded and supported by friends. I never felt “strong enough” to walk away from dysfunctional relationships. On again off again, I’d feel so lost and tormented dealing with my own intrusive thoughts that I’d get sucked right back into resuming a relationship that was not working. It usually took a lot of tough love from close friends and family members for me to feel supported enough to walk away. This isn’t necessarily bad. This doesn’t mean I am or was weak. This just means that the symptoms of GAD were so severe that I resorted to coping with it by leaning on family and friends. I will never regret doing this, but I will say that with a lot of work, I have been able to make decisions on my own and self soothe effectively.
  3. My self-soothing skills were nonexistent. I had no idea what to do with intrusive thoughts or negative emotions that popped into my brain. I had no idea how to channel negativity. Instead, I poured my efforts into my relationships or codependent friendships. People-pleasing is something I have struggled with since childhood. Because people-pleasing is so familiar to me, it became a coping mechanism to deal with my negative self-image. “If I can make people around me happy, then I am less worthless than I think I am.” My lack of self-soothing skills is the reason why I had so much trouble dealing with turbulence in previous relationships. I didn’t have healthy ways to make myself feel better.

It became abundantly clear to me that a lot of codependent habits I had was a reflection of my relationship with myself and my anxiety. I viewed Anxiety as a monster I needed to run away from. I viewed my negative thoughts as flaws that plagued me. The distraction and comfort of having a person, any person, at my side to comfort me, to divide my attention to was “easier” than dealing with the constant feeling of self-doubt and panic.

Am I all better? Am I a recovered toxic codependent partner? No. I struggle with codependent behavior patterns all the time. In my current relationship, I am continuing to work on effective and productive conflict resolution, trust, and maintaining personal space. I am more purposeful and aware of my tendencies and am able to recognize how my reaction to cognitive distortions affect my relationship with myself and others. However, one major difference between past me and present me is that I now have a relationship with myself.

I am able to rely on myself for comfort and friendship. I am able to embrace my own company and truly make the most out of introspective reflection. I no longer approach myself with fear. Instead, I approach myself with curiosity and understanding. Wanting to understand why I do the things I do was key.

For anyone that is or has struggled with codependency, remember that you are not responsible for how the other person was in your relationship/friendship. You are only responsible for you and your actions. Take time to look at your own actions without judgement, and hopefully you’ll find avenues of growth through that.

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What Happens When You Stop Struggling?

TW: Topics related to eating disorders and suicidal ideation.

I am trying to ride this wave of productivity by building up a queue of posts that I can put up on a regular basis! This is how real bloggers do it right? What started as something therapeutic for me has turned into something that friends, acquaintances, and strangers have told me is helpful! Thank you, all, for your encouragement and for spending time here.

What happens when you stop struggling? – This is a question I never would have dreamed of asking a year ago. I was at a point where struggling was something I had been doing for years… a decade even. What does it feel like to not be gasping for air? What does it feel like to not be treading water in the deep end? I had no idea.

Step by step, and with a lot of intention, I have found myself pausing and realizing that I wasn’t hanging onto the edge anymore. I was no longer stuck in survival mode. It was a long and laborious process, but here I was. This post isn’t about getting there. This post is about staying there.

Just because you aren’t struggling doesn’t mean it is easy… or even easier than before. Maintaining this state of mind requires a lot of intention. After a decade or more of struggling, I found myself falling into old patterns. The first pattern being doing the bare minimum to keep myself alive. Those that are close to me know that I have a complicated relationship with food. Aside from the allergies I have with nuts and various fruit, I have a tendency to avoid eating unless I feel like I “deserve” it. During really tough mental health days, I would reward myself with the most decadent and unhealthy of foods for getting through the day. It was something that my therapist had suggested I do in order to help with my tendency to punish myself by abstaining from eating. Because things weren’t too hard anymore, I found myself neglecting food because I didn’t feel that I “worked” enough to deserve it. I wasn’t hanging on for dear life and fighting the mind demons, so I wasn’t working hard enough to deserve food. When I realized what was happening, I had to focus on detaching basic nourishment from my rewards system.

