Stuck

I absolutely hate cheating in relationships. My first two boyfriends cheated on me so I have a good idea what to look for if a partner is being unfaithful. But even if I didn’t have those experiences, I would still be coming to the same conclusion that my boyfriend of 4.5 years is cheating.

I have caught him in numerous lies and stories that don’t add up over the past month. We have had multiple conversations yet he sticks with his story that he isn’t cheating.

I am absolutely baffled. I genuinely feel like I don’t know what to do in this situation.

I have never had trust problems with him until recently. It keeps building on each other; one incident after another yet he refuses to come clean.

My gut tells me that he is hiding something. I’m not sure I will be able to shake this feeling.

I wish I could believe him but I can’t help but feel like it’s gaslighting and lies.

I’m willing to give him one more chance but after that, I don’t think I can be so generous anymore. I can’t be worrying myself sick thinking about where he really went, who he was really with and who actually called him this morning. I mentally can’t handle this much longer.

I can be such a doormat especially when it comes to conflict. I will succumb to whatever the other person wants most of the time because I hate fighting. I can’t let him walk all over me, I have to stand up for myself.

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Anxiety Attacks

Last night I woke up to my heart pounding in my ears, my dark room spinning and my brain was in fight/flight mode. I began to have an anxiety attack.

Yesterday I let my boyfriend down in a multitude of ways. I disappointed him. Then I was going to stay the night but decided to go home instead. The whole drive home I regretted it because I saw in his face how sad he felt that I was leaving.

I cried and cried all the way home. Every exit I passed I regretted that I didn’t take it to turn around to go back to my love.

Once I got in bed I fell asleep immediately. A half hour later my brain jolted me awake by suffocating me with an anxiety attack. A racing heart and the feeling of impending doom.

My anxiety whispered so softly that I could barely hear it. It didn’t call me a failure. It didn’t call me a terrible girlfriend/person. It whispered, “why didn’t you stay?”

Over and over my feelings of regret had me tossing and turning from the evening into the morning. I still am recovering from this long anxiety attack.

In the morning I had to take anxiety medicine to help calm me down. I laid in bed wishing to be wrapped in his arms where I feel the most safe and loved. Sadly last night I made the dumb decision that I didn’t want to be cuddled in the morning. Oh Megan!

When I feel regret I usually feel it pretty intensely. I think it all goes back to how I wasn’t being my best self and already feeling guilty about the choices that I made yesterday.

After all of that I am really going to step up my game for him.

He needs me to support him in his recent job promotion which has come with a big shift switch.

He needs me to work on my anxious thoughts that tell me that everybody hates me. It hurts him when I lash out because of my anxiety. It hurts our relationship in many ways.

Yesterday  I was saying how everybody hates me, his reply was, “Megan there is nothing wrong with you.” Writing that out brought me to tears. It means so much to hear the person I’m in love with say that about me despite seeing my every flaw.

He needs me to just be honest and be myself.

So that anxiety attack maybe was a strange, weird blessing because I am now able to see how I can improve and be better for my man.

Basically Friendless

For ages my therapist has been encouraging me to try to make some friends. She asks me on a semi-regular basis whether I’ve made any new friends or if I’ve hung out with any friends since I’ve seen her last (I have sessions once a month since I’ve been doing well mentally).

Often the answer is no.

Right now I have one good friend that I work with and speak to outside of work. We talk about our personal lives and text/call each other rather regularly. She’s really the only one.

It’s pretty sad when I reflect on the fact that I don’t really have any friends anymore. All of my best friends from high school live in different states, none of my college friends live nearby and former co-worker friends have drifted away.

I feel jealous sometimes because I feel like everybody has friends but me. I wish I had a friend that I could get coffee with or go shopping with.

As an adult I don’t know how you can make friends outside of work and religious gatherings. I don’t believe in any religion, I don’t join clubs, I’m not into the bar/pub scene and when I go to the gym I don’t speak to anybody.

My therapist has made so many suggestions on how to make friends but I shoot them down.

I often spend time with my family or my boyfriend when I’m hanging out with other humans. I visit my grandmother on a regular basis especially since she has been quite ill. I sometimes will take my younger cousin out for lunch or shopping. I spend time with my mom and brother pretty often as well.

Family is important to me but I think that concept only came about because I don’t have friends to occupy my time anymore.

I mainly spend my time alone.

I read books, practice Japanese, read the news, watch YouTube and watch tv shows or movies. I write on here too!

I’m more introverted so I don’t hate spending most of my free time alone. But there are times, like tonight, when I wish that I had a friend to hang out with.

Soothing My Worries

Lately I have been having a lot of worries. Hahaha I know what a surprise for someone with anxiety! But I have specifically been having financial worries for around a year or so.

