I'll get you, moths, and your little eggs, too!

I've had moths in my apartment for a long time now, and I'm just finally starting a treatment plan. I first did some online research to figure out how to get rid of them since killing them individually with a broom wasn't working that well. I decided to follow the method listed by Apartment Therapy. I found some Pantry Moth traps at Walmart (unexpectedly in the garden section), and set them up in my kitchen where I had seen the largest amount of pantry moths. Next, I went to work taking everything off my "pantry" shelves, scrubbing the shelves with soap and water and then following up with bleach. I threw away all of the boxes sitting on the shelves, even the unopened ones. I also bought some OXO containers from Target to store all my food stuff in, so I don't have to rely on bags and boxes that moths can eat through.

Next I cleaned the top of my fridge with soap and water and bleach, and I found the mother-load.

I had originally bought these Hawaiian roles back in December when my Dad came to visit me for Christmas. And then I forgot about them. The rolls got pushed to the back of the top of my fridge by cereal boxes and reusable bags. I guess the moral of the story is I need to organize my pantry area so that I can see all my food stuff and use it all in a timely manner before it develops nasty stuff, like mold or moths. At this current moment, there are still a few months hanging out on my ceiling, but I hope they'll go away soon since I've gotten rid of their food supply.

How to Deal With a Religious Family

Step 1: Pretend you're religious by smiling and nodding when your family mentions God.

I truly don't have any advice for dealing with family members who insist that your way is wrong and their way is right. Mr. Atheist suggests coming out to someone in your family who feels the same way that you do, and perhaps speaking with the host ahead of time. If you don't feel comfortable hanging out with your family who tends to shove religiosity down your throat, you can bow out and leave.

For the most part, my younger sister and I are in the same boat. We're not all that religious and find life to be satisfying without following the church's doctrine, but we have different ways of confronting the issue. My younger sister prefers to cut off contact and not show up to family gatherings. I show up and just play along. Sure, I'll hold hands and say grace to keep the peace. I'll even pretend to listen and keep my thoughts to myself when my aunts and uncles talk about the ways God has blessed them by not giving them a job promotion. I'll even respond with "okay" when my mom tells me to say my prayers. On the other hand, my younger sister only talks to my mom when she needs something and otherwise avoids contact with her: no phone calls, no visits.

I've never told my family explicitly that I'm an atheist even though I'm pretty sure my mom knows that I don't believe anymore. She told me she's not sure why I think and believe differently from her when she's the one who raised me. It's disappointing to hear something like that coming from your own mom. I know religion is important to my mom, so I keep my opinions to myself. But somehow I feel like I've still disappointed her. I've learned to live with that disappointment, and I think at this point, my mom has too, or perhaps I'm deluding myself.

I keep telling myself I'll come out after my grandparents pass away because after that, it doesn't matter anymore. For the longest time, I was afraid I would be kicked out of the family because I don't believe. I have avoided phone calls and letters from my grandparents out of guilt that I don't think the same way as they do. Out of guilt or perhaps fear that they'll discover a wolf in sheep's clothes and be very disappointment in me. I feel anxious around my family, especially my grandparents, and I hope they never discover my secret (that I am blatantly putting on the Internet, the least secret place in the entire universe). Last year I had a panic attack in my sleep because I was so worried about going to my grandparents' house in my dreams.

It might be easier to deal with if they shared the same values as me, but we don't share the same values and we seem to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. For now, I'll bide my time and keep my opinions to myself. I'm lucky in the fact that I don't have to live near them anymore so I don't have to hide my true self as much. It feels weird when they say things like, "Oh, we miss you since you're so far away." It feels like they're just saying it to say it and that it couldn't possibly be true since they don't even know the real me.

Family is difficult, and I'm afraid I don't have any answers. I've chosen the route with the least conflict but also with the least satisfying outcome for the relationships with my family. I don't hate my family, and I don't think they're terrible people whom I should cut off. I just wish they would talk less about religion so I didn't have to dread going to their houses for holidays.

Maggot Update

They're still in my apartment! I've thrown out trash and a couple plants and cleaned up some dishes, but they're still appearing at night on my ceiling. Where are they coming from?! It's so disgusting.

Stewing in My Own Mess

It's not uncommon for people with mental illness to have messy homes. Some of the symptoms of mental illness include going catatonic and not being able to do anything. This can happen in both depression and anxiety but for different reasons. During a depressive episode, someone may not clean because they don't have the energy or they don't feel like it's worth it. With anxiety, someone may avoid cleaning because they feel overwhelmed or feel they just can't do it properly right now at this moment. When you have both anxiety and depression, it's just a catastrophe.