Also, bad days can feel like a major failure. Once you realize you aren’t in survival mode anymore, it’s absolutely liberating. You notice that you’re coping with negative emotions much easier, and that intrusive thoughts aren’t so intrusive anymore. I noticed it and I felt awesome. Therapy was working! I learned so many awesome skills that I was no longer just surviving, but thriving. Then I woke up one morning and that familiar feeling of existential dread was creeping in. I was so familiar with that annoying little thought that said, “No one would really care if you disappeared today,” that I began to believe that all of the work was for naught. It’s an awful feeling of failure and I tried my best to hide it. Of course, that only imploded on itself at a fraction of the time it took for me to crack the first time. I realized that was progress in itself. How many years did I spend faking it? 11? How bad was it when I finally cracked? It took me a few weeks to crack and I felt better immediately. I knew this then, but it’s so easy to forget that progress isn’t linear.

Derealization is not exclusive to a very poor mind state. I have discussed Depersonalization/Derealization a bit in this very old post, and I intend to touch on it again, but it does not go away. Despite it being a coping mechanism for me during very low moods and mental states, it continues to be something that I battle on a day to day basis. Depersonalization still requires purposeful and proactive action in order to stay grounded. This means that I pause for breathing every day during breaks in my work day. This means that I take extra moments on my dog walks to check in with my five senses. This also means that I have to make the conscious effort to engage in yoga practice. This discovery was disheartening, but learning to live with it has been quite meaningful.

So, I guess these were just a few thoughts/discoveries I had once I realized I wasn’t on the struggle bus anymore. The takeaway lesson I have learned thus far: Be gentle with yourself, and choose yourself everyday even if you don’t feel like it will make a difference, because it does!

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Mental Health Challenge – Day 2

Day 2 – Fill in your calendar and set aside time for self-care

So far, so good, April. Day 2. I went to bed at around 2AM last night. This is a time that I like to call, “early.” It wasn’t. But I had a lot on my mind. Despite listing out positive things about myself and trying to get into a good headspace for everything, I ended up breaking my own promise of no contact with my former partner. They say week 2 is a hard week because it’s the week you realize that this is your new normal. I barely made it through week 2, and I felt like a failure. Banging my head on the wall, telling myself I was stupid. Stupid for not letting time do its time thing. Stupid for believing that maybe they still want me in their life. Stupid. It was a sick April Fools Day joke I played on myself. After a day like that, I told myself, “Yo girl, forget the rest of everything, go to bed. Sleep and nourish your body.” I popped my prescribed sleepy time anxiety and sedatives, apparently ordered myself a McDonald’s breakfast combo, and passed out. SELF CARE. I’m kidding. I should really eat healthier.

Which brings me to the challenging task for Day 2. Filling in my calendar and setting aside time for self-care. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak here, school has been cancelled for over a week, and our academy shut down for 2. It was a really difficult time, for the country, and we’re kind of scrambling to make schedules for make-up lessons and to keep our term schedules on track. I somehow managed to pop up at 7:30AM this morning fraught with anxiety… and created my calendar. Still not perfect. Still “penciled” in a lot of work things, but I managed to set goals for myself/challenges of self-care. I want this month, not to be too much of a challenge, but to be a bit of a step in the right direction. My physical health has deteriorated from mid-March until now, and I have not been the healthiest in terms of eating or exercise due to weakness from being sick. But I’m feeling stronger and stronger, and less and less fatigued every day. I’m ready to put myself back on the #1 spot on my list.


As you can see, my calendar is FILLED with obligations. Work obligations…. financial obligations… self-obligations. Fitting in self-care focused activities were hard. While I don’t put in every self-care activity that I do on my calendar, I did put in some goals and blocked out days to just let myself sleep, rest, and feel things. I want to cuddle with the dogs and just be with them. Days that used to be date days, I marked them as me days. Days for me to be me with no obligations whatsoever. I guess, it’s a day for me to go on a date with me.

As the month progresses, I’d like to start building strength in exercise and incorporating my older habits of meal prep and cooking. I want to alternate yoga with just spending extra time with the dogs every night. As the weather warms, my dogs deserve to be outside for longer as well.

