Pregnant During a Pandemic

I’ve never been great with timing, but man is this an interesting turn of events.

Today I am 30 weeks and five days pregnant. That’s still 65 days until my due date, or as my doctor reminded me the other day, at least 45 days until my going into labor wouldn’t be considered “preterm.”

Also today, the governor of Maryland shut down all restaurants, bars, movie theatres and gyms. Businesses and schools are closing their doors and turning to working remotely (honestly – something I’ve been preparing for my whole life; I thrive with virtual work). There is a part of me though, that small recess of my brain that still holds on very tightly to my old anxiety habits, that worries all this isolating will reawaken my hermit tendencies in an unhealthy way. Setting a reminder now: go outside. Go on a walk. Take deep breaths and remember your world exists outside of your house, too.

It’s strange to watch the news with this small baby boy kicking around in my stomach and see people at their best and their worst. To see volunteer nurses and doctors step up; to see people getting into fights in grocery stores over toilet paper and hand sanitizer. It’s weird to see people say that this is both a huge overreaction and an under-reaction.

I don’t like the most common phrase people have turned to in order to dismiss the chaos. “This will only really affect people 55+, I’ll take my chances.” It’s horrible to see there are those that would be okay with some people getting sick (perhaps to the point of being critically ill or fatally ill) as long as they don’t actually get that sick and can keep living their life. I’d like to say that’s not the majority of people, just the louder ones that always grab my attention in unfortunate ways. People, I hope, are mostly good and will make the small sacrifice of sitting on their couch watching Netflix instead of going out and proceeding with life, uninterrupted.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, and with any luck (no pun intended) everyone will stay home and stay safe. Social distancing is an excellent way to practice not drinking and driving or getting publicly intoxicated. I hope everyone takes it as serious as they should. Not for themselves but for their older relatives and neighbors and coworkers. For those with underlying health conditions or autoimmune diseases (HI CELIAC! THANKS! LOVE YOU!), or the pregnant stranger who still needs to run to the store and pick up toilet paper, not because she’s hoarding but because she’s actually starting to run low (GREAT JOB ERICA!).

I’ve never been great with timing, and if I had a choice, I would obviously choose not to be pregnant during a pandemic. But hey, that’s life. I will have to be cautious and hope others are as well. I will have to try to keep my eye on my health and try not to worry too much, though there’s a lot to worry about beyond the basic “we’re out of food.” I don’t want to have this small boy any earlier than necessary. I don’t want his first days in the world to be so bizarre and have our family potentially out of reach for health reasons. But if it comes to it, we’ll make do, we’ll adapt, we’ll push on. It’s what we’ve done before, and it’s what we’ll do now, no matter the strange circumstances we come up against.

So stay home and wash your hands. And if you can help it, try not to be pregnant during a pandemic.

Gentleness

Recently, I drove an hour across the bridge in the gloomy rain to Easton. I was meeting up with my new dear friend Annie to take some pictures at a foggy farm. The challenge of the day was articulating trauma and anxiety. Annie asked me before I came to think about all the things I no longer need to mentally carry, and to burn them away when I got there. With anxiety, that's a lengthy list.

I've had anxiety for as long as I've known. My parents got divorced literally on my eighteenth birthday, and while part of me realized this was a chance I had to distance myself from my mom and that toxic relationship, I couldn't help but feel like I had more reasons to be nervous.

All of my life, I've tried to take care of everyone around me. The abuse I experienced, I took on alone. When my dad or sister needed me, there was nothing I wouldn't give up to help. I think this is one of my greatest strengths: being there for people when they need someone, healing them however I can. But it also makes me feel very vulnerable sometimes. My circumstances growing up have instilled in me a nervousness of people leaving me -- because I'm not enough for them, or not worth the trouble, or not someone who deserves their love. My mom put that fear in me. It's hard to quiet it.

    

I'm very lucky to be living a much different life now. I am with someone who makes me feel, everyday, loved and like I am good enough, strong enough, more than capable enough. When I was little, I never thought my life could be so gentle. In dealing with the trauma that comes from growing up with abuse, I've learned that anger, violence and fear is the last thing I want to be associated with. Rather, I want to give out love, understanding and warmth.

Every day I tackle that voice in my head that tries to drag me out of the present and convince me I'm not worth the effort of love or the trouble my anxiety sometimes brings. I must remind myself that I am enough. Again, I'm lucky to have someone by my side to help me remember that when I'm having a hard time with the PTSD that comes from almost 20 years of abuse. Even if it doesn't always feel true, or even if it isn't true for everyone, I am allowed love and gentleness.