I must now come clean and confess my mess. It's disgusting, and I'm pretty sure a health hazard. Some weeks, I manage to wash my dishes three times a week. Other weeks, I avoid them like the plague, and then avoid them for a few more days after they start to smell. I should get to that, I tell myself. Yes, but not now. I'm too tired. I feel too restless to stand at a sink and wash dishes. It takes too much effort. I have a lot of excuses.

The piles of nastiness pile up faster than my excuses. Sometimes I have three trash bags in the apartment. The one in the garbage can is full, so I start a new one. I put that new one somewhere on a shelf or box, out of reach of the dog. Oh, that one is full. Time to start a new one. No, I haven't managed to take out any of the bags yet. I will do that...eventually!

Sometimes I run out of clean underwear for two or three days before I actually do laundry. Like I said, it's a health hazard.

I've tried to take a page out of Dana White's playbook and just do a little at a time. This "little at a time" only lasts for one day or so.  I checked out Clean Mama's blog and followed her Instagram, but I scoff every time I see her post. Cleaning takes a lot more effort than she suggests. It's easy if you keep up with it! That's what they say. And maybe it is easier when you only have one bag of trash to take out instead of three, but even that one bag of trash requires a lot of effort when you have to walk out of your apartment, down the stairs, and 50 yards to the nearest dumpster.

I don't have any solutions to this health hazard problem yet. I have to constantly catch myself leaving trash or stuff all over and then have to force myself to put the item in its correct place. Doing this is exhausting. Maybe it becomes easier over time, but cleaning seems to require so much mindfulness and energy that I don't have right now. It's extremely disheartening, and I beat myself up constantly for not having a clean apartment and for not being able to do the basics, such as wash my dishes and put away laundry.

My therapist says that chores can always be done another day, but I'm not so sure that's the case when you have maggots in your house, and you're not sure where they're coming from. But at least getting maggots on my ceiling encouraged me to finally take out the trash.

Mental Health in the U.S. Workplace

By now, I think many people are well aware that there are limited protections for workers in the U.S., and when it comes to healthcare, employees are at the mercy of employers. Even though I was not a good fit for my last position, I was afraid to leave because I would lose my insurance if I did.

In order to keep up with the large workload that I had, I had to work overtime, which meant I worked 45-50 hours a week (for less than $40,000 per year). To be honest, even working an extra hour or two a day didn't help me keep up with the work. I felt constantly overwhelmed. I did eventually have a mental breakdown, and it took four weeks for me to recover and finally go back to work full time. During that time, I was able to use my vacation hours and sick time, and thankfully, my supervisors didn't give me too much flak.

I got the flak later. The last couple of months before I left my position, I decided to stop working overtime because I was incredibly stressed out and didn't feel like I could handle it without my health taking another dive. But the department head then gave me a huge spill about how salary workers are required to work overtime sometimes, and that I had to work overtime to finish projects before I left the company. It made my blood boil. I had worked overtime for a few years, and it was my last two months. It was pure bullpoop. I angrily responded I couldn't work overtime because I was in pain, and she required that I submit a doctor's note. So I did. I was so pissed off that I asked two different doctors for notes. If she wanted notes, she was gonna get them. I thought about perhaps contacting a lawyer and trying to figure out how to invoke ADA. Perhaps I should have gone to HR to ask for accommodations, but I didn't trust them. HR exists to protect the company from getting sued, not to protect the employees.

In the U.S., there is nothing to stop a boss from abusing salaried workers. And let's be honest. Requiring salaried workers to work overtime every single day in order to keep up with the workload is abuse. It's extremely unhealthy and causes harm to the workforce and productivity. Working long hours can lead to burnout and to the development of physical and mental health disorders, such as tension headaches, anxiety, and depression. (By "requiring" here I mean that there are many employers who will say to your face that you shouldn't have to work overtime or you should only work overtime occasionally, but then there is an implicit company culture that suggests you should be working overtime and checking email all the time.)

The U.S. does have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to provide accommodations to employees with disabilities. But I feel like the act doesn't do enough to protect those with disabilities. And is mental illness a disability in the first place? My mental illness did cause me to procrastinate, and I feel it took me longer to get started and to complete work than expected. However, I'm still not sure that my anxiety could have been considered a disability, even though my doctors had classified it as "severe."

In my supervisors' defense, I didn't tell them I had been diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses or that my anxiety disorder caused physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and headaches. I felt uncomfortable disclosing my conditions because I thought they would have treated me even more poorly than before due to the stigma of mental illness (and yet, here I am talking about it on the Internet, a more public forum than the workplace). I thought there might have been a possibility that I could have been fired since my mental illness slowed my work down and reduced my output.

Mental illness does negatively impact my work, and it cause delays in productivity. I feel like the stress of the workplace environment, working overtime, and just generally struggling to complete daily tasks makes mental health worse, and that supervisors who do not provide compassion or mercy for struggling employees only add to the employees' distress and pain. I wish there were more protections for disabilities and mental illness in the U.S. workplace.

