I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

And so it is. We've been very fortunate here this year and it hasn't snowed too much. Last year was just awful, ungodly amounts of snow was just dumped upon us here. Tonight, it is snowing lightly. I suppose one of the nice things about being a homebody is that I don't have to worry about driving in the snow or scraping my car.

I am experiencing some anticipatory anxiety for Christmas but still looking forward to it. All I want for Christmas is to have a peaceful, relatively anxiety free one. I've been a bit sick as well, which is definitely not helping. I had awful worries about getting a cold but it seems to have passed quickly. Here's to hoping it's gone. *fingers crossed* Christmas is my favorite holiday and I really just want to be able to look forward to spending it with my family rather than worry about what may happen.

I feel pretty blessed to have family and friends who are close enough to be family in my life. I am glad that I was able to get all my shopping done despite having issues with agoraphobia lately. I have so many wonderful memories as a child from Christmas. I remember the year I was convinced I had heard Santa's reindeer on my rooftop and seen him leaving presents under the tree. I am definitely enjoying vegging out around the house and watching Christmas movies. I love the newer Miracle on 34th Street, Elf (seriously, it's not Christmas without this movie, I love Will Ferrel), and a Charlie Brown Christmas.

I am a bit sad that I was so looking forward to spending Christmas with my ex but it's the way the cookie crumbles. I miss him quite often but am doing my best to let him go. As you can probably tell from past posts, I have very bitter moments and very loving moments towards him. Hopefully, once it gets easier I hope only love will remain.

Happy Holidays to you all :) I hope you all have wonderful, anxiety-free holidays!

Here's what I am currently listening to, my favorite Christmas music.

Countdown to the end of the year.

This past year has just been a mess. It's really been an unpleasant year. I am looking forward to putting it behind me and hope that 2011 brings in new beginnings. I feel like I've watched myself slowly decline over the past year, losing all that I had built up and losing myself in another. Someone who doesn't understand the sacrifices I made, that he wasn't the only one making them. I wonder what the point was now, it ended so badly. I wonder if I will ever meet someone who will love me the way I am, all of me and understand my limits and respect them. Who will stick with me through the hard stuff.

Anyway..

So I finally got around to taking a full pill. I've been taking them while I am calm to see if they cause me any extra anxiety. I do get a bit anxious at first but if I don't think about it too much, I end up being okay. Well a full pill didn't do much, but I was already calm and at home so I took another full pill the next day and went out. I got anxious about taking a full one and being out so I ended up coming home in a bit of an anxious state anyway. Now I don't want to take them at all again. *sigh* I am on a really low dose and my therapist told me to just take another one. It's taken me months to build up to taking one, do I really want to take another one? Um, let's see....NO. I don't.

So now I am completely frustrated. I keep on seeing less and less possibilities of living a life free of anxiety if I can't even take the steps I need to get there. Then I fall into deep depression, not seeing a way out. It's like a cruel circle I am stuck in, some sort of..samsara. I keep on finding hope, then losing it and being heartbroken. I don't know how long I can keep dealing with this heartbreak over and over again. I found my way into this unknowingly and now I can't find my way out.

I'm a bit anxious about Christmas coming up. I had a lot of anxiety over Thanksgiving but I also didn't feel very good so I hope it goes better. Christmas is usually my favorite holiday but this year, I just don't have the energy to get excited. Even in the past, when I've been in a down state, I still look forward but I think this year I had so much invested in being excited about having someone else to celebrate it with that it's been hard for me to get excited now that it's lost. I am glad to have family to celebrate it with, but my family never really gets into Christmas much. I was ready to have someone to start traditions with. I guess on the bright side, maybe the next person I will meet will understand me more as a person and have less expectations of me to be the person they want me to be. And also, the weather is so much less severe than last year. I am not counting down till the year is over. I hope the new year brings in a much better year...

Just one of those days.

Today is one of those days where I feel like pulling out my hair in frustration. I am so angry and just tired. I feel like I'm in some sort of Groundhog Day situation. Same thing, new day. I know I need to change to get out of this rut but I don't even know how. All the routes out have some sort of road block. Why can't I just do the things I need to do to change!?! Why must things be so scary? I am so tired of fighting...myself. It's exhausting and nobody is winning. Why am I standing in my own way? Why am I my own brick wall?

The days where the anxiety is just simmering are the days I have hope. The days where it is boiling, make me just want to give up. I am exhausted with myself. I'm especially tied of the persistent dark thoughts looming around in my mind. Why can't I just take my meds? Why can't therapy just help? Why do I keep finding myself here? I don't think there is a day in the past two months that I haven't cried.

