An Anxious Girl In A Scary World

The reading from my book today was about caretaking- taking care of someone else's needs above your own. In doing so we neglect ourselves.  It got me thinking... I do this a lot. In pretty much all of my relationships. My relationships with my friends, my partners, and sometimes my coworkers. I am constantly looking out for them. I know it's not always a bad thing to look out for friends, that's what in turn makes us a good friend. We need to be careful though because we can forgot to take care of ourselves in the process. I'm learning that there is fine line and it's not always clear where that line is.  In my recent romantic relationship I've noticed that I've spent so much time taking care of my boyfriend that I've become careless with my self. I had put so much time, effort and energy into him that I forgot to put time and effort into myself. If he needed money, I'd give him money, full well knowing that I wouldn't have much left for...

Hey Y'all! Something I'd like to talk about is Dependent Personality Disorder. For those of you who don't know what that is, no worries, I'm here to tell you! Psychology Today says, "Dependent personality disorder is a psychiatric condition marked by an overreliance on other people to meet one's emotional and physical needs." Symptoms include: 1. Difficulty making decisions 2. Submissiveness 3. Problems expressing disagreements with others 4. Avoiding personal responsibility 5. Avoiding being alone 6. Preoccupied with fears of being alone 7. Easily hurt by criticism/disapproval 8. Willingness to tolerate mistreatment and abuse from others See the full article here : http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/dependent-personality-disorder While in therapy, I had talked with my therapist about being co-dependent but we never fully explored the topic because I was preoccupied with trying to manage the anxiety. But here I am a few years l...

Good Evening! Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted here. Almost a year, actually. I'm glad to be back. There's been a lot going on over the months and coming back to this blog feels really good. When I first started this blog I was in the midst of recovery (from anxiety) and I was really enjoying being able to come here and post about my experiences and offer advice to you all. It was almost like a little escape from the big bad world that I was living in. Therapy was going very well, I was doing well at my job and I was working on getting myself out of a pretty crappy relationship, so I didn't really feel the need to come on as often. But now, things have taken a turn and I went backwards a little bit so I've come back to my blog to help myself and hopefully help you guys along the way. I look forward to posting (hopefully) regularly and keeping you guys updated on my progress. Stay tuned! With Love & Support, Anxiety Girl - xoxo

     Recently, I’ve been going through some things. I experienced my first breakup in a year. The only thing I know that actually makes me feel better is being able to write it down. So here we go:      My boyfriend, now ex, has a drug addiction and he was struggling for a while to keep a level head. I made it my mission to help out in any way and every way that I could. He kept a lot of stuff to himself and I can’t blame him for that because I do it too. I told him that writing helps me and I asked him to give it a shot. He did. He wrote raps mainly but it allowed him to express himself in a way where there wouldn’t be any judgement for what came out. It was amazing. I really thought that it was going to make a difference. He let me read some of his stuff and man I tell ya, it was some dark stuff. I knew drug addiction was like that. Messy and dark and consuming but reading how it affected him made me realize the seriousness of it. Anyways...

Good Evening! It’s just after midnight and I got the urge to write a little something. I’m not sure where exactly this blog entry is going but since I hadn’t written in a while, I figured I would drop in. So, most days I feel like I’m doing alright and other days… not so much. My best friend and I had this plan a while ago that we would get our shit together and move out and move to a new area and start somewhat new lives. We both felt like we needed a fresh start, I guess. Well, that didn’t really work out for either of us. It started out okay but kind of deteriorated along the way. We signed back up for school and took a two semesters of classes. She did great. Me…that’s a whole ‘nother story. I had the attention span of a squirrel on crack so it took me quite a while to get finished with my school work. It didn’t help either that I was taking online classes instead of going on campus. I did really really really bad. I failed like 3 out of 4 classes I took. I pretty much ga...

How many times have we experienced a negative event and then carried it with us for quite some time? I know I have.  I've been plagued by so many things because of my social anxiety and I kept referring back to them any time something similar was happening. I would have horrible flashbacks to those embarrassing moments, uncomfortable situations and negative moments. It wasn't until I was talking to my therapist that I realized I kept all those memories close at hand to use as an excuse as to why I couldn't or wouldn't do something. It was my own personal backpack of horrors. Every little thing tucked away just waiting to be plucked out to haunt me all over again.  How many times have one of you refused to do something because of a previous bad experience? Well as it turns out you've got a backpack of horrors too.  After coming to this realization I made the conscious decision to "take off" my backpack.  I didn't want to live with the const...

Living with anxiety is hard and trying to understand why we have it is harder still… but one of the hardest things (to me) is explaining it to someone. The other day I was out with a friend and they asked me why I don’t go out a lot. I had a mini heart attack because I hate that question. I hate being asked why I don’t go out, why I don’t want to go to a club or a bar or to go dancing or anything even similar to those questions. I hate them because sometimes I’m still embarrassed of my answer. I hate having to say “I have anxiety.” So many times I’ve been asked this and when I do say “I have anxiety,” the person just looks at me like “okay…?” But, I told him the truth. I said that I’ve got social anxiety. He looked at me and was like “Damn! I used to have social anxiety too!”   He went on to explain why he had it and while it made me feel a little better but I don’t think I actually fully believed him. It’s just that I’ve heard that a lot and usually it’s nothing like what I...