Here are some other activities that I do regularly that are considered my self-care that I want to get back into doing more regularly. Having depression hit me like a truck and then being sick for two full weeks afterwards was not what I needed for the month of March, but it has definitely left me with a sense of needing to focus on my own things.

  • Doing my nails – I’m a lazy person, but I also have a nasty habit of picking at and chewing my actual nails. At least once a week I use a gel manicure set and do press-on gel nail tips. They cost under $10, a pack can last up to 2-3 weeks, and the shape of the nail tips fit onto my nails really well 🙂
  • Showers – I’m one of those people that love luxurious, long, hot showers. I have way too many shower products and hair products to use, and I also take probably 2 or 3 a day. I use this time to really pamper my skin, my face, my hair, and also to cry. Why cry? Because it’s healthy to cry and let it out. And I want to keep it hygienic and not constantly be crying on my pillow, you know?
  • Cleaning my apartment – I love a clean and organized apartment. It rejuvenates me to be in a space where I organized and rearranged everything by myself. I’ve really been letting this go to hell, recently, but, I want to make that my Saturday night activity. To just maintain cleanliness of my apartment.
  • Walking the dogs – as much as it is the responsible dog mom thing to do, it is also an act of self care. I walk with friends for socialization, but I also love walking alone. I like listening to the sounds of the night, and feeling the breeze as I listen to the pitter patter of the dog’s little feet. I’ve always loved walking the dogs, and I can’t wait for my strength to come back, so I can go outdoors more often.
  • Phone calls with friends – I never really realized how hard it is to fit in just casual communication with people. I also have made a big realization that I really would like to make friends that also will help me here, in Korea. I have friends, far and wide, but I stick close to my circle here.

Self-care is super important, and I want to build in more time and make more moments to communicate with my friends that all live in different places. I know that self-quarantine in the States are hitting my friends hard. My current break-up and emotional situation isn’t great, and I’ve been trying hard not to shut out other people. When I’m ready, after healing, I want to get out there, experience the world and meet people with similar hobbies and interests.

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Coronavirus – How does it affect anxiety?

So living in the middle of Asia, of course, we’re surrounded by news of the virus. In fact, there are over 100 cases of COVID-19 in South Korea, over 70 of them confirmed in the last two days. Where did this all come from? Well, read more about it here! Our first death reported today just as I left work. All of this sounds terrifying, and it’s sending the entire country into panic mode.

I am pretty realistic when it comes to COVID-19. I understand it’s not as fatal as the flu, which kills around 10,000 a year. I understand that most people recover. What makes me anxious are the logistical things that come with living in a country that’s gripped with fear from this virus. Wearing masks that don’t help, washing my hands constantly, not touching my face. It’s all fine. But what if my school shuts down? How will we make up those days? Will we be paid? All of these questions swirl around my head and send me down panic road. How about the economy? Will it bounce back? We’re already seeing decreased productivity in China and Korea.

As I try to balance out my rational brain the feedback that my environment is giving me is that I should panic. I should be gripped in fear. I should be wearing a mask no matter where I go. I should be avoiding contact with people. It has taken its toll on me in the last couple of days, simply because of the uncertainty it has thrown into my life. I, foolishly, trusted that people would be responsible for their own health. I believed that people would get checked out if they felt ill and that they would stay home if they were sick.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

It’s been a rough few days grappling with balancing and keeping my zen while everyone around me seems to be afraid. I wash my hands, try not to touch my face, wear a mask in public, and I do the best I can to limit contact with large crowds. But, still, people are afraid. I can’t stop that, and it almost seems like I can’t stop myself from being afraid alongside of them. My rational mind is telling me that everything will be fine, but my panic mind is telling me that everything is gonna go to hell.

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A Year Ago

As I’m reaching the one-year mark of my working contract here in South Korea, I realize that the person I was a year ago was drastically different than the person sitting here typing this out right now. I’ve written and re-written this entry many times now, wondering how can I actually be honest with myself if I’m not acknowledging my starting point. As painful as it is to remember and to reflect on, I need to acknowledge what I was to recognize how far I’ve come. Before reflecting on my past year here in South Korea, I’d like to paint a picture of what February 2019 was like for me.

