girl loser

I broke the cardinal rule.

I am having a glass of wine with my 1 mg script of anxiety meds, which does NOT fully cure my anxiety, btw.

Taking them has helped me realize the significance of my anxiety. I have always known, but watching the anxiety dial down and still consume me opens my eyes further.

My anxiety is this ever-present force born from a tumultuous childhood with adversity that followed me into adulthood.

I think I have always been falling, waiting for my feet to land on something solid; instead, I find myself falling through smoke and mirrors. Illusions that promise safety and bring danger.

Sometimes I wonder: am I the danger?

There are circumstances outside of me. I never asked for what others’ hands inflicted on me. I never asked for the words or the abuse. I was powerless to stop so much of it.

Now?

I am a woman ( I feel more like a girl, an imposter, failing to imitate what I perceive a woman to be). I have the alleged power. Yet so often I stay because of love, fear, and shame.

I would not have a family if I walked away. I am working to impose as strict of boundaries as I can. It’s a challenge in a family where boundaries never mattered.

Now, I choose to stay. I live in a state of hypervigilance and can be reactive. The reactions automatically bleed out of the memories my body stores.

I have never found my way out of this place; I have never found homeostasis.

Can I return to a place I am not sure I have ever been? I’ve been neglected since infancy. Did safety ever live in my body?

Sometimes I wonder: am I the danger?

I collapse into myself at the feeling of threat. My body often finds itself sick. The smallest flicker of anxiety can race my heart. Flush my body, turn my stomach inside out. Make me ill. My breath gets caught in my throat, and I choke on air.

I live with tension ever present. Holding my breath became a baseline; I have to remind myself to breathe.

Others look at me with their noses up; they see someone “dramatic.”

I recede further into myself as I watch what influences the treatment I encounter.

I am so much more than this; even in the consumption of my anxiety and fear, my passion, my beauty, and my bravery break through.

I think that is who I am. I am what exists in between the places where my fear lives.

I am not devoid of these fears. They are not separate from who I am. They were created to protect me from a world that I needed protection from.

There is something about that. This fierce loyalty to the self, this ferocious care. It’s a matter of building a different dynamic with the anxiety; I don’t need this to preserve myself anymore.

Currently, I must learn to accept it, and accept myself for this state of being. I think my fears will begin to lift once I can accept myself with the utmost grace.

I am learning to just be, to sit with, to accept that I am okay.

I am okay.

It’s okay.

There is nothing wrong with me.

I can survive this; I will make it through