That's one thing I can let go of: needing approval from people who don't deserve mine. I'm growing, and learning to accept the parts of me that have callused over. Some days are harder than others but in the cold, in the rain, there's always warmth to be found. Even flowers grow in winter.

So how do I find peace during difficult times? I return to nature, love -- to gentle kindness and happiness. I return to Peter, who is all of these things to me. In a world that is often so harsh and abrasive, one of my greatest personal triumphs is always finding the time, room, and energy for kindness. I take heart in that and know that no matter what, I'm going to make a beautiful life for myself. I'm going to leave my campsite cleaner than I found it.

Compassion is such an underrated attribute that we nearly dismiss it altogether. Imagine if we paid better attention to sympathy and grace. What would happen if we all tried a little harder to be soft? I think the world would be a much nicer place if we valued gentleness as the strength it truly is.

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength."

Comfortable being uncomfortable

So here's the thing about living with anxiety: the condition is chronic. It's not going anywhere anytime soon; in fact, it's not going anywhere ever. There will be times that I would consider my anxiety is in remission, where the nervousness I live with has pulled back like low tide on a beach. But like the ocean, it will never disappear. It floods, it recedes, it comes in waves.

When I first started seeking help for my anxiety, I entered into treatment with this mindset of, "If I will do this, I will be better." And by better, I meant fixed or cured or healed or whatever word you'd want to use to imply I would no longer have to deal with this ugly thing that kept rearing its head in my life.

Presto, change-o, psychologist-o, cured-o.

"Better," though, while I was using it to supplement all those other meanings, was actually the perfect word for what I was going to experience. Over time, with a lot of work, I would be better. Better at handling the anxiety, better at calming myself down at the onset of panic, better with dealing with the aftermath of an attack. Better, as in I would experience it with less frequency, or less severity. The graph of recovery would trend upward, but it wouldn't be a straight line from A to B, Anxious to Cured. No, not cured... Healthy is a more accurate way to look at it.

I have been dealing with my anxiety in much healthier ways. I'm making huge improvements in my internal dialogue, and how I express myself in times of stress or nerves. In the past, if something were to occur to provoke my depression or my anxiety, I used to just swallow it. I would let it eat away at me until it became this big unbearable thing. And now, I say something. I speak up when I need help, I know how and when to ask for it. That's a big improvement for me.

A lot of this change has come from working with my therapist on TalkSpace (which I plan on doing an entirely separate, detailed post about to answer any questions and share my thoughts about the process and how it all works). And of course it helps that I am surrounding myself with people who make me feel safe and who are aware of the things I am working on. But I think a major contribution to my recovery to a more healthy place is that I have stopped setting unrealistic expectations for myself. I have stopped being afraid of my anxiety when it bubbles up.

I have learned to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's a weird thing to think about, but when I notice the prickling sensation of oncoming panic, instead of getting afraid of what's about to happen (my mind pre-spiraling for the panic attack, thus making it more severe), I prepare myself to sit with it. I let it happen to me, breathe, and accept that what I am thinking and feeling is neither good nor bad, it is temporary. It's a passing storm.

I'm reading this book by Timber Hawkeye called The Buddhist Boot Camp. Now, I'm not particularly religious but I've always been drawn to the lessons of Buddhism, especially when it comes to things like dealing with difficult or intense emotions. There's this one quote from the book that I keep referring back to:

You can't calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.

The storm will pass--it may be a long one, but eventually, everything will end. In the mean time, get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's only going to make the storm that much easier to weather. And once it's passed, it's amazing how bright and easy life is, and makes it that much more lovely to appreciate.

Tough, but good

Where I am in my life right now is someplace really, really good. I am in a place -- financially, emotionally, physically -- that I never knew I would have the privilege or right to experience, and I am grateful every single day to have made it as far as I have. It took a lot of work, and it took a lot of convincing myself that what I've done to get here is a big accomplishment. It's difficult to see it that way at times when I have this tendency to compare myself to others around me. But that's not fair. It's not about how I measure up to others, but how I measure up to who I was before. I am, and will continue to be, a work in progress, and that's okay. I have to remember that.

The good, and bad, thing about being in such a good place right now is that my brain decided, "Oh, okay, you're safe and happy right now, so this would be the perfect time to go through all those boxes up here you shoved aside when you had other shit to deal with." Cool. You know that quote by John F. Kennedy? "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." Well, the sun is shining, and I'm out on the roof.

