I'm A Myth

Sorry for the absence, I have tried to write on a number of occasions but never made it past a few sentences for one reason or another. Let's see if this time is any different...

Something I have come to realise ever more strongly over the past few months is that I need to stop believing in "Me". Not as in I need to have no self belief but as in I need to stop thinking things like "I wish I could be myself again" or "the real me would love to do that but at the moment I just can't do it..."

I don't exist, not the Me that I keep thinking I want to return to. When I am honest, I have to admit several things. First, anxiety has been with me in one shape or another for a long, long time now. Not always, but a lot. For example, the summer when I was fourteen, I stopped sleeping. I couldn't sleep until it got light, so around 4am. It was the school holidays so it didn't really matter, I could lie in, and anyway, I was 14 so I could do with quite a small amount of sleep if needed, so it went largely unnoticed by me or anyone else. When I was around 17, I had a spell of stress related headaches that were swept away again. And so it goes on, little pockets, sometimes blamed on something else, sometimes ignored, sometimes acknowledged.

Categorically, the carefree Me who didn't worry about anything, was always free to have fun and only considered consequences as they affected others Does Not Exist. (And probably never, ever did.) Trying to get back to this fictional person (there is more to her than just not worrying, some of it did exist, some never did, you get the idea) is not helpful. It is an unnecessary pressure that is unproductive and down right stupid, too. For a start, I learnt quite some years ago that one of the many benefits of the less nice (!) things we go through in life is the ability to understand others in a similar position. Shortly after one of my early bouts of anxiety I met someone who was struggling with self harm, caused by anxiety and a lack of self worth. Our end points were different but our starting points were similar and so I "got" her more than I might otherwise have done.

I am aware that although I would have chosen a different teacher than anxiety, it has had some good effects. I have considered everything I spend my time on and I have slowed down. I give away time less lightly and so what I do give is more valuable. I spend a lot of time lying on the sofa with my kids climbing all over me (we call it snot and dribble...I won't say any more...) because when it comes down to it, that is what they love to do. They love other things too, but they love it when I have the time to be so unbusy with them that we can have a nice long snot and dribble session.

I can't be my teenage or early twenties self again. Life is different, I am different, and rose tinted glasses just get silly after a while. The more I enjoy being me as I am, the less I try to chase after this particular myth.