I am so terrified of taking the meds. I had such a terrible reaction to the last one, I've developed a fear of them. But I want my freedom back. I don't want to be plagued with this fear anymore. But I also don't want to be dependent on a medication or get addicted for that matter. I also don't want to have another bad reaction again, I couldn't even take vitamins for months after that last time I was so scared. So far as far as I get is smashing up a pill and taking maybe half of it but I can't seem to take a full one and I haven't noticed any changed from the half other than my own mind freaking itself out. All I can think sometimes is "omg I just took a pill, what is something happens?"

I'm going to end up with patches of my hair pulled out.

Counting my blessings

This is my favorite time of year, only because of the holidays! I must admit, I tend to "hibernate" during winter and I hate the cold weather but Christmas and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays. Luckily, it has not snowed yet around here even if it has gotten cold. Today had it's ups and downs. I've been more cheerful than usual but I did have some strong anxiety right as everyone was arriving for dinner. And I've been having some stomach problems lately so I wasn't able to really eat much but it was nice to see the family. It does frustrate me that anxiety reared it's ugly head on such a nice day but it's over now.

Even though things have been really difficult lately and sometimes it really seems like my world is toppling down upon me, I do realize that I have many things to be grateful for.

I am thankful that I have a family to spend the holidays with. I am lucky that my family accepts who I am even if I'm not always understood and have had issues with it in the past. I am thankful that I have a family that gives me the space to figure out what I need to do for myself and provides me with a place to stay. I am thankful to have a family who loves me.

I am also thankful for the wonderful friends I am surrounded with. I am very lucky to be blessed with friendships of all sorts, even those that are close enough to be family. My friends really have pulled me through some very difficult times and have pulled me out of the darkness. I don't know where I would be without my close friends and I am thankful to be cared for so much.

This past year, the relationship I have been in has been very difficult. I felt like we had a lot of things working against us, most of the time. And with how everything ended, it has been very hurtful and confusing but I am thankful for the love that he gave me at one time. The times we were able to spend together and enjoy the time was wonderful. I feel lucky to have been loved by him.

I am also thankful that even though life seems cruel at times, I still have it pretty good. It is just hard to see the light through the clouds sometimes. I can only hope that I will walk away a stronger person. I am so ready to break free of this loop I seem to be stuck in. I can look back and somehow even when things are hard, I've still been taken care of and I feel very blessed for that. I am grateful for the ability to connect with others. I thank God for all the love that surrounds me.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

Here I go again.

It's been a rough month. Actually, when I think about it, it's been a rough year. I feel like everything that I worked towards last year, slowly slid out of my view this year. I don't know what happened, I was rather happy around the start of the year. I feel like I lost myself and everything I had worked so hard to get, slowly slid out of my view again. I feel heartbroken but not only over a relationship but over life itself right now. And I know my biggest hurdle is myself. *sigh*

I wonder if getting into a relationship was the best idea. I still had a lot of things I needed to do for myself. It has always been hard for me to balance being in a relationship and taking care of myself at the same time. Most people end up walking away feeling I am selfish and concrete in my ways. I wish that these guys would listen to me when I tell them what to expect. I guess words are much different than actually having to experience it. I am an affectionate person by nature though and it's difficult for me to ignore my desires for a relationship. I love having someone in my life, it's like I am able to get out of my head in a way. I have someone else to focus on. I just hope that one of these days somebody walks into my life who can accept me, as I am.

I suppose however, first I have to accept myself as I am. I keep feeling that I'd be a much better person, a happier person if I just didn't have the anxiety but in reality it's formed a lot of who I am. Sometimes I just wish I could see myself through the eyes of someone who has loved me.

I now find myself in a very rough spot again. I am not getting out as much as possible and I've fallen into a deep depression. I feel as though I've stumbled into a trap and darkness has surrounded me and I can't find my way out. It's been very scary at times and my thoughts have wandered into dark territory. Familiar territory, as I've been here before but I had hoped never to find myself here again yet here I am.

As hurt as I am with my ex, I cannot help but to feel like maybe I was drowning and taking him down with me. Maybe it was all he could do to save himself from drowning with me was to finally cut the ties to me. I do feel as though I need a guy who has the strength to be able to go through such a rough time with me. I don't want someone who only sees the enjoyable times with me and then is blindsided when the bad hits. I want someone who can take the great and the terrible. But I understand that mostly it ends up being overwhelming. Is it a horrible thing to want someone who just won't be pushed away, overwhelmed, or blindsided by me? I am realizing that I really do need my find my own happiness. I am constantly trying to distract myself, is it really that bad to just sit with myself for awhile? I guess we will see.