Everything around me was hectic. I rushed to say my good-byes to people I was afraid I would not see. I tried to pack as much in as I could and, of course, I tried to spend as much time as possible with my family and my significant other. It was bittersweet. I was excited to go back to the job that brought me so much joy and made me feel so accomplished, but I was also terrified that things would turn out in a way that was completely unexpected. Despite the fear that was starting to build up inside of me in the shape of “what if” statements, I kept soldiering on and preparing for my departure.

I remember the last Friday before my departure so clearly, like it happened yesterday. Yet, I have trouble remembering all of this past year in this level of clarity. My phone rang in the morning, the phone number was from Madison, Wisconsin. I knew it was likely the APHIS Office confirming the receipt of Misha’s paperwork. When I answered, I remember the girl on the other line was so helpful. She explained to me that the records she received for Misha were out of date.

The air was knocked out of me. “Out of date? What do you mean? Did the veterinary clinic forget to include the rabies titer test from October?” She gently replied that they did, but that they did not submit the titer test to an accredited lab. At this point, I knew exactly what that meant. Having traveled with Misha to Korea before, I knew exactly which lab the blood sample must be submitted through. I knew I had told the veterinarian that it must be that lab. I even included an informational guide from the South Korean Animal and Plant Quarantine office with all of the information that I had of Misha from the last trip.

My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I felt my knees go weak and I was speechless. The girl on the other line kindly asked if I was still there. To which, I weakly replied, “Yes, yes… I’ll call the vet clinic to get it straightened out.” That day, was a logistical nightmare. Being a person with anxiety, I do not like confrontation, but I confronted my veterinarian who admitted that she did not look over the informational guides I gave her, and that she went through the lab because that’s the lab that she usually sends the tests for pets traveling domestically. The veterinarian offered to send another blood test to the correct lab for an additional fee and that, “Maybe it’ll get here in time for your flight.” For the first time in my life, I think I saw red. I was so angered that all of my planning and instructions were dismissed because someone else thought they “knew better.” At that time, another veterinarian stepped in and said, “No, there will be no fee. You clearly asked us to do something with specific instructions, and we neglected to do it. We will try our best to get the bloodwork done.” I thanked the veterinarian and went home. I knew it would not be done. The lab had a waiting period of at least three weeks.

That night, I had panic attack after panic attack about not having Misha with me. My relationship with her is very close, and I depended on her heavily for my mental well being. I cried and cried and could not possible imagine my world in Korea without her. Thankfully my family and boyfriend were willing to help me get her to me as soon as May. I would only need to survive three months without her.

I’m not saying that without Misha, my mental health worsened. But I definitely was forced to face the fact that I was not well. With or without her, it was something that needed to be addressed.

I arrived in Korea to an apartment with no hot water, heat, or a bed. Nothing was prepared and it was infuriating. My work had tried to get a bed ordered to my apartment, but the delivery was delayed due to the Lunar New Year holiday, and I was forced to sleep on a folding couch for two weeks.

I think at this point, it felt like everything had gone wrong. No dog, apartment is a mess, I’m 6,000 miles from my family, and work was not coming back to me as smoothly as I would have liked. I broke. I broke into a million pieces and I am still picking them back up. I realized that so many factors in my life have contributed to that breaking point that it was inevitable. Whether I stayed back in Minneapolis or I came here, it would have happened.

February 2019 me was someone who broke down almost daily. I panicked about big and small things. I panicked about whether the students liked me. I panicked about whether I was covering the materials well enough. I panicked about whether or not I could keep up my duties as an instructor and a supervisor. I panicked to the point where I physically could not hold food down and began to avoid eating altogether. I didn’t make it more than 2 months before I knew I was completely defeated by my own fears and insecurities. Every week was a new fight, a new issue, a new insecurity that I battled through with my boyfriend on the other line. I could hear the exasperation in his voice. “What can I do for you? What do you want?” He would ask. I had no answer. I had no idea.

