That 20-something Struggle

There are moments when I wonder if it would be easier to start over:

Clean slate.

File bankruptcy. Sell most of what I own. Quit my job.

Maybe it would be easier to start from scratch.

The difficulty is that it's usually when I'm in these throws of doubt and struggle that a glimmer of hope shines through. These glimmers of hope burn bright and hot and often cause me to ache and cry as the pressures I've been feeling momentarily lift just enough to allow me to breathe a bit. Sometimes the relief is overwhelming and sends me into panic attack mode- which is counter intuitive, but it's a thing. And then I breathe and pull myself out of it and feel better about things for maybe a grand total of 24 hours, when another seed of stress and doubt will creep in- usually in reference to that shining glimmer of hope.

During these ups and downs I usually start evaluating my life and (unhealthily) comparing myself to people I know. Trying to figure out how they manage to keep it all together. Then the 'vampires of despair' start to creep in and make me feel like garbage for needing to ask for help when there are people who are my age and who also went through college who have managed to get along just fine. I know this is bad. I know these are destructive thought processes. But that doesn't keep me from having them.

The one thing that I think is the most frustrating for me, at the moment, is the concept of affecting your own change. Not sitting around and waiting for things to get better, but actually doing something to fix your problems.

But what do you do when you've been actively trying to affect change in your own life, for weeks/months, and the things you're doing aren't achieving results? When you keep pushing and pulling and twisting at the webs you feel stuck in but you can't find a way to get out of them? I know I'm not helpless. I know things aren't hopeless. But I'm running out of ideas, and I'm running out of energy, and it's getting harder and harder to keep trying and working with no results.

Someone recently told me that everyone's 20's are awful. "Wait until you hit 30." They said. "That's when things smooth out."

Well. There are exactly 

3 years, and 4 months until I'm 30. 

Let's get there already.

Un-Equipped

I do not feel I was built to process being an adult.
Somehow over the last two years or so my anxiety has grown exponentially, and the normal every-day stressors of adult life feel massively overwhelming more often than not.

I mean. I cried at work today. Cried. Not because any one specific thing happened. But because I was tired from getting up early enough to call for a tow truck for my misbehaving vehicle, which then had to be postponed, and the thought of sitting in a desk chair for 6 hours making phone calls all day was just too much. I was telling my boyfriend how tired I was, and how much I'm hating living by myself and how I feel like the distance between me and my friends has been a result of how easy it's become for me to turn into a hermit because I live alone and have no money... and our conversation got really introspective and made me start thinking about why I'm struggling so much.... and that's when my adorable co-worker came by my desk to say hello and ask how my day was and the emotional roller-coaster that had been climbing the hill all morning took a complete 90* drop and I was suddenly crying quietly at my desk.

I hadn't even been on the clock for 15 minutes. I had to go sit outside on the balcony off the break-room to pull myself together. And this is not a new occurrence... though it was the first time it's been that bad at work.

Lately, as a reaction to the number of stressors in my life, I've been feeling exhausted, lethargic, weepy. My back has started tensing up in new places, so it now is basically a rock of knots and kinks. There is a lingering headache that floats behind my right eye, that gets worse when I start to think of my bank accounts, or my car, or my job (that I'm slowly growing to resent).  There's a sort of perpetual ache all over, one that seems to stem from right behind my sternum.

I've been inhaling my Lavender oil like it's going out of style. I've tried to up my water intake and cut back on caffeine. I am trying to list positive things every day so that I remember the good things in my life. I logged off of Facebook (three days FB sober now), because I know it is often a negative trigger for my emotions. I'm starting to feel like maybe I could really benefit from a low-dose anti-anxiety medicine, because even when I'm doing all the things I can think of to keep myself from having a breakdown, I still end up hitting some level of panic and melting down.

Maybe I'm lame for feeling like i'm not equipped. But even when I do fight through the panic and do the responsible adult-things that are needed for each situation, I still end up with tightness in my chest and a feeling of dread and I'm wishing I could go back to being a kid without any decisions more stressful than who to invite to my sleepovers.

Affirmation

• 
  

I am competent. I am capable. I am complete.
Every day is an opportunity to grow and learn.
I am open to life and I am open to growth.
I will focus on the things I can control,and I will take a deep breath and release the things I cannot control.
I am competent. I am capable. I am complete.