Why I’m Finally Going To Therapy For My Anxiety

Hiiiiii, everyone! It’s been a hot minute — a hot few months, really.

I know I’ve been quiet… but I’ve been busy. Busy dealing with a lot of shit. Good shit, bad shit, health shit, life shit, dog shit, annoying shit, great shit.

So, hi. Here I am.

I’ve sat behind my screen scared for a few weeks now, trying to jump back into blogging and wondering how to do just that. I have so much new work, new product reviews, new series, just SO MUCH NEW NEW, to share with you! So much that the pressure of kicking it off right kept me from starting at all. Fucking yikes, right?

This kind of pressure is not a new feeling to me… it is one of the many flavors of my anxiety.

I have struggled with anxiety for years, and it is only in the last handful that I have even been able to admit I deal with it. I spent 20+ years of my life unaware of the forces driving my life – my emotions, thoughts, perspectives, feelings, decisions, and actions.

In recent months, I started going to an acupuncturist in the South Bay. After I started going regularly, he told me he held a meditation class on Friday and Saturday mornings and invited me… fast forward a few months and I’ve signed myself up for a weeklong zen meditation treat the last week of September.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

It was amazing… but super intense. I’ll write more about it later or I’ll never get to my point here. During one of our sits over the course of the retreat, thoughts about going to therapy and what it meant and why I wanted to go or why I had been resistant to going came through my mind and I realized it was all so ridiculous – why WOULDN’T I want to go and improve myself? I committed a fucking week of my life to meditation – I could probably handle an hour of therapy a week. Something just shifted for me about therapy during the retreat, and I’ve been excited to get started ever since.

Instead of being resistant to the idea of “going to therapy” because it would be me admitting something is wrong with me, I was looking forward to sitting down with someone who could help me… I couldn’t wait to explain myself: here is my life, this is who I am, here are the places I am struggling and I want to figure out how to fix my issues and resolve my triggers/improve situations that cause me problems, whatever. I was and still am SO EXCITED to be getting this shit off my chest. I didn’t know how good it feels… I have been missing O U T. It’s part of the reason I’m writing this right now, so you know I’ve already made some progress.

I was/am still shocked at my willingness to confront this because I spent the rest of my life compartmentalizing and denying my problems – if you know me, you’ll know I’m usually the “ha ha big smile I’m fine!” kind of girl. I have just finally pieced together, for myself, that my anxiety is the root source of all my negatives and vices: bad habits and behaviors, drinking too much, eating too little or emotionally binge eating, not taking care of myself, etc… It all stemmed from anxiety and the anxious framework and programming I created for myself, suffocating mental confines I finally realized I could break free from. In order to do so, I need a professional to help me process and release and rebuild what needs to be so that I can move beyond them and reach my potential to be the woman I know I can be.

xx