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I’ve been irritable and anxious lately (maybe depressed, maybe not, but definitely irritable and highly anxious) for several weeks now. Its had a lot to do with a role I assumed at work. It was one I was hesitant to take. Had a lot of reservations about it. I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to do but I did it anyway. Mostly because I was scared of, and resistant, to doing it. It meant giving up a certain established comfort level, giving up free time, taking on stress, putting myself out there and risking judgment, amongst other sacrifices. But I had taken the role with the belief it might force me to grow. I’d hoped I’d become more comfortable with people and gain confidence sharing my “light” (wherever that is) with others, maybe as a healer of some sort. But I can’t definitively say one way or another whether anything at all has changed and most of this time, its felt like I’ve done anything but grow. In a lot of ways, its felt like a colossal failure. I’ve dreaded work almost every day since I took the role. Its nearing an end and I’m grateful for that. I can say without a doubt I wouldn’t do it again. Through it all, I’ve managed to meditate each day and maintain my diet and get to the gym on my days off. But I haven’t been able to read a book in months. I’ve avoided social media, finding it even more triggering than I did before, isolating myself from all but work and my family. I’ve gone off on angry, nonsensical rants after particularly bad work days, of which there’ve been several …. I’m coming out of this experience aware that my healing is so much further from being complete than it was going in. The longer I go unhealed, the more fear and anxiety I feel for my children’s future for whom I’m on this healing journey in the first place, in large part. While, through this work role, I’ve challenged my social anxiety and my avoidant personality disorder in a huge way and made some significant strides (or have I? challenging them at all feels like a huge stride in itself but if nothing has changed, is it? And is it even true that nothing has changed?) I’ve also found myself heavily triggered and overly identified with my past and my mental health disorders. I’m hoping I can return to the path I was on before taking this role. Its felt like a huge regression and I’m still not sure whether my self esteem and self confidence has improved at all or if its all but completely shot. I realize that that last sentence and a few others I’ve written already make no sense. They go from one extreme to another or they contradict themselves. And yet, that’s how I seem to feel. That’s how out of touch I am with what I’m feeling. I’m not even sure if I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve done or bitterly disappointed and resentful that I haven’t risen to the challenge the way I’d hoped to going in to it. I’ve had little time for myself these past few months, almost no time for self care or self growth, and the summer is looking worse for that with my kids off school. And over this time period, nothing terrible has really happened in my life. I’m grateful for that but anxious, as I’ve always been, that something big is coming my way. I’m seeing so many people around me facing huge challenges, some life threatening or life changing in ways that any normal ego would label as “bad” or “terrible” or “heartbreaking” and in some cases, traumatic or tragic, and that I nonetheless want to see as happening “for” us somehow, knowing full well if I faced those same particular challenges, I’d likely crumble under that same pressure (without even considering all the other pressure I’m already under). I’ve been amazed by the strength I’ve witnessed in some of these people. Yet I’ve lived with my own unique life changing and even life threatening challenges for over 4 decades, and I haven’t crumbled yet. And still I refuse to give myself credit for that every time I feel anxious about the future, every time I’m jealous of how put together someone else with a completely different story appears to be, every time I compare myself against anyone at all, every time I make a mistake. When I think back on my life and the extreme depression and anxiety and shame (shame simply for being human) and suicidal ideations that I’ve struggled with since early childhood, it could have gone so completely differently. I’m often not amazed enough at the life that I’ve managed to carve out, choosing instead to focus on what’s not working or the experiences I avoided that could have made me “normal” like everyone else. All my life, up until I met my wife and eventually had kids, I’ve completely avoided relationships and friendships (even since starting a family, and starting my recovery journey, I keep other relationships, of which there are very few, at arms distance, an extremely long arm’s distance) and by avoiding those things, I avoided all the experiences that come with them that make us into happy, capable, intelligent, confident, well adjusted, fully alive human beings just because I saw relationships, not totally incorrectly either, as bringing more judgment, stress, unhappiness and problems into life. And in my resistance to judgment, stress, and unhappiness, I’ve brought all those things into my experience of my life and myself while also rendering myself incapable, and “dumb” and with no self confidence or self esteem… Not sure what my point is. Just tired of the struggle. But staying committed to my process and my truth, as confusing and contradictory and distant as my truth is to me.