All posts tagged: Fear

Discussing Mental Health on a First Date

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The New York Times recently shared a question that was sent to their “ethicist.” The reader is back on the dating scene again after ending a lengthy relationship. The reader also lives with a complex mental health past and is uncertain about when if/when to discuss this past when entering new relationships. What I love about this short little piece is that it acknowledges the grey area of getting close and intimate with another person. It explains: “on dates, convention holds, you’re not obliged to lead with your weaknesses. The best way for someone to see that you’re doing O.K. is not to assert it but to show it. AKA walk the walk, yo. Show what you are capable of on a day-to-day basis, let them see your best self. While you may feel your shadows are bigger than you, the truth is they only feel this way from your perspective. Remember you have a say in how you are perceived. You are writing your own story; make sure you’re the protagonist of it. However, the …

Rebuilding that Confidence like an OG

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As I sat and read through more and more of my statuses from 4, 5, 6 years back I found myself repeatedly asking, “Where did she go?” I disappeared from my personal facebook page for almost all of 2015. I was learning to juggle in the new circus of freelance writing, was planning a wedding, and had already felt like facebook was no longer a place where I felt safe and/or happy. I’ve slowly been stepping back into the shallow-end of the facebook pool, but the water is still a little cold. It still feels like I might swallow some nasty water. And there are still people lurking in the deep end who are wearing plastic dorsal fins. But something interesting happened. I started to read through old posts I wrote years ago, back when I was in college and graduate school. It’s been a bit like peering into the windows of your neighbor’s living room. While you recognize the people, they look utterly foreign in this new intimate environment. I seemed so much happier, so …

My Anxiety Was a Third Wheel on My Honeymoon

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“I know I should be Zen and look at my nerves as a symbol of sensitivity and I should be grateful that we’re even here in the first place, but sometimes I get so MAD at myself.” I sat in the airport terminal, Jared waiting patiently next to me, as the loudspeaker overhead announced they were boarding rows 1 – 20. It was almost midnight and we were about to get on our plane to fly back home. We’d just spent a week in Hawaii on our honeymoon and my insides were churning like the ocean in the middle of a squall. My anxiety was pitching and rolling. The last thing I wanted to do was walk onto that airplane. And I was furious. No matter how much I’m aware of my patterns, my habits, and the way my nerves affect my physical body, it can still betray me despite my cognitive awareness. Like, I “know” there is nothing to be anxious about and yet my digestive track and stomach and muscles refuse to acknowledge this. …

One of the Weirder Moments of Eye Contact I’ve Had Recently…

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Eye contact can be challenging for me sometimes. I know it’s important, I know it makes people feel heard and connected, but damn it be awks sometimes. It’s incredibly intimate and makes you feel seen. It reminds you that, hey, you are right there. That’s you. A good friend of mine got married this past summer and after the ceremony she pointed something out to me I hadn’t realized before. “You have to maintain eye contact for a long time. Like, way too long,” she said, a fellow introvert who probably is as much of a fan of eye contact as I am. I’d never thought of this. Over the past few years I’ve been to a lot of weddings. A lot. If weddings were Cheetos and I was pouring myself a bowl for the past two years that bowl would be full. You know what I mean? Cheeto metaphor? Jared and I have attended so many weddings we foolishly thought planning a wedding would be easy. We thought it would be as breezy as a sailboat on a …

How to Keep Going in Those Moments of Doubt

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I still remember pacing back and forth in the parking lot, seagulls shrieking overhead and fishermen walking past at the end of their day. I’d driven out to the ocean, to my favorite pier, because I wanted to make sure I was in a space that felt comforting to me. I had to do something difficult that day. I had to call a boy I liked. I was in college at the time, nearing my twenty-first birthday, had still never kissed someone, and I’d recently been trying to Facebook flirt with a handsome fiction writer in my Southern Lit class. That afternoon he’d left me a voicemail seeing if I wanted to hang out. And that meant I had to call him back. It made me sick to my stomach. I’d been on edge of panic all day. My body was flooded with anxiety and adrenaline and I was weighed down with a heavy cloak of fear. I stood near the water as I dialed his number and with a shaky voice told him I …