Booking that first therapy appointment was the best decision of my life. I practice what I learned through the sessions every single day. I practice mindfulness and grounding. I practice forgiving myself and setting realistic standards. I continue to work through insecurities, trauma and maladaptive behavior. I will continue to fight for me.

Now, a year later, I want to pat myself on the back for getting through those first few months. I want to tell myself that I’ve improved a lot since then. I want to say that even though I haven’t been perfect, I am still doing the best I can do for me. I want to read back on this entry on a rough day and remember that I have come a very long way from what I was. A lot can happen in a year, and this last year in Korea has felt like an entire lifetime.

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One day at a time…

Today has been a little bit of a journey for me. I’ve been feeling very physically ill, and terrified that it was the Wuhan Coronavirus. I know, I know… health anxiety is a real thing and I should stop Googling symptoms. I stopped by the hospital to get checked, and they don’t seem to concerned. Of course, that’s not how anxiety works. I’m still terrified.

Aside from taking care of myself, I have also been sorting through a lot of thoughts this evening. I had planned on doing this, as I mentioned in my last post. It’s my last day of a long holiday weekend and I have been thinking and sorting through a lot of the anxiety, sadness, and fears that I’ve been setting aside because I have been too tired, overwhelmed and anxious to deal with my stuff. Here are some things I’ve sorted through, and some things that I have realized through the last few weeks.

The winter months are packed full of holidays, and I’ve been experiencing some serious sadness and loneliness on an almost monthly basis. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Lunar New Year are all holidays I enjoy spending with my family and friends. I missed out on so many things and I know it’s my own damn fault. I chose to come out here, why? Why did I choose to come out here if I get so sad when I can’t be with people that I love on important days. My anxiety kind of overflows during this time, as my family and loved ones are too busy to communicate and update me. I feel like their lives are flying by while my life is sitting at a standstill waiting for news and updates about their lives. I am justifiably sad/down in the dumps. Even though I have been feeling a little bit sad about things like missing my family, significant other, and friends. I understand that being far apart doesn’t mean that I am not loved and not important. Realizing this and working through the rationalizing has helped me feel a lot less anguished.

Another feeling I’ve been working through is absolute exhaustion from work. It’s really hard to stop myself from criticizing my decisions to come back to a job that does get extremely busy during the winter and summer seasons. There is a fine line between being extremely busy and burnt out. I could feel everyone around me slowly cross that line and enter “burnt out.” And, to be honest, I was getting secondhand burnout and anxiety. “Did I make the right choice to come back?” and “Is this a toxic environment for me?” are thoughts that I actively tried to avoid thinking about during the busy times for self preservation. I know that I enjoy my work immensely. Seeing the kids learn makes me happy. The environment can be what I make it, and I can choose to let the energy of others ruin the experience for me, or I can choose to focus on my own emotions and how I feel.

There have been a lot of days where I did not want to wake up in the morning. I go to bed hoping that I won’t have to wake up the next day. I think about all of the other days to follow and I’m overwhelmed by the weight of the future. I think about all of the things I want to do but haven’t. Before I have even begun the day, I’ve already set myself up for failure. I’ve already set myself up for a day of hopelessness and sadness.

Now that I’ve spent the entire day contemplating what to do with some of these negative and unhelpful emotions and thoughts, I definitely need an action plan to deal with some of the negative and intrusive anxious thoughts. Recently, I’ve been really enjoying a Podcast that brought me a lot of strength today. The Tablo Podcast has helped me see a lot of things about dealing with depression. I really need to take each day, one day at a time. I need to complete thought processes and dealing with my feelings one day at a time. As much as I’d like to just push some of the things off for an “easier” or another day, I really do need to address the day’s feelings on the day so that I don’t carry the day’s weight on me.

Through listening to the podcast I’ve felt a little less alone, as there have been so many moments of “Ahah! I’ve felt exactly the same!” As he describes moments in his life and his own struggle with depression.

