The Deal-io

I started this blog in order to not only help express myself, but to relieve me of the anxiety that has had me in a choke-hold. I am not one to get anxious or paranoid, but lately I have been feeling vulnerable. Some of you may not understand the feelings of anxiety, but in my experience, they’re the feelings of fear and uneasiness that creep up on you out of nowhere.

They’re suffocating.

I have come to find out these anxiety attacks I’ve been struggling with can be triggered by the smallest things at any given moment. I would get the urge to use the bathroom and then BAM, I would just get too anxious to go. My mind would spin, my hands would turn cold, and I wouldn’t be able to control it. Anxiety had never been more real for me. Since I have started this blog, I do not feel that my anxiety is bothering me the way it has before, where I would freeze up and my heart would race a thousand times a second.

It first started at my workplace, where I am a crew member and cashier at an independent frozen yogurt joint. Seems pretty laid back and wholesome, right?

I was there, ringing up a customer like I had done so many times before, and my hands started to shake uncontrollably. From there, I was stuttering like nobody’s business and mumbling, if anything was to come out of my mouth in a full sentence. If you have spoken to me in person you’d know I am not the silent, shy type. I am, for the most part, easy going and love to meet new people, even if it’s hard to get to know someone you just met. I’m outgoing in that sense.

In this moment, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. My guard was down and all I wanted to do was shrink and disappear from the scene. I stood there and tried to compose myself from the fumbling mess I was becoming with no avail, all the while thinking to myself:

”What just happened?”

In the past if I would stop talking to someone, there would have to be a real reason for it. Depending on the situation, I would never think back on it and get upset. The truth of the matter is there is always that person who will anger you to the point where you have no choice but to let them go. It was the right choice and yet I was still angry at them for what they had put me through and how they treated the situation altogether. The anger I was holding on to, I believe, is what caused my mind to spiral into chaos. It was too much, too bottled up, and had nowhere to go.

I freaked out.

I have always been the type of person to understand how fragile my emotions are. Throughout high school I would know my feelings so well there was a set schedule when things would happen. Once a month I would pick a night and just cry.

Literally, sit in my room and cry for no given reason.

It was a stress reliever only a few people knew about. I would call it my “boy period” because I would feel sick to my stomach and just release any hidden problems. It came to my realization that every time I cried my eyes out there would be a full moon, or the sky would shine brighter than usual. To me, it meant that there was a brighter side to my problems and things would turn out okay. It was the strangest routine for me, but I felt relief and comforted in those moments after.

It was an amazing feeling to finally let my worries go into the night.

Fast forward to today and my emotional awareness isn’t even present in my every day life. I go around not understanding myself like I once did and being too lazy to try and fix what I miss about my younger self. With this blog, I hope to be able to understand myself, while allowing myself to be open to you, my fellow readers.

My anxiety, although still present, doesn’t control me the way it did a month ago. I will be able to understand myself one day and with the help of this blog, I can already see progress in myself. 

Connections known as Friendship

I remember a time when I was able to speak about my feelings to more than just one person. I would be able to ask someone for their time and reveal the many faces that make up who I am. Friendship is crucial in a world filled with liars and deceivers. In a world filled with billions of people, why is it hard to speak?

I remember the time I had a friend to call my own. To be able to know their secrets and thoughts without any judgment towards their stance on life, was a feeling of hope and love. To be able to call this person a friend and understand that their struggle is also yours, to know that if they needed anything, that they had you to rely on, was an amazing balance. Trust was more than letters on a page, or a word in your dictionary, but a feeling and an action. Being able to hold someone else's thoughts as my own gave me a reason to live and accept.

But do connections really last? I am young and I am reckless, but I also believe that I understand what friendship holds and what it means to care for another person. I have always tried to think of the reason I do the things that I do, say the things that I say, and act the way I do in different situations. I have always told myself it is because of the friendships I have formed throughout my life. Thinking back on it now, I believe that the people I have loved and have given many days of my life to be with are the reason I behave the way I do.

Today, I understand that my view on friendship has to change. I have to form a new ideology on what I need to do in order to keep the bonds I try so hard to keep. Everyone has that person that they can go years without seeing and still understand that they have formed a bond and it should be preserved no matter the time frame.

For the time being, I will keep my existing ideology. No matter the time we have apart, I will care for you and live for the day that we once again meet and enjoy each others company, have no boundaries with each other and know that what we say is nothing more than fun and games, and understand that we will always respect and appreciate the mutual effort being applied by everyone. I will continue to try and form more bonds, and not for the sake of saying I know people, but for the sake of what I wanted to accomplish as a child: to be able to help anyone feel appreciated.