Doctors: The Bane of My Existence

I do not like doctors. I never really have, and I can't tell you when my dislike of the medical professional started. I can tell you that now my dislike of doctors stems from the fact that they don't seem to listen. They seem to talk to the diagnosis, but they don't talk to your humanity. When I sit across from the doctor in the small exam room, I don't feel that they take my questions seriously.

I can understand why some patients distrust doctors' professional opinions. Doctors, in general, don't listen very well, and they often dismiss your concerns or cut you off. They may be experts in medicine, but they are not experts in calming irrational fear.

When you have a chronic disorder, such as anxiety, you have no choice but to interact with doctors. It's a pain in my butt. I have a hard time advocating for myself, but unfortunately, when you deal with doctors, you have to be able to speak up and stand up for yourself. I've never developed the skill of assertiveness, and I feel when I've tried to stand up and speak out, I've been shot down. It's a difficult thing to do, especially if you lack self-esteem, like I do.

There are calls to change the way doctors interact with patients and to introduce empathy into the medical system. In particular, some clinicians and patients are using graphic novels to tell their stories. They've even developed a whole website and conference for this genre: Graphic Medicine.

But I think waiting for the medical system to change to favor patients' humanness over diagnoses will take entirely too long and will not help me in the long run. I'll need to learn how to stand up for myself and my medical needs even when doctors are dismissing my concerns. This feels like an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in, especially with anxiety because sometimes my anxiety does blow things out of proportion. I can't tell if what I'm feeling should be taken seriously or if it should be dismissed as irrational, and unfortunately, the people who do have knowledge that can help me aren't sharing it as much as I would like.

If I had one wish for the medical community, it would be for my doctor to offer more information on how biological mechanisms work and also for our appointments to be longer so that we could actually talk. The current system does not allow doctors to really spend time with their patients and discuss their concerns.

Disclaimer: I used to work for the Press that publishes the Graphic Medicine book series.

Social Blunder: He Needs to Learn Some Manners First

When young children approach my dog, I tend to tense up. My dog isn't aggressive, but he does have a lot of energy and could easily knock over a child. I don't let him approach children, and a few times young kids have asked to pet my dog, I've told them no and held my dog back. While I love my dog, I don't let him near children because I don't want him to accidentally hurt a kid. This is all a bit funny since my dog loves young kids and always pulls towards them.

A few weeks ago I took Neeko for a walk in the park. Everything was going well until I saw a young boy, around 2 or so, petting a large calm dog. Oh, no, I thought. Please don't let them come this way. And of course, they came my way. I held Neeko back as best as I could, and I moved off the walking path. When the young boy approached, I tried to dissuade him from petting my dog, and a couple seconds later, his guardian encouraged him to walk away. You can't pet all dogs. Some dogs have too much energy, his guardian said. I was grateful for the guardian's intervention, but I also felt a bit sad. A tear rolled down the young boy's cheek as he walked away (I'm not making that up either). That boy really loved dogs.

As they walked away, I exclaimed, "He needs to learn some manners first!" with a smile. The guardian gave me a strange look, like I had just insulted him, and then I realized with horror, he thought I was talking about his kid! I was talking about my dog! My dog needed to learn how to calm himself and keep his paws on the ground while people pet him.

This incident keeps replaying over and over again in my head, and I find it difficult to shut off the shame. I didn't mean to insult the well-behaved toddler, who was much, much better behaved that my overexcited pooch. Every time my brain reminds me of the episode, I talk a deep breath and remind myself it was a silly miscommunication. It's not a big deal. Perhaps over time, the shame of yelling "learn some manners" will fade away.

The Perils and Perks of Medication

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote in 2018. I was officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, and my primary care doctor persuaded me to go on medication. I took escitalopram (Lexapro) since it was thought to cause fewer side effects than other SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibtors; essentially the medicine blocks neurons from absorbing serotonin so that the serotonin lingers longer between the synapses inbetween neurons, causing your serotonin levels to artificially increase).

Side effects warnings are always terrifying. The FDA requires companies to list all side effects, even those that are rare but have been reported, such as death or blood clots. The worse side effects are typically the rarest, but my anxious brain latches onto them, focusing on the biggest threat (even though they are highly improbably). So, as you can imagine, after I read the side effects of the medication, I did not want to take it. My biggest fear is that I would experience depression again. I didn't want to go to that dark place a third time. However, my doctor was convinced that since we had exhausted our other venues, which included yoga, therapy, and reducing caffeine intake, he thought it was best that I go on the medication. I eventually relented.

