An open letter to myself

Dear Me,

You can’t tell the difference between when it’s normal to be anxious, and when it’s not.

You knew that you got anxious occasionally, but you never thought that you’d had anxiety your whole life. You thought you were just highly strung and anally retentive (and you were ok with that).

You have overcome so much, emotionally. You no longer have extreme arachnophobia, germaphobia, or a fear of driving. You overcame this on your own, with no medication or help from others.

You should be proud of this. Be proud of yourself.

When you were a teenager it was easier for you to cope with things like rejection because you were a pessimist. You never expected to achieve anything or reach any goals.

Now that you are an adult and an optimist, you see just how hard it is to believe in yourself constantly. You are smart. You have talent. You can succeed. And you don’t know how to deal with that.

You want to constantly go back to being pessimistic because it’s familiar. You can’t fail or disappoint anyone if you think you’re not going to achieve.

Your nagging desire to ‘be a good girl’ and make your mother proud comes from the fact that she never gave you the affection you craved as a child with one parent. She never pressured you into being a high achiever, or to make her proud. You did that all on your own.

You thought that you could replace the affection with affirmation or acknowledgement. Your mother won’t love you more or less depending on how much you achieve, or if you’re a ‘good girl’. Your mother loves you for who you are, she’s just not an affectionate person.

You pressured yourself to going into university because that’s what everyone else you knew was doing. When you didn’t get in the first time, you cried for days. You felt like the world’s biggest failure and you couldn’t understand why.

But you kept trying, and you got in eventually. You did it. You got into uni and now you are graduating.

Never mind that you think your degree is a waste. You may get a job, but you may not- and that’s ok.

Stop pressuring yourself into the idea that you need to have some high profile career. You clearly cannot handle stress as well as you use to- and that doesn’t mean you are broken. You’ve been fighting with anxiety for 20 years- give yourself a break!

Life does not revolve around what career you have, or how much money you earn. Don’t be afraid to want to have kids and be a stay-at-home mum. If that is what you want to do, do it.

You went to a therapist to rid yourself of anxiety and your PTSD. He helped A LOT, but you realised that this isn’t just something you can just ‘get rid of’.

Accept that you have anxiety and that it may or may not decrease as you get older. The important thing is that you’ve got people who love and support you through it. You are not alone, and you never have been.

Do what you want and stop giving a fuck what society says an adult is supposed to act like.

If for some reason you end up not being able to work because of your anxiety, don’t let it get you down or make you feel inferior to others. You can’t help that your issues are genetic, nor can you help what happened in your childhood.

Stop being so harsh on yourself. Paint the painting. Write the story. Stop putting things off because you can’t make them ‘perfect’.

Above all, never give up on yourself.

Love, Me