Right now they’re moving to the forefront of my mind because my boyfriend and I are looking to move in together in September. He is about to get a very nice raise because he was just promoted he will begin making some great money. I’m so proud of him!

I don’t make all that much, I’ll be honest. I am hoping for a raise this summer but that’s far away from now.

In my mind I thought that if I don’t make enough money I can’t contribute as much as him towards our livelihood. I have been worrying about not being able to pay my fair share of everything. We have always spoken about how we split things evenly but if he’s paying for more then that’s not fair.

It goes against everything in my being to have him carry the financial weight. I also don’t want to feel like a burden on him and that make him not want to live with me. I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of mooch either.

So I did something bold.

I told my boyfriend my worries!

He told me that everything is going to be fine and that he understands that I don’t make the same as he does. He doesn’t expect me to put forth the same amount because it might not be possible for me to do that.

He told me he isn’t worried about it. Him saying that made me feel loved. It made me feel like he really wants to live with me and knows that I will do my best to pay what I can to make our life together possible!

Sometimes voicing your worries can make them go away.

 

 

Telling Depression to Piss Off

This morning I was almost out the door for work when I got the empty pain of depression. It sits in my chest making me feel hollow inside.

As I got in my car and began to drive to the office the feeling was still very present. Nothing had happened this morning or last night to make me depressed but sometimes we don’t get to choose when we are depressed. Depression can engulf me anytime it feels like it.

Nagging thoughts kept pushing on my mind about how my boyfriend doesn’t love me and that I’m a worthless human. These thoughts were quiet but I wanted to confront them before they got louder.

I said aloud, “Hey depression, piss off!”

I rarely verbally confront my mental illness like this but I had been feeling good for the past 12 hours and I want to keep it going for longer.

I continued to tell my depression that what it was telling me isn’t true. I know that my boyfriend loves me even when my brain tells me it’s not true. I see his actions and I hear his words that contradict my depression and anxiety.

Instead of letting my depression kick me down to the ground, I am fighting back today.

So to help me keep fighting today, I’m going to do a little list of things that are going well and what I’m looking forward to.

Things going well:

1. My boyfriend and I are doing very well
2. I’ve been keeping up with doing my nails (having my nails painted makes me feel better about myself)
3. I’ve been feeling close with my mom lately

Looking forward to:

1. Therapy on Thursday
2. Getting my windshield replaced today (it has like a foot long crack in it for some reason)
3. Doing yoga after work

I hope that this inspired somebody on this Earth to stand up to their mental illness!

I’m Back

Guys, I am terribly sorry that I haven’t been keeping up with my posts! I have been going through a rocky spot in my relationship which affected my mental health. But I think things are going to smooth out so I am starting to feel a lot better.

Whenever there is turmoil in my relationship I take it all very personally and seriously. I am a highly sensitive person so once one thing upsets me, everything that follows makes it all worse.

In this mental state I worry about everything and ruminate on the same thoughts over and over again. It is exhausting. I have been having low quality sleep, little interest in anything and had trouble eating. When I was eating, it was total garbage.

Luckily we saw each other last night, he took me out to dinner which was very nice. Then we relaxed and watched “Drake and Josh” on Hulu.

I brought up our drama as calmly as I could. He apologized for the way he acted! I was freaking shook and knew that he truly meant it.

During this difficult time I found some solace in the music of Queen and watched My Roommate is a Cat (which I love).

I hope things are better in your world! Stay strong, everyone!

Not Enough

My brain loves to take phrases that I find upsetting and play them on repeat. The past few days it has been saying, “you’re not good enough.”

As I’ve written before, I have always had this thought that I’ll never be good enough for anybody or anything. It is a fear and worry that has been engrained into my mind since I was little. I have no idea when it began but I’ve felt this way for a long time.

In regards to work, love, friends and everything lately I’ve been feeling less than.

On Friday at work I was getting close to having an anxiety attack because I was getting overwhelmed by my work load that had been piled on at the end of the day. I thought I had one thing to do but then my supervisor gave me a list!

I was crippled by the stress as the minutes ticked away while I was frozen in time getting no work done at all. I actually didn’t end up accomplishing any of the tasks before it was time to clock out which made me feel like a loser.

My boyfriend and I will be celebrating 2 years together next Thursday!! So exciting!

Despite my excitement to celebrate a huge milestone in our relationship, I can’t help but feel like I haven’t done enough to make him happy. That there are so many better women out there that he could be with instead of being with a disappointment.

I know that I will never be perfect, that’s not possible. I want to be good enough but I’ve never actually defined what that means. There is no criteria that I can meet. It’s just a vague phrase I ruminate on.