SSRIs are drugs that take a while to build up in your system before they can actually work. While the medication was building up, I did experience some side effects. The two biggest side effects for me were nausea and feeling tired 24/7. I struggled to get work done in the office, and all I wanted to do was nap. Even though the pharmacy recommended that I take the medicine in the morning, I decided to take the medicine at night so that I could hopefully avoid falling asleep at my desk. It did work. I felt like I had fewer side effects throughout the day, but I also feel like the medicine didn't work as well. I also felt more anxiety during the day, though not as much without the medicine.

The medication did work. It didn't prevent all of the anxiety, but it did numb it so that I could combat it with my thoughts. I felt calmer and had less trouble falling asleep at night. For once in my life, I felt normal and that the anxiety that I was feeling was manageable.

Fast forward to February when I decided to foster a dog (and eventually adopt him). That dog managed to grab a full bottle of medication that I had just gotten from the pharmacy off of the table, and he destroyed the bottle. He ripped the plastic to pieces. When I opened the door to my apartment and saw what had happened, I gasped and went into panic mode. I immediately cleaned up the plastic and counted the pills. Phew. All 30 were accounted for, and the dog hadn't eaten any. But I hadn't vacuumed that carpet in over 4 weeks (nasty, I know). I tossed the pills in the garbage and didn't look back. There was no way I was putting those in my mouth.

I still had half a bottle from last month, so I started to ration the pills. Going off SSRIs cold turkey leads to some very unpleasant side effects, and those side effects tend to mimic anxiety. It sucked. I took the pills every other day and then every three days, hoping the pharmacy would refill the prescription soon before I ran out of pills. I ran out three weeks ago, and these last few weeks have been extremely difficult. I've had a lot of nausea and brain zaps. I also dealt with muscle pain and vertigo. It's felt like an emotional roller coaster, and sometimes I cried at the drop of a hat. For three days last week, I had insomnia, especially on the days before and after my annual performance review at work. However, since American insurance companies only pay for so much medication a month, I didn't think I could afford another bottle of pills without insurance. I didn't even bother to call and negotiate since negotiating is just unpleasant for a doormat like me and I expected to get denied anyway.

I just got the automatic refill on Saturday, but I still haven't taken it yet. The anxiety is welling up, and I'm so anxious that I can't even sit down to enjoy some leisure time. I turned on the Xbox to play a video game, but then turned it off when I thought I most likely couldn't beat the difficult level I'm stuck on. I laid down in bed to take a nap with my dog curled by myself, but I was unfortunately unable to calm my mind. I think I should start the medicine again, but I feel anxious about it, not as anxious as before I started it, but anxious enough that I'm not ready to take another pill.

Since adopting my dog, I've been getting more bruises. I had a huge system of 4-5 bruises on my thigh where you can typically see a large vein. There were bruises on my other thigh, on my calves, and on my forearms. I don't know how they got there. It could be that all the walking we do is causing me to bruise. I haven't gotten as many bruises since I've been off the medication, and I think I'll talk to my doctor before starting again. I should have called my doctor weeks ago, but I've been putting it off. If I'm going to get my anxiety back on track, I'll need to make that phone call.

I'm Gonna Fail!

In my undergraduate sophomore year in college, every time I had a test or quiz, the same scene would play out.

"I'm gonna fail!" I would exclaim while stressing over the pages in front of me, but my roommate rolled her eyes. "No, you're not."

And she was always right. I almost always passed with A's and sometimes B's. I only failed one quiz in my college career, and I dropped the class soon after that once I realized I had spread myself too thin. I agonized over my decision to drop the class, and I felt like a complete failure. I had even spoke with a professor about my decision, and he seemed very nonchalant about the whole situation. He had dropped many classes before, and he was no where near perfect. Even though he had a Ph.D., he actually had made C's in his undergraduate years. To him, dropping one class wasn't a big deal, but to me, it felt like a mountain.

I was reminded of this memory while listening to Hermoine Granger fret over her O.W.L.S. in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I completely understood how she felt, as she started to convenience herself that she was going to fail every single test. In the end, Hermoine got top marks, but she was still disappointed that she didn't get the very top mark for one class. Almost all outstanding and one exceeds expectations, and she felt like a failure.

I frequently have that problem. I constantly feel like a failure even when one thing goes wrong. I forgot to check the quotations in this manuscript; I'm a failure. I didn't manage to vacuum the floors this Saturday; I'm a failure. I made an awkward joke and it fell flat; I'm a failure.

It's cliche to constantly repeat that everyone makes mistakes, but it's true. It's okay to make a mistake. It's okay to mess up. It's as common as people passing stools. It's just a thing we must accept in life, but it's still really hard to accept. Do I have any worth if I make mistakes? If I don't get straight A's or have the best work performance, do I even deserve any good feelings that may be sent my way?

