The Last Post of the Year, Part 2: Fear and Anxiety (A Tale of My Mental)

 2021 is coming to an end. 

And I have had the opportunity to look back over my state of mind... my mentality over the past year. 

You know, I have had to admit to myself that I fall short. I fall short of people's expectations, and even my own expectations. 

Constantly. 

And I have had to come to accept that and be okay with that. I am still a good person. And most of all, I am still breathing. And that means I still have ample opportunity to change. Not for other people, because I believe you can't please everybody all the time. I will never be the party person, the hip friend that everyone wants to hang out with. I have never been that and I hope I never will. I am living in a time that I can't tell people apart, and I want to always stand out from the crowd if possible. 

I must admit that over the years, maybe over the past five years or so, I have changed a lot when it comes to people. I have found that I experience a good amount of social anxiety, so it is rare for me to hang out with people. Plus, I don't do well with working out my problems and disagreements with folks. Part of that is that I really do not care. And I hate to admit it, I have come to a point where I am willing to be a bit superficial with people. It is just so much easier than being myself. I am finding that people expect "surface". Nothing fake, but wonderful pleasantries, blah-zay-blah. I don't like this at all, but it is easy. And most likely, it is with people who I use to talk to often, but I don't now. Much of that hurts. But it's okay. Just make the best of it, and be superficial. Do what, on some level, is expected of me. Do what is easy.

And keep it moving. 

That was a lot, but that was just something off the top of my head, some things I have been thinking about. 

Mental. Like most people, I am a bit anxious about the pandemic. I myself am glued to the television, listening to what is being said and hoping that I will wake up one morning and find out that it is all a dream.

But I know that will not happen. 

So I have a good amount of fear and anxiety. I would never admit that to people, but I am admitting it here. I rarely express my feelings to people, because I have been blown off so much. But you know what has happened to set me on the road to being free from that? 

There are close to 8 billion people on this earth. 

And that means there are close to 8 billion different perspectives.

And that is alright. 

And it has helped me embrace my perspectives about things, no matter if they are blown off. If they are, then they are. But this is how I feel about what I am dealing with. And from that point, I feel a bit more comfortable praying about it, praying for solutions. No, not to be perfect or acceptable in anyone's eyes, but to simply be able to examine my perspectives and follow the road to improvement or change. 

Does that make sense? 

Yes I know I am all over the place, but I am going somewhere with this. 

I have been praying about fear and anxiety. Just for some help. I rarely talk about this with people, because you know, it is just easy to do what is expected: be superficial. But shadows of how I feel have come out with those who are close to me. And it is like a huge weight off my shoulders and mind. I am so thankful for that. 

What has been particularly interesting is that I will pray about something, and then be on the lookout for some type of answer, some pathway to open up.

And I tell you what: it never fails that this happens. 

Back in November, I took a workshop entitled "Fear, Anxiety and Overwhelm". I took a ton of notes and got a lot out of it. It was just an hour give or take per evening for five days. We even had homework. It was a pretty good deep dive into the "why" behind being earful, anxious and overwhelmed. Just looking for the root to it all. I learned a lot during this workshop.

But you know the one thing that stuck with me?

I found out that most of my fear is imagined. All just a figment of my imagination. 

I would be so bold as to say that some 99% of my fears are imagined. That is hard for me to admit. But I learned during that class to really sit down with my fears and examine them. 

This revelation did a lot for me. I was able to get a few things that I had been afraid to do, done. 

And you know what? 

When all was done and said, it all wasn't as bad as I imagined it to be. 

Then on top of that, my Pastor said soon after that, that he was starting a series on fear. A real deep dive on it. And of course, that made me happy because it was an answer to a prayer. And over the past month, there has been much confirmation of some of the answers I have been getting to some of my prayers. And as a result, I have made more progress dealing with my fear and anxiety. And I have been bold enough to set some goals for myself that I have been afraid of setting.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I am a bit exasperated when it comes to this pandemic. Much of this is coming from being fearful of the unknown. I am immunocompromised and have had to do quite a bit to stay out of the way of exposure to the virus. I do my best to stay masked up and stay sanitized. I do my best to be careful. I have worked from home since March 2020. Coworkers talk trash, and I am proud of myself for not dialing anyone up and opening up the good book of cuss on them. I let it go. God bless them. Keep it moving.

I, like everyone, want this to be over. It sure does a hit job on my mentality. I don't have much family as it is, but it is painful at times to spend all this time alone day after day after day. Many of my friends were in the workplace. As I get older, I find that I like face-to-face interaction with people who know the real me and accept the real me: quiet, funny, serious, nonconfrontational, non-messy, deep thinking. I want to enjoy being around people who allow me to be myself. And I am missing that during this pandemic. 

Also during this pandemic, I am coming to a place that I am not aghast when someone contracts the virus. There is always that question of Where did you pick it up from? What were you doing? But we see the real problem is that this mess is just in the air. It is a bit scary. So I am more compassionate now. That's a good thing. 

So this was my last post of the year concerning my mental state of mind. 

I am doing alright. I am improving. I don't cry as much. I have just decided to just keep moving forward... 

... day after day after day. 

On purpose.