To Be Honest My Mental Health is Very Poor Right Now

 I have had a lot of transition in the last year. So many wonderful wonderful things have happened to me. I became a viral Tik-tok star who is well known enough (at least in NYC) to have been stopped on the streets of New York multiple times, I was on freakin' national television and ate a sandwich on a park bench with Al Roker (what a surreal experience) and, most importantly, I found the love of my life (sounds so cheesy but it's true). A person who really sees me (also cheesy but also true). Someone who is different from me in just the right ways to push me out of my comfort zone. And someone who sticks with me and comforts me through difficult emotions.

But the hard thing is that I really struggle with feeling like I deserve this person. I had been alone for so long (completely single between the ages of 23 and 37). I have very low self-esteem because of a combination of pretty intense body-image issues (and a lot of negative external life experiences around my body and looks), a sensitive nature, and extreme feelings of shame around emotional vulnerability due to the culture and environment I was brought up in.

I keep having these "attacks" where I feel a negative emotion (frustration/jealosy/fear), and then feel such guilt and shame over having that emotion. That second level of shame is what really kicks in and snowballs and I find myself in these storms of EXTREME self loathing that are hard to break out of. I get this feeling like I want to crawl out of my body because I hate the very nature of my being. And Ricky (the love-of-my-life person mentioned above) is there to see it. He sees me get really really ugly and negative. And so far he has stayed. And I feel ashamed. And I feel like I don't deserve him to stay. And I feel like he needs to save himself and get himself away from me at the same time as I desperately don't want him to leave.

I know I am not the first person to have experienced all of these things and a lot of us humans are pretty messed up in our various ways, but its a pretty awful thing to live through. I have been taking measures in my life to cut out the clutter and be more mindful and eliminate the causes of stress that bring on these attacks but they keep coming. Each time one hits I feel quite a bit of shame around it for several days until I have enough time-distance between me and it that I can start to fool myself that the attacks are in the past and that I am getting better. But then another one hits. And the shame comes back. And I am struggling just to get through the day once more.

I know I should be seeing professional about this. But my previous company that I was doing therapy through stopped taking my insurance so am no longer able to afford the therapist I was previously seeing. And finding a new therapist, especially one that takes insurance, feels like this insurmountable task that I do not have the energy for right now. I am overwhelmed and burnt out and am struggling to find a way out. The most wonderful thing happened to me this year. I found the human connection that I have been longing for for so long. And I am worried that I am going to ruin it before I get a chance to fix myself. 

But at least I had the energy/motivation to write this post about it?? I don't really know what that is saying about my mental state right now, but I am trying to, you know, just roll with things right now so I'm hitting post. 

Things that are Freaking Me Out

 Well hello there! I am suddenly getting the urge to create a blog once more. And not just any blog - an OG Blogger-circa-2008 style blog. 

I have spent my whole life creating these things (blogs, art, etc.) and always feeling a bit ashamed of them? I am a perfectionist with what I think (??) is a strong artistic eye (and ear....and brain??), and I somehow never have the resources and time to physically (and by physically, I mean on the internet) create things that live up to the high aesthetic standards that I set for myself. I also have historically had a huge fear of judgement from others. 

I have to be honest, sometimes when people I have casually known have created things that weren't super polished and professional looking, I have judged them! I think they look amateurish and foolish for thinking they have created something that is high quality when they have not! But, you know what? My judgement means nothing to them. I might think their creative project looks amateurish and "not-self-aware", but there are plenty of people out there in the world who might connect to it, and find value in it - those people are just not me. That person does not have to think about me at all.

So all this to say....I am just going to finally get over myself. I might even tell people that this thing exists, we shall see!!! (If I have done this and you are now a hater who is judging me for my silly amateur-ness, heeyyyy!!!)

PS - Final Note - I personally think my creative writing skills are mediocre at best. As a kid I loved the idea of journaling and bought myself so many journals over the years. I would start writing, but then a few days later look back on what I had written and feel ashamed for how amateurish the writing sounded (sensing a theme maybe?) and stop. So I guess this is also my exercise in not stopping? But I just had to include this disclaimer that I am self-aware enough to know that my writing is NOT amazing. Okay....I think that does it for today. See you soon :)