And this is where self-compassion comes in. Self-Compassion is sort of the "new" self-esteem. It's about forgiving yourself and treating yourself with kindness. I'm not very good at, but I am trying to practice it. I practice it by giving myself a break, even if I haven't finished all my work. I practice by forgiving myself for missing an email, and reminding myself that I'm not an idiot, just overwhelmed. I also practice self-compassion by taking a deep breath whenever my brain tries to bully me and convince me I'm worthless, and then reminding myself that making one mistake doesn't mean I'm worthless. It just means I'm human.

Irrational Anxiety

I've tried to sit down and write this post a couple times this week. I usually begin by convincing myself that I need to search social media and look at other people's works to get my brain going, but I'm beginning to think that that's just a cop out. It's as if my anxiety is taking control of my unconscious thoughts. What if people don't like my post? What if I mess up? What if someone actually wants to talk to me and comments on the posts I write? It seems a little silly, doesn't it? But the anxiety is like a little bug that hijacks your thoughts, and if you're not careful, you can become its zombie.

I have experienced more anxiety in these past ten months than I have in my entire life. I am experiencing anxiety over things that generally didn't bother me as much in the past. Two days ago, I decided that I wanted to go home to visit my pets. I discussed the plans with my parents, found a surprisingly cheap plane ticket, and then procrastinated. When my mom asked why I hadn't bought it yet, I told her I'd buy it later. I put it off until about 9 or 10 at night.

Once I finally sat down to buy the ticket, I could feel the anxiety rising, and it felt absolutely ridiculous. All I was doing was buying a plane ticket. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my family, but I began to worry about everything that was out of my control. I started thinking about plane hijackings, bad weather, seeing an abusive ex at an airport, just having to deal with people in general. On some level, I knew my worries were completely irrational and not at all important at the moment. All I wanted to do was book a plane ticket. I wasn't getting on the plane for another couple of months. I could worry about those things later, but the worry about them almost prevented me from buying the ticket. I deliberated a lot until I finally clicked on confirm. Once I clicked confirm and walked away from my computer, the anxiety melted away.

I struggled to do something that I wanted all because of the anxiety and fear of the unknown. Sometimes just knowing the facts doesn't help either. Do I know that flying by plane is much safer than riding by car? Oh, yes, I do know that, but did that stop the worrying and tension I felt in my body? Nope. Not a bit.

The only thing that helped me to overcome the anxiety was to push past the fears holding me back and do what I was afraid of anyway. It reminded me of what Rachel (from Rachel and Jun) mentioned in her vlog on anxiety. The only way to really overcome the anxiety is to do what you're afraid of, and it sucks. It's extremely unpleasant, both in your thoughts and in your body. In my case, I can feel my thoughts screaming at me, "We're all gonna die!" and I can feel my muscles contracting and sometimes shaking. I constantly have to remind myself to relax my foot because it always seems to be contracted and lifted whenever I think about something that makes me anxious. My leg muscles have been extra tight lightly, and my headaches are starting up again. My jaw always hurts more after a day of high anxiety.

It would be easier and much less painful to avoid whatever makes me anxious, but then I wouldn't be able to function as a human being. I wouldn't be able to go to work, fly home to see my family, go to the grocery store, take public transportation, or even just go outside and take a walk in my neighborhood. And there are many times when I don't do the things I want to do because I'm afraid I might run into someone. I simply surpress the fear by deciding not to go outside that day, and many times on the weekends, I don't go outside at all. It's not completely terrible, and staying at home has some perks, but it does prevent me from getting work done. And at the end of it all, I have all these errands and chores that I should have done but procrastinated on because of anxiety.

It's a difficult and exhausting disorder to live with, and I am doubtful that it'll ever go away. I have always tended towards the anxious side and anxiety runs in my family. I just didn't realize all this until I was much older and could finally understand what anxiety felt like and how it was holding me back. I do feel utterly ridiculous sometimes that I struggle to complete tasks that most people can do without thinking. I have done them without thinking anxious thoughts in the past, but now? Now it's different for some reason. Now it's harder to control the anxiety, and it's more pervasive than ever. I haven't had a full night of sleep since September, but in order to break through the anxiety, I have to keep pushing myself. It's a constant struggle. I just hope one day I'll get to the other side of this disorder and come out finally with some well earned rest and a quiet mind.

Bout of Books #21 - Day 3

I'm afraid I completely forgot about the Bout of Books challenge on Day 1, but I managed to read at least 15-30 minutes before bed. I've mostly read Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes, and I'm 50% finished.

On Tuesday, I worked late and didn't read at all! After working and cooking, I honestly didn't feel like I had the energy to read, which is funny, considering I watched a couple episodes of Scrubs. I could come up with lame excuse that I was unmotivated or too tired to read, but the truth is the only way to read more is to just do it before your brain starts to make excuses.

Here's to more reading later this week. May my excuses be gone, and my eyes be hungry for words.

