Anxiety Hermit Mode

I’ve spent about seven years avoiding the fact that I have anxiety. I’ve always known that I was a cautious person – I like to observe situations before engaging in them. I’ve always known that I was very shy – I used to make my mother order my sandwiches when we went to a lunch counter because I was afraid of talking to other people. But I never admitted to myself – or to anyone else – that I have anxiety.

That is, until this past year when I decided to start paying attention to my emotions. It’s been tough because sometimes it feels like acknowledging the anxiety gives it more power over me, even though it’s only by acknowledging it that I’ve been able to work through it.

The past few months, though, the anxiety has been winning on one front and that’s my blog. I think maybe it’s because I beat it back on other fronts (like resigning my full-time, real-person job and heading to Australia for three months), but every time I find myself thinking about blogging, I get this tight knot in my chest and a voice pops into my head to tell me how that’s a stupid topic or, no, you don’t want to share that publically, what will people think of that?

So, I haven’t written about any of the things that have happened in my life recently and these are big things, things I want to share. I’m going to try to come out of that mode now. I’m going to try to share a little bit every day. It may not be particularly big or bold or even that well-written, but I’m going to try to write something every day for the rest of the time I’m here in Australia.

Thank you for reading.