Maybe that is something to discuss during my next therapy session in a couple weeks.

Too Nice for My Own Good

In my previous post I talked about how an ex-friend had reached out to me looking to rekindle our friendship. It really put me into a boiling pot of anxiety because I wasn’t prepared for this and I don’t want to rekindle our friendship.

I hate being mean and knowing that I have hurt somebody’s feelings. I get serious guilt and I always have been that way even if I am standing up for myself. In my mind, being mean is bad and I should always be nice to others.

It gives me anxiety when I know I have to tell somebody no because I don’t want to upset that person. I am a people pleaser at heart, there’s no way to sugar coat it. It is a huge reason why I had put up with this ex-friend’s bullshit for so long.

I was afraid to stand up for myself for years in fear of hurting her feelings. That doesn’t even make sense!

In her and I’s texting conversation, that has taken up most of this week, she does not understand why I can’t move on from the horrible things she said to me. In her mind, it wasn’t a big deal and she “apologized” for it. It was such a fake apology, she said, “I’m sorry but…” which did not respect my feelings.

I finally told her how I have felt that I will never live up to these expectations she has of me. That I cannot live my life to please her because I need to make sure that I am happy first.

She is upset that I didn’t tell her I felt that way until now when I felt that way for so many years. Sure, I could have told her but I was afraid to. That trust kept breaking down and never getting built back up.

When all the trust was gone, for me the friendship was more or less over.

Even though I wrote a whole post about how I wanted to tell her thank you, next, now that the moment has come I feel like I can’t do it. Around her I have no courage, no strength to stand up for myself even when it is in my best interest.

I wish I could crawl under my covers, waiting until all of this crap has blown over. My natural instinct is to hide when things get tough, this situation is no different.

When Will It Stop?

I am in this state where it seems that anxiety and depression are reaching their claws around my mind in a slow and dramatic fashion. Each day it all seems to be getting worse.

The negative thoughts, the inescapable self doubt and physical strain on my body is becoming more frequent. I’m getting to the point where I feel that I’m going to have a depressive episode to kick off 2019.

Who doesn’t love those? -_-

I am a professional ruminator. By that I mean during my low points I have the same few thoughts on repeat. Right now those thoughts are starting.

I’m reading so deeply into every single word and action of the people around me. I am reading everything as signs that they don’t really want to be speaking to me. That they wish I would go away and leave them the hell alone.

I keep thinking that they are sick of me being around. That they wish they never began speaking to me in the first place! That they wish they never started a relationship or friendship with me.

My therapist told me yesterday that just because I have a thought, doesn’t necessarily make it true. She said, “Pretend these thoughts are leaves flowing down a stream. Watch them pass by, don’t pick them up and hold on to them.”

My reply to that was, “I can’t not pick them up! I have a little basket and I collect those leaves. ”

Do you, my beautiful readers, ever feel this way? What do you do to stop ruminating thoughts? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Things I Do Because I’m Depressed

Whenever I make a mistake and I know that I’ve hurt somebody’s feelings, I immediately fall into depression. It catches me as if I was falling from the top of a building. It’s always there to catch me and wrap me in a blanket then whispers horrible thoughts in my ear.

When I’m in this state there are some things I automatically do as a way to protect myself. It’s a lot of shit that I’ve been doing since I was little.

1. Hide: This is my natural instinct when something is wrong. Ideally, I hide in my room with my door closed and cover my head in blankets. My goal is to usually escape from whatever is going on either in reality or in my mind. I hide away until I can face the shit happening.
2. Stop eating: When I’m very depressed or anxious I feel like I can’t eat. It feels like my stomach shrinks to the size of a grape, that if I eat anything more than a cracker I will feel sick. When I was really struggling two years ago, I would go sometimes for an entire day without eating anything.
3. Sleep: If worries are buzzing in my brain, I can’t focus on nearly anything. Today I have a lot of those so I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on my work. But when I’m hiding at home, I often just go to sleep. I sleep to get away from the anxious thoughts, sometimes it is the only time I can find true relief.
4. Cry: I am a cry baby. I cry about everything which I find annoying to myself. When I’m really overwhelmed or sad, I just sit down and cry. It can be silent tears or ugly sobbing depending on what is going on.

I know a few of these are not healthy coping mechanisms but I have (for now) kicked my most unhealthy one which is self-harm. At many moments in my life those urges to cut were so frequent that I was hurting myself almost on a daily basis. I am proud of myself that I have been able to work things out in a different way and curb those urges.

If you are struggling right now with your mental illness, I hope that you can make it through. And if you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, I have a few posts about potential ways to silence those thoughts.

Stay strong everyone!