I'm Joining Bout of Books #21!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team 

It's been a while since I've done some serious reading, and I would like to read more. So, for this reason, I will be participating in the Bout of Books read-a-thon, starting on Monday! My goal is to read for one hour a day. The books on the docket include The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan, the second book in the Ranger's Apprentice serious and Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes.

Anxiety Explosion

This September I took prednisone for an allergic reaction to fenugreek leaves. Unfortunately, the doctor prescribed a rather large dose, and within 24 hours, I had taken over 120mg of prednisone, which I do not recommend for anyone. At all. It's best, in my opinion, to avoid prednisone, if at all possible. My doctor likened it to a nuclear bomb going off in your body. That nuclear bomb broke my anxiety regulator and released the anxiety goblins.

Although I have had some anxious tendencies in the past, I haven't ever experienced anxiety attacks like I have in the past two months. A couple of times at night I purposely woke up my boyfriend out of fear that something was wrong. I went to the emergency room so many times that the last time I went, the doctor didn't run any tests and suggested I talk to a psychiatric nurse instead. I felt angry and upset yet a bit embarrassed and humiliated. The doctors at the emergency room were "starting to refuse to treat me" or at least that's what I told myself. The truth is the doctor saw that I had a problem, but it wasn't the problem I thought I had. I wasn't dying. I was having an anxiety attack.

It's hard to admit that I have an anxiety problem. I don't quite fit the GAD diagnosis since I've only had symptoms for three months, but once three months turn into six, I'll fit the diagnosis. The point of my starting counseling was to hopefully stop the anxiety and prevent it from turning into a disorder. While the anxiety has gone down, it hasn't stopped being symptomatic.

The largest anxiety that I have is health anxiety, followed by relationship anxiety, then followed by general anxiety. I don't want to be one of those people. You know, the people who talk about their anxiety, almost as if their anxiety rules their lives. I don't want anxiety to rule my every move, but not talking about and pretending that it can't possibly be anxiety is causing somatic symptoms. I have tingling hands, heart palpitations, lumps in my throat, constant throbbing tension headaches, but I denied that I have anxiety. After all of the doctor visits, I can no longer deny reality. I have anxiety.

Lisa Scott over at The Worry Games suggests that we should be proud of our anxiety, but I'm not proud of it. I'm really upset that I have this type of personality that lends itself to anxiety in the first place. I was angry at my parents for passing their anxious genes to me and not teaching me good mental health practices. I was angry at my bosses for making me work so much and possibly making the anxiety worse. I was angry at myself for not seeing anxiety for what it was earlier in the process.

But now that I've made some peace with the anxiety, I've started to come down from that tense high, and now, I can breathe a bit easier. I feel I still have a long way to go, but at least I'm no longer waking my boyfriend at 3am, asking him if we should go to the emergency room because of heart palpitations. I can't say that I'm proud of it, and I still see it as a hindrance rather than a gift, but maybe one day I'll see it as my ally instead of my enemy.

Identity: Write, Rewrite, Revise, Repeat

I've always had thoughts about identity and place in the world. Who am I? That is the question that I've constantly asked myself since I was a teenager at a residential high school. I used to think that I was no one, just a mediocre little girl, and I still think I'm just a mediocre person. The only difference now is that I've come to accept that mediocre isn't as bad as American culture claims it is. Not all of us can be great, so it's better if we just accept our fate rather than agonize over what we are not.


I've recently finished Revising Herself: The Story of Women's Identity from College to Mid-Life by Ruthelle Josselson (Oxford University Press, 2006), and while reading, I had to recollect my thoughts and prevent myself from zoning out and thinking about myself, which was very difficult. I started this book wanting to find my place, wanting to know how other women handled life after college, if life got any better, but I'm now just more confused. It would be great to be like a Pathfinder, but I'm afraid I'm somewhere between a Pathfinder, Searcher, and Drifter. I don't quite fit into any category, or at least I don't think I fit.

Josselson writes that "Growth is a process of rewriting, revising, and interweaving these narratives," and I hope to the universe that she's right (256). To be stuck with the past that I do have and to be stuck where I am now is just disheartening. I am struggling, and it's exhausting. It gets better the further I get away from high school and college, but the past still haunts me occasionally. I can't wait until I get older and rewrite my past to a hopefully happier narrative.

The most frustrating yet accurate aspect in my opinion about women's identities is that relationships help women to define their identities. I think in this case, I found myself much like a Drifter, needing to define myself by separating who I am from who others are (250). It's exasperating to hear that women's identities are made in relations to others, especially since from day 1 we've been taught that women are "relational creatures" and are defined in terms of others, sometimes lacking their own independence.

