A couple weeks ago I started therapy, mostly for anxiety in general that has gotten worse over the last couple years. I haven't discussed this particular event with my therapist yet. I put it on the introduction sheet as an issue I needed to work through. She went through the sheet at the beginning and asked about all the items until she got to that one. She said "is there anything else?" and I said no. I appreciated this at first because I didn't really want to discuss it that day and she can obviously read. But I think it's honestly giving me more anxiety waiting for it to be brought up than it would have to just bring it up right then.

This week she asked me to think back on my life as a kid and my relationships and how emotions were dealt with by the people I was with, both with me and with each other, by themselves, etc and how that may have shaped how anxiety comes out for me now. "Come up with some ideas." I said okay and left, knowing I didn't need to really think about where the anxiety came from. I know where it comes from. I was a straight A kid, played all the sports, never really failed at anything. Not tooting my own horn, I don't really think it's a good thing to not have failures, because you don't learn how to handle it when you do. Then my sophomore year of high school, one event ruined it all. My SA was basically the first time I ever felt like a failure, like I was weak, and damn did I spiral after that. Dropped all my sports, dropped all my clubs, got 3 jobs instead. My grades maintained but the way I handled the work changed. Instead of addressing work when I got it and putting effort into it, I would wait until 11pm the night before it was due, down one cup or coffee after another while writing a paper or whatever, finish whatever the assignment was, email it in and not go to school the next day. By senior year I came to school late, left early, and disappeared for an hour at a time from the campus completely in the middle of the day. Our school was small and I was generally reliable with assignments so I guess no one was concerned, even got a B in a class I showed up to MAYBE 50% of the time. I made erratic choices about who I dated, where I went, how I behaved out with friends. I developed a new fear of heights I didn't have before. It wasn't because I was afraid I'd fall, but because I was afraid I'd make a split second decision to jump--a feeling I didn't really think was not a normal feeling until a year or so ago, just assumed that was why people were afraid of heights. This honestly continued through college, probably until I got married and with us moving all the time, we stayed so busy since then that I haven't really had time to spin out. But we've been here almost 3 years, which is longer than anywhere else, and no move on the horizon, we're done with kids, and now it's just piling and spiraling is easy to do without something to put all my mental capacity to. 

Anyway, this has been me working through this so that when I go back next week and have the conversation about it, maybe I will have worked it out enough to not be a wreck.  maybe.  doubt it.  but hey, one can try.