A lot of things have been difficult these days, and I know that they can continue being a challenge, but I’m determined to make the best of things and to better my mental health. Every New Year, people make “New Years Resolutions” to be a better version of themselves. I’ve said before that setting a resolution for the year can often mean setting yourself up for failure. So, like Tablo says, I’m gonna make a day resolution for every day of something attainable.

For tomorrow, Tuesday, my resolution is to wake up at a decent hour and do some work around the house before heading to work. And each day, I will need to take all of the emotions and events of the day, and properly address them. No more putting it off for later.

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Late Night Thoughts – Insecurity

I’ve spent a lot of time today ruminating on why I have so much insecurity in my life at the moment. I wondered where it was coming from and how it could be addressed. What I realized is that I feel unstable because self care has been almost impossible. I do the bare minimum to keep myself alive. And the rest of the time I spend time trying to make my dogs happy.

Where do I factor into my daily care? Have I stopped to ask myself how I’m feeling? Have I properly dealt with negative emotions? No. No. And no. Being busy and working 6 day weeks has made it difficult to truly recharge from the weekends. I feel tired, alone, and desperate for rest. Not just physical rest but mental rest from work.

They say you have to start with your basic needs to be able to start addressing your mental needs. I have decided to focus on how to live with the weight of my fears. There really is no one i can count on other than myself. I neee to be my own best friend, caretaker, and source of love.

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Late Night Thoughts – A Reflection of a Decade

The 2010s are over just as I felt that it was beginning. It’s kind of terrifying how quickly time can pass by. To be completely honest, I have spent a lot of things decade numbing myself out and avoiding a lot of the difficult emotions that I am now forcing myself to accept and face everyday. I feel as if I have rarely had a quiet evening in during this last month, and as I sit up organizing and contemplating my thoughts, I realized that the last 10 years were perhaps my most challenging.

I’ve been called a pessimist before, but I do prefer the term realistic. Realistically, the 2020s are probably not going to be “better” than the 2010s. Besides, “better” is subjective, and it really depends on the mindset I’m in as I review the 2010s. Admittedly, the mindset I am in right now is not the most joyful. It is usually not joyful when I feel that I need to show vulnerability. So here goes… 2010s.

Going into 2010, I was starting my second semester of university. I thought that commuting from home would be a great way to save money, but it proved to be way too difficult for me to balance my class schedule. I was moving out for the first time in my life, and it was super exciting. To be honest, at the time, I was just excited to have more freedom to do what I please whenever I wanted. It was a freedom I never grew up having. I always had a curfew of 10PM, and even as a 19 year old college student, I lived by those rules. If I could tell 19 year old me, to just calm the fuck down about being “independent.” I would. But I was in a hurry to become an adult that lived on their own with no curfew.

In 2010, I “lost” my best friend due to, what I like to call, a sobering realization that she was not a person that was healthy to have around. In a dramatic and unnecessary turn of events, we went from being best friends to straight up enemies within a day. It was drama that I never wanted or asked for. Instead of fighting for myself, I reacted with cowardice and I retreated from social interactions and building friendships.

Going into 2011, I was deeply isolating myself despite my new living situation. It took me some time to learn that just because one friend ended up treating me like a disposable object, doesn’t mean they all will. I had 4 new roommates, 3 of which I became friendly with. One of them is still one of my closest and dearest friends. She and I lived together from 2010 until 2013, when I graduated from university. It took all of that time for me to tell her that I love her and that she was one of my best friends. It took me all that time to open up to her and and show her the side of me that cries in the shower or whenever I’m alone.

Speaking of crying in the shower, I spent a lot of the 2010s crying in the shower or in bed. Or just crying in general. My only rule was that no one could see me cry. A lot of times, when things got difficult or emotions became too much to deal with. Instead of crying in front of people, I would smile. I’d plaster a hard smile on my face while gritting my teeth and convince myself that being sad, overwhelmed, or anxious was stupid and for the weak. Sometimes, I wish I cried a bit more in front of other people, because one of the most difficult days of my life, I felt 1000% better just crying into the shoulder of someone that I realized doesn’t find me weak or pitiful for crying.

