The "Unfriendlies"

Matt and I are enjoying our time home with his parents and brother in Pittsburgh. It's been a good while since we have been here...it feels 'oh so good to be back.

It's crazy to me how fast the first month and a half of school has gone so far.  I've been back in school for six weeks. I still feel like I just started. I'm loving school. I enjoy the deep conversations our classes supply and our professors are great, more like friends than faculty. I love my assistantship. The people I work with. My office. Yada yada... Things are good.

And things are good: but sometimes hard in the midst of the good.

I mention on here every now and then that I have an anxiety disorder... I try not to let it define me, but sometimes it finds ways to overwhelm me.

It's hard sometimes when I'm going along just fine, absolutely fine, and then I'm not. I take medication for my thyroid (my first encounter with severe anxiety happened in relation to discovering my thyroid condition. They treated that, and I started to feel much better) so I always assume things are fine and hardly think twice about it. But when things aren't fine and my body becomes tingly, and weak and my brain goes fuzzy and I have night sweats and I can't sleep or eat and I feel like bugs are crawling on my insides... yea--I can't do anything but think about it.

I hate, hate, hate that I struggle with anxiety and panic. And I know there is a lot of stigma put on those two words, mostly from myself. But I don't want to be ashamed of it anymore and I also don't want to act like I'm hiding something. It just so happens to be a part of me, not all of me, but it is a part of me, and I need to know that it's okay. We all at times have our unseen hurt, pain, illness-- ultimately I know I'm not alone. I'm not alone.

With that being said, I had a rough week last week. It also happened to be my birthday week. Feeling large amounts of anxiety on your birthday is way no fun. Luckily, the anxiety only lasted about a week (and was not quite as paralyzing as it has been in the past). It always seems so unexplained and so entirely random, which is frustrating, but I'm always learning new ways to cope and overcome.

So that's me. And that's my truth. I'm over-sharing yet again, but I hope it's not in vain and I hope maybe just one of you out there found comfort in knowing that you too, are not alone.

It just so happens life has some "unfriendlies". Makes me appreciated the "friendlies" even more. :)