So I am back to square one. I am spending time writing out positive affirmations, listening to my hypnotherapy cds and trying to dive deeper into myself. I am working on a new art project I hope will keep me busy. I am currently reading The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. It is a very beautifully written book. The author writes so poetically, and deeply. I meditate for about 20 minutes every night. I am still trying to find myself spiritually. I haven't found anything that fits yet and there's not a ton of ways to explore spirituality where I live. I suppose it doesn't help I won't go far away enough to really be able to explore it as well. I am a little bummed out because I am absolutely dying to see the new Harry Potter movie out but I find movies something difficult to do right now. *sigh* I am trying not to hate being here again but at times all my frustrations end up building up and exploding. I am always afraid that one of these times I am not going to be able to pick myself up or something worse. *sigh* Here I go again.

One big happy family...?

So one of the problems my previous relationship had was he wanted kids and I did not. I have often believed that I just did not want kids but lately I wonder if it's because of the agoraphobia. I am afraid that I would not be a good parent. What if things got bad and I couldn't leave the house to take my kid to the hospital if need be? What about the things I couldn't do with my kid? So many what-ifs. I've read a couple of other blogs with agoraphobic mothers and they do a wonderful job, but what if I can't? What if I can't rise to the occasion? At one point, I did want a family and to have kids but then I changed my mind. It's been back and forth over the years but mainly towards not wanting kids but ever since I've been serious enough to think about a family, I've been agoraphobic. What if it is blocking my desires with so much fear I really do believe I don't want it? I just don't know. My therapist told me I wasn't in a good place to decide something like that and she is probably right but I can't help but wonder. It's the main reason he can't be with me. I don't want to want kids so we can be together but I also don't want to miss out on having such an experience out of pure fear.

At one time, I used to hate going out to restaurants and movies. I really just thought I didn't like it but as I got more used to doing it and the fear stopped being so bad, I realized I really do enjoy those things. Even when anxiety is present I still realize it's not the activities that I detested but the feelings I believed they caused. I now love to go out to restaurants and it does make me sad when I get too anxious to go. I know that's quite a bit less serious than children but the idea is the same. Also, I fear getting pregnant because I'm afraid of getting physically sick. I would rather fall of a bridge than get sick. So the morning sickness is a HUGE scare.

I guess it just makes me really sad to have lost a relationship to something like this and in so, it really has made me think about it deeper than I had been thinking about it. It makes me ever sadder to think about being old and looking back on my life and seeing all the things I missed out on due to fear. I already look back and see all the things I didn't take the opportunity. I just don't want to realize that I did want kids when it is too late. I don't want to rule things out because of fear. I want to be making my own decisions based on my heart and soul.

Give time some time.

So I know I've posted a bit about my relationship status on and off and once again I find that it is off. I'm a little more okay with things being over than last time but I am really hurt about how it all went and how someone could be so hurtful. Of all people to act that way, I never expected him to and it really hurt and shocked me. After everything this morning, I think that maybe he had checked out of what we had a couple weeks ago. I hit a really low point and I think why it is best I stay away from him so I don't go there again.

But it makes me really sad, I wanted to be with him and I loved him very much. I loved to spend time with him. I went from being someone who liked doing everything on my own to wanting him to be there for things. I think what makes me saddest, other than how he acted about things after, is that he walked away feeling like I didn't love him. We had several problems but one of them was the agoraphobia. I had stopped going to his place because it was way too far out of my comfort zone and he was getting tired of coming out to see me. He would so we could spend time together but I know he was getting tired of it. He also felt that because I didn't try to see him that I didn't want to be with him enough, or that I didn't appreciate him enough. I guess I have my own pain too, I wonder if he really loved me also or if I will just become another one that when he looks back, it wasn't really there.

But that comes back to my questioning of how on earth does someone with agoraphobia date? I've yet to really meet someone who doesn't eventually grow weary of the things I struggle with. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will or if it will just keep getting in the way. I'm a romantic at heart so even when I feel broken beyond repair, there's always a sliver to start rebuilding.

I guess it's time to start rebuilding. I'm so hurt after everything that went down though. I guess I hope that someday the love I give is the love someone is looking for. Time to give time some time to heal.