Defining oneself in relational terms is inescapable since humans are social creatures, but I would much rather define myself in terms of my work, interests, and hobbies rather than by my relationships. Yeah, I'm a daughter, sister, niece, aunt, girlfriend, friend, assistant but those are not my primary identities. That's just how I happen to relate to others in this world. Perhaps with the invent of social media, we have become more individualistic, or perhaps my anxious-avoidant attachment system is showing. If there is anything that I've learned in my 25 years, it's that people come and go, so it's much better to define yourself independently from others or else you will lose your sense of self.

As Josselson mentions, relationships are a constant balancing act, "a balance between the needs of the people involved" (249), and women define their identities by how they locate themselves within relationships. I'm a little upset that I have to define myself in terms of other people. But maybe I'm still in the young rebellious stage, in which I'm still trying to fight for independence from parents who refuse to give it to me. I had to take what I saw was rightfully mine because if it was up to my mother, I'd still be living in her house, taking a job close to home, and marrying the guy she picked out. Funnily enough, here I am defining myself as what I am not in relations to my parents. I am not the person who is going to submit to or even fulfill their expectations, but I don't want to completely cut my ties with them.

Sometimes, it's really hard not to define yourself in relation to others, especially when you have a different heritage from them. I grew up Cajun, immersed in a French-English world, but up here, they grew up in a German-Polish-British world. There are occasional differences, but for the most of it, I am able to blend in as an American. It's only occasionally when someone discusses something particular to Pennsylvania Dutch that I feel like a stranger in this land. There are a few times when I have to ask someone to explain what they mean because I have no what a pierogi is and I barely grasp the idea of rumspringa. I don't even quite understand the definition of a foodie; people who love food are just called people where I'm from. But for the most part I am able to blend or pretend to blend in Pennsylvania culture. Being a middle-class white person helps a lot. Occasionally, a "y'all" will slip out, though I try not to say it since my coworkers make fun of that word.

Who am I? That kid. You know, the quiet one who people barely remember, who they call a dork, nerd, or shy, smart kid. The assistant who authors go to for questions, but who is always behind, partly because of procrastination, like usual. The one whose heart nearly explodes out of her chest out of anxiety every time the phone rings and sighs with relief when my coworker answers it. That person reading books and who really doesn't want to make much talk at all. I am that person. The one who slips in a "y'all," and quietly kicks herself for giving away her southern heritage. The one who says "quater" and frequently unconsciously converts the "ai" sound to an "e" sound. That kid who tries to blend and be unnoticed, who has adopted modesty because at least with it, I can blend into the crowds and attract little to no attention. The one with hopes for grad school yet wants to continue with my current job track, even if it's not a very large industry. The one writing a "secret" blog, who hopes the blog goes unnoticed yet wishes someone would care. Cajun. Introvert. Reader. Writer. Thinker. Dreamer. The one drawn into many different directions, still searching, reflecting, and creating a place to be.

Mourning Easter

I've read somewhere that once you've been a part of a religious community and then decide to leave the church, you're more likely to mourn the loss of your religion. I like to think that you're not just losing your community, but your faith, belief, and rituals.

I stopped going to church in my first or second year of college. The breaking point was the day the priest decided to preach about loving the sinner, but hating the sin, and he literally said that we should not be tolerate of gay lifestyles. And I could not understand how he reconciled those two points. We had to hate the lifestyle and be intolerant of their actions, but we had to love the person? Someone's actions are a part of who they are. To me, it also seems that someone's lifestyle is a part of who they are, so rejecting their actions and lifestyle is essentially rejecting that person. I refuse to reject someone just because they like the same-sex instead of the opposite-sex. It was that day when I walked out of the church and never looked back. I don't regret it either, and I find myself much happier without church and religion. I am much happier without the cognitive dissonance between what the church tells us to value and the church's actual actions.

I recently read a piece about Mary Magdalene, which led to subsequent Wikipedia searches about the Gospel and Mary Magdalene's background. Honestly, the stories that I read about Christ's resurrection and the Gospels just seem like nonsense. Ever since I was a kid, I had an extremely hard time believing in Christ, and once I finally believed, I constantly questioned why he died for our sins when he was such a good person. Why wasn't it me, the lowly sinner, who was punished? The answer to that question now seems irrelevant since I no longer believe. Jesus just seems like some crazy guy, and maybe he was made up in the first place by people who wanted the obedience of others. I don't know. Nothing can be proven.

Easter doesn't seem to be as big a deal up North than it is down South. I always knew when Easter was coming when I lived in Louisiana because Spring Break for schools aligned with Easter. We were always either off on Good Friday and through the next week or we were off the week of Holy Week and went back to school the Monday after Easter. Here in Pennsylvania, they don't even get Good Friday off. Easter just seemed a blip on my radar, and I sometimes forgot Easter was coming up this Sunday.

