My journey started a long time ago when I realized that I lived in a box. Not literally of course, but in my mind I had confined myself, my goals, my outlook and everything inside this box. The way I saw it, everything needed to be a certain way and if someone or something wasn’t that way I would work hard to change it.
Somehow this was just the way I was and it took me forever to figure it out.
The funny thing was that I often without realizing it would live outside the box. I never justified it to myself, but would either justify it to everyone else or hide it from them. This was something I did involuntarily. I couldn’t do this on purpose if I wanted to.
I realized that I needed to change the way I looked at things and the way I approach the world.
I work on improving the way I look at the world, the people around me, and every situation I am in. Sometimes this is more actively than other times, but I am aware of what is going on, which is more than what I can say for most of the people I see.
On top of all of this I am an anxious person. Anxiety sneaks up on me and bites me in the ass sometimes once a week and sometimes a couple times a day. It feels like my stomach is twisting, a shot of excitement up my back, my chest tightening, my legs will start bouncing, and various other symptoms that all lead to more anxiety.
I got to work one day and realized something was very wrong, I looked at my boss and asked to leave. He said, “Get out of here, you haven’t sat still since you got here.” I went home, couldn’t calm down and headed straight for the doctor. He quickly put a name to what was going on, “anxiety attack”. Until this point I had always just figured that the world was screwing with me and they needed to stop it. I would get angry, upset, and loud. I would want to throw things and scream and none of it helped. The doctor put me on Welbutrin and after a couple weeks it kicked in and started working wonders for me. I was given a chance to see the world without the fog of being anxious or angry and it made a big difference.
I was finally able to start identifying when the anxiety was sneaking up behind me and learn to control it. I was able to look at the decisions I had made in the past and the reactions to situations and realize that some of the stupider things I had done in my life were reactions to the anxiety and not what I thought was going on.
The world is a screwed up place, but we humans are not all that peachy ourselves. This took me a long time to realize.
With this blog, I hope to share what I observe in myself, in other people, and in situations as well as provide ideas and insight on how to deal with them.
I am always open to discussing the ideas that I present and I will change my tact in a second if I find that something I am saying is either utterly wrong, or if I can make it better. Please do not be afraid to share your ideas and insights with me.