Looking back on my college years, I know that what I experienced was depression. Perhaps if I had taken the steps then to properly address the lack of passion to do things, the disinterest I had in most things, I would be better off now. Maybe I’d be a normal, stable, homeowner that was married to a partner that I love and trust, and can see past next week with. Actually, that’s a stretch… maybe I’d be a person that wouldn’t melt down in complete distress just thinking about the possibility of that kind of life. The problem with hindsight is that it’s always 20/20. I can pick out every single misstep and every single flaw in all of the decisions I’ve made. The fact is, I did not seek help for what I understood as depression. I thought I didn’t need help because, what the fuck was I even depressed about anyways? Being alive? Being so fortunate that I will graduate without student debt while the rest of my peers will be paying for their educations for the next 10, 20, or 30 years? It seemed ridiculous to me that I could fathom being depressed when I was so lucky.

So what happened after 2013? I graduated from college and pursued what I always “planned” to pursue. I pursued a position in the mental health and social services field. I learned so much from my job working at a family center implementing parent coaching and supervised parental visit evaluations. I learned that there are a lot of people out there in the world that need a lot of help. Especially in the mental health field. I learned that everybody could benefit from therapy (but not me, of course, because vulnerability is scary). I also learned that all of other people’s emotions, issues, and struggles were a bit too much for me to handle. So, in 2014, I pursued my post-graduate license to teach English abroad.

I landed in Korea in October of 2014. The “training week” was an entire week of stress. You either pass the final mock teaching exam or they send you home packing. I put everything aside to go to Korea and teach, and to go home empty handed would have devastated me. Not going to lie, that week of training was pure hell, and I think the first true signs that I had a big problem with anxiety began to show itself in the way that I dealt with the possibility of going home with no job. Insomnia became a persistent friend that persisted even after I passed training. If I was going to be a teacher, I was not going to fuck it up. I was going to be the best teacher I could be. I worked, and I worked, and I worked. All I cared about was perfection in everything that I did. I took all of the peer and supervisor criticism to heart and began to shape myself as a teacher. I never thought I would be able to teach anyone anything.

During my program for the TEFL license, my supervising professor had told me it was difficult for people to take me seriously as an instructor due to how soft spoken and timid my demeanor was. The exact words were, “If you’re going to be a teacher, you need to be taken seriously. You need a teacher voice, and you need to look the part.” She criticized every aspect of me. The way I dressed, the way I held myself, the way I spoke. It humbled and infuriated me to the point where, I knew that if I ever got a job teaching, I would be the best damn teacher I could be.

So here comes some positivity from the 2010s. The thing I am most proud of is, surprisingly, not the fact that I graduated from university and attended graduate school. The thing I am most proud of are the four “Best Teacher” awards I received from my academy here. As a regular instructor, I showed my true potential and I not only loved teaching the students, it was the first time in my life that I felt fulfilled and challenged by a job. After promoting to Head Instructor, I was no longer eligible to receive the “Best Teacher” awards, but I found joy in helping and teaching other teachers methodology and how to be more effective. Truly, the most rewarding thing that came out of the 2010s was my career in teaching that I still can’t quite give up. I keep coming back here, Korea, to teach. I know that, one day, I will go home, and I’ll need to either get licensed to teach in the States or find a path that will fulfill me in a similar way. But for now, I see teaching here as something that brings me great joy and peace even when I am feeling turbulent.

The last few years of the 2010s were a trainwreck of emotions, tough decisions, and nasty battles with myself about what was “right” or “wrong.” The last few years are the years that I must untangle a bit at a time in therapy and on my own. As I feel stronger and more comfortable with that aspect of my life, I will begin to write down and articulate my journey further. Just know, that 2017-2019 have been some of the hardest years of my life. I hope that the worst is behind me, but realistically, I know that things can always be worse. \

As I look into 2020, I hope to live more genuinely. That isn’t to say that I lived a lie and have been lying this whole time. The genuineness I am referring to is more of a genuineness to myself. Respecting my wishes and believing in my own judgement a little bit more and following through with what my judgement is telling me are all things that I must continue to improve on and hope that I can do better in the 2020s.

I’m ready.

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