I am Not Insecure. I Have Anxiety.

It's funny, really, how much being constantly inside your own head makes you feel like you're never going to be enough. A side effect of anxiety is feeling like a failure. A side effect of anxiety is feeling stupid for feeling like a failure and then making it worse. A side effect of anxiety is feeling stupid for feeling stupid. You end up trying very hard to convince yourself that there's no reason to feel this way, but you still feel this way. You still feel lost, or angry, or sad. The constant worry coupled with the fact that you feel dumb for worrying, well, it's just exhausting. And one more thing -- it's fake. It's a trick.

Anxiety fools you into thinking you're the problem.

At it's worst for me this year, I was working extra by helping other locations, staying late at my own store to make sure I picked up any and all slack. I was helping a friend who had recently moved back to the area by giving him rides to work, trying to be a comfort zone, and overall just making sure he was doing okay. Plus normal life things, like friends and family and a dog. I was constantly on the go, rarely home, doing something for someone else. I was always tired and very stressed.

My job was the biggest trigger. I've always had mild anxiety episodes, or just worried too much about little things, but I like to be in control when that goes wrong. I'd been with my job for five years at this point, and I was very comfortable and confident in what I was doing. It's not a dream job, but it pays my bills, and I am absolutely the type of person who values my job regardless. We all need to make money, and if this is how I do it, I want to do it well. I value the fact that I can put a roof over my own head and live independently. In order to maintain that, I have to put in the work, so I do. I work hard, I show up, and I make sure I'm doing everything I can to be the best at what I am doing.

Then comes this new boss. He made me feel like I was bad, not just underperforming or mediocre, but BAD at my job. It tore me apart. It rocked everything I had thought or known about what I was doing. I worked harder, which wouldn't have been a bad thing except I had already been stretched thin with the company and working too much as it was.  I then stressed harder to make up for feeling like a failure. It just floored me.

The friend who had recently moved back was a close one. We got closer as we spent more time together, and I'd felt comfortable with him, but I was honestly spending too much of my time worrying about his life and how he was doing instead of my own. I didn't see it that way at the time, but I did struggle with how I fit into his life. I didn't know if I was inserting myself where there was no space for me. Despite him reassuring me that I was not, it felt like I was. Then we disconnected, and again, I was floored because of the way it happened. These weren't the causes of the anxiety, just the triggers.

I then convinced myself that I actually wasn't doing enough, however, because nothing ended up feeling like it was working out. People around me were still struggling, my job felt strenuous and miserable. I felt so disconnected to how I truly felt about all of it. I felt gross and unworthy, when in reality, I was just tired.

My anxiety had told me that I was insecure. My anxiety had me fooled into thinking that if I had only tried harder, that friend and I would still be close. Truth is, we aren't because he lied to me and hid his life after I had gone out of my way to help him for months. My anxiety told me that my job mattered more than my own sanity and that the 60+ hours a week I was working on a 40-hour salary was going to get me somewhere. Unexpectedly and naturally after I felt like I might have found a groove, now I have a new boss and his expectations are completely different. I am back at square one. None of it mattered, but in my head I was failing everyone around me and losing everything in the process.

In fact, I was trying. I was mentally drained, and the culmination of the last two years (other things I had decided not to fully deal with) hit me like a ton of bricks one morning when getting out of my bed seemed like the hardest thing I ever had to do.

At that point, I didn't want to tell anyone I felt this way, because why do I feel this way? I have a good life, right? I pay my own bills. I can eat. I have a family and friends and coffee every morning. I'm a straight, white, lower middle class woman. Why did I have any right to feel like this? That makes it worse. I didn't have real problems. I had first world problems. I also had an anxiety attack at 3am straight out of my sleep for whatever reason there could be. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was a thought I just couldn't remember. I was struggling, but I had zero clue how to articulate what was going on. It scared me, and when I said anything out loud, I felt like nothing made sense. I always assumed everyone would think I was just being dramatic. But that's how it works, right? You can't explain it. I know what triggered it, but why couldn't I worry a normal amount? Why was it this bad? It makes you feel worse because how can you possibly feel what you can't explain? Even this makes me feel crazy. Typing it out. Talking about it now. I'm in my head.

Do beware that there are always people who will confirm this feeling. They'll tell you that you shouldn't worry so much, or that everything is fine. Trust me, I know that. You just have to help me convince whatever is inside me that it's true.

That's why I created this in the first place. I've always been a "change the world" type of person. If I wasn't doing the most at all times, I wasn't doing enough, which has benefits and certainly downfalls. I have always loved that quality anyway. I may not have my dream job, but one of the things that I do love about it is that I get to work with teenagers. Most of my employees are young, and most of the call me "Mom." If I have to have a job, I want it to be one that has a bigger impact. I found the impact I wanted with this one, and if I get to influence and support the young people around me, then that's my proudest moment. If I can not only teach them how to fold a t-shirt, but also teach them about life, then I'm doing something right.

I have a good set of friends around me who know I care deeply and sometimes overbearingly too much about them. I love them. I love my personality. I love that I am funny, compassionate, silly, loud, opinionated, unafraid, angry, and sensitive. I love my blue eyes, the fact that I talk to strangers, animals, and myself (a lot), and I love that I get intensely geeked out over the smallest things. I am confident, most of the time. I speak my mind too often, or maybe just enough. I try to be honest. I try to be good. I try to be brave. Yeah, I get scared, but my moments of greatness don't come from when I'm scared for myself but when I'm scared for others.

What I'm saying is that I am not insecure. I think highly of myself. If you catch me on a good day, and there are plenty, I am just TOO MUCH. Honestly, I'm probably even too much on bad days. I have no shame in talking about the most random thing that made me happy. If a certain orange president has angered me, I'll tell you about that too. I have my moments of doubt, but overall there's very little abashment or privacy about me. The anxiety, the constant worry, isn't who I am at all times, but when it is me, it does the best job of making me forget everything about me that I love. I make mistakes. I say dumb things. I overreact, but the one thing I am not is shy about any of it. I am not insecure. I have anxiety.