Anxiety Brain and Me

I’m finally putting into words what anxiety feels like for me.

Sometime in my 20s, I dug up my anxiety and have been trying to bury it ever since. Unsuccessfully so, I might add.

what you don't see is that hours before this photo
was taken, I was an anxious lil cookie.
(PC: John Cassidy)

It has become a project of sorts, something I will stop at nothing to fix. I started therapy. Still anxious. Started praying more. Still anxious. Started back running. And reading. And resting. Still anxious. Tried setting boundaries and saying no. Still anxious. Learned to listen to myself and ask for breaks. I meditated and partied, then realized partying wasn’t the answer, then spent more time laying in the sun listening to music and napping and enjoying nature and, guess what, still anxious. Moved back home (big win!) and I STILL GET ANXIOUS.

Growing Pains

What is it about growing up makes me feel like I'm losing my sense of self?

I feel this strange combination of sadness and happiness both at once, and I don’t quite know how to explain it. It is bittersweet. It is the happiness of gratitude alongside the sadness of a nagging nostalgia. It is a longing for my childhood and for more carefree times, or at least what I remember as being carefree times.
  Youth really is wasted on the young.

Mini-me in an era of carefree
times & unappreciated freedom