I don't miss going to church for Easter, and I had a particularly large disdain for Easter Mass since the incense they used made it difficult for me to breathe. But I do miss the feast. I bought a small slice of ham, some potatoes, and green beans. I'm going to make the usual potato salad and green bean casserole, but I wonder if I even deserve it since I no longer believe. Do I have the right to celebrate with food even though I'm celebrating something that doesn't matter to me? Holidays feel empty now, and they also feel like a drag. Spending time with family used to be fun, but now I can't wait to get away. Spending time with family isn't so bad when they don't focus on religion, but avoiding religion is nearly impossible when on one side, my grandpaw was a deacon, and on the other side, my grandmaw is always volunteering with the church in one way or another.

I guess I wish that holidays had some significance to me, but now most holidays feel empty. Perhaps it's because I no longer have faith or maybe it's because I no longer share the same beliefs as my family. I'm longing for the ritual of feast (but not the rituals of church), but it's hard to feel into it, like I was when I was a kid.

B - Bears

Bears are funny creatures. I like to think they're curious, hungry, and a bit sleepy all the time. Really, look at these bear cubs here, are they not the sleepiest things you've seen? In all seriousness, I don't condone owning wild animals, and I think approaching wild animals is a terrible idea.

Recently, while looking up reference pictures to see how to draw a bear, I discovered that brown bears and black bears do not behave the same. For example, if you counter a brown bear, it's better for you to play dead because brown bears are more aggressive and will attack moving things. On the other hand, if you encounter a black bear, you should wave your hands and make a lot of noise because black bears are a bit shy. I like to think of myself as a black bear, even though I drew my icon as a brown bear.

In Pennsylvania, it's actually not uncommon for bears to end up in towns. Sometime last year, a bear actually walked through downtown, to a park, and finally back into the forests. The police actually followed it as it walked through the town, and that was probably the most action the police got since State Paddy's day.

So may all of you who encounter bears, encounter a black bear.

BEARS

Dull claws with large paws

Fluffy noses for smelling

Dig and eat then sleep

A is for Apples

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, or at least that is what they say. Lately, I haven't been buying as many apples. HOW DARE I?! I used to buy apples all the time when I lived in Louisiana, and they were my go-to fruit. My favorite apple was the Fuji, crisp, juicy, and delicious. It was totally worth the extra ten cents for my favorite apples, but up here, in Pennsylvania, Fuji apples are $2.99, a whole dollar more than the Red Delicious apple, and $1.20 cents more than the Gala apples when they are on sale. This is a travesty!! According to USDA, Pennsylvania's apple prices are on the high side.

Sometimes I wish I could be like the people who buy food without looking at the prices, but every time I see that $2.99 price, I cringe, and those Fuji apples are thick, too. Buying just four apples costs about $4.00. I would have to keep my eyes closed extra tight as I pick up the apples and put them in my bag. Instead of being an everyday snack, apples have become an indulgence for me. How sad...I miss you dear apples, and I have written a haiku for you with our fond memories.

APPLES

Red, Pink, Yellow, Green

Juicy and a seeded core

Crisp and delicious

Is This What They Call Writer's Block?

I created this blog about a week ago, and at that time, I felt inspired to write. I have yet to write anything, a blog post, a diary entry, another sentence to my NaNo story. The processing of writing shouldn't seem very difficult. You essentially move your hands in specific shapes to produce letters, which combine to produce words. Easy-peasy, right?

But what seems to be lacking is the motivation or perhaps drive to write. Many of my college and high school classmates have started to write blogs, and I secretly follow them manually, rather than adding them to a blog list or RSS feed. I would prefer that they don't know that I'm following them. Funnily enough, I didn't want them to know that I have blogged many times before. I started a long time ago, back in 2012 or so, and I have archived blogs and made them private, out of fear that word would get out. How many of my acquaintances found my blogs anyway? That should be the real question. If they found them, they didn't not tell me that they did.

Thinking about the lack of motivation to write, I am reminded of a tweet I recently saw about Kafka's diaries.

Kafka's diaries show the real fun side of writing. pic.twitter.com/h7UWC7UFVR

— Matt Haig (@matthaig1) March 19, 2017

The process of writing is difficult, but the mechanisms of writing are easy.

I wonder if because I don't want anyone to see my writing that I hinder myself from writing. "Who is your audience?" No one. If no one is supposed to read it, then why write it in the first place? It's hard to open up and write because putting your writing out there makes you vulnerable. As Lindy West has written, commenters online can be cruel. It's easier to protect my insides, my heart, my soul from all kinds of people by just not being open in the first place.

That is how I've always lived. Keep quiet. Don't attract attention. Keep your opinions to yourself because putting yourself out there gets you hurt. It attracts that wrong kind of people in your life.

But if I never write at all, my insides become an unorganized mess. Words help to articulate, change, and strengthen my beliefs. To keep my strength and to keep my heart strong, I must write.