Essentially, I spent a lot of my time growing up living in what I consider "survival mode." I got through each day, sometimes by hanging on by the tips of my fingers. I fought just to get through my weeks. So when something bad came up -- something that threatened to pry those fingers off the ledge -- I would push it aside to deal with later. I had to recover from this problem/threat first, and then I could handle that one.  I repressed, sometimes in the moment, so I could survive. But because I was always in this instinct of protect, survive, move on, I ended up collecting a lot of these problems, cluttering the back of my mind. When you're always in survival mode, there's no time to deal with anything but surviving. There's no time to deal with problem number two (or three, or four, or five...).

The Void, I've called it before. I put the problems in boxes and shoved them deep, deep down. And now they're resurfacing. Which is tough, but good. Tough to deal with -- but a good sign, because it means I'm safe. It means my brain thinks I'm capable of opening everything up now. One box at a time.

But it's hard, when there are so many boxes that I don't know where to begin. Or I don't always remember what's in those boxes. And that part scares me most of all, I think. I'm not sure how many boxes of trauma I've stowed away, and I have no idea what's going to happen when I open them up. What will I find?

One of those boxes sprung open this morning. I had the same nightmare, three or four times in a row. But it didn't feel the same as a regular nightmare. It was vivid in the same way that my nightmares tied to memories are. And it was exactly the same, each time it played out. I woke up in a panic, realizing this was not just a bad dream, but rather something from my past I was remembering. The details at the end of the scene I had to watch on repeat this morning are a little fuzzy still, but my brain is slowly trying to untangle it for me, in a way that I will be able to manage. Again: tough, but good.

I will take it one memory at a time. It's nice that I have someone who is always there to remind me that no matter what I find, no matter what I remember, I am in a better place now. I am safe, I am happy, I am so much stronger. This past Saturday I got my fourth tattoo to remind me of this. It's a little sprig of lavender blooms. It reminds me of growth, of fragility. Of grace, silence, and calm hope. I will carry it with me, always.

Taller than Trauma

The older I get, the more free I feel to open up about my past. My childhood was not the nicest of childhoods. There were happy times, as there always are even in the midst of trauma, but I had to live through things no child should be expected to deal with.

During those times, I would do my best to focus to on the good because if I didn't, I would drown. For the most part, focusing on the good meant one thing: my sister. Growing up, though we would argue, we were best friends. We got closer as teenagers, and even more so as adults. She was my reason to be strong and smile. She still is often my reason for those two things. I am thankful that we had very different experiences growing up so she could think back on our family with a pervasive happiness through her memories.

I have come a long way from when I was a child. I am a stronger person now because of what I went through then. I have my priorities very clearly in line. I know what I want, I know what I will not tolerate, and I am willing to work hard to have a life I not only deserve, but one I will earn. With determination and luck, I've found a happiness that would have been absolutely unimaginable as a child. It means everything to me, and I'm holding on tight to it.

Recently, as I've been thinking more about my childhood and remembering moments I tried hard to forget, I feel like I'm shrinking again. This Wednesday, my grandmother (Regina) passed away. (It's odd that it was only yesterday morning; it feels like so much time has already passed.) Besides dealing with the grief of losing a family member, I am also trying to cope with reemerging trauma associated with my mother. It would be a lie to say there wasn't part of me that is terrified of seeing her again at the funeral; I am worrying about things I should not have to worry about before burying my grandmother. But my mind wanders on its own accord and I feel like I'm a teenager again, not in control--not free and happy as I am now.

I am fortunate enough to have someone next to me to remind me that I am in control and no one can hurt me anymore, in any way. I have come so far, I have done so much, and this person in my life is too small to take any of that away from me. I am so much taller than the trauma I've seen. I am so much better because I have gone through it, grown from it. It's nice to know that. It's even nicer to have someone who loves me and believes in me so fully to be there, holding my hand and reminding me. That support next to me makes it easier to face things that scare me. It makes it easier for me to know that strength looks like different things to different people, and even though everyone may not understand it (or agree with it), I am making choices that are good and healthy for me. And that's okay.

It's going to be a difficult weekend, saying goodbye to my grandmother as I face down my past. But I am going to make it through, as I have made it through so many things before. This is not nearly as difficult as what I've already survived, and now I am surrounded by so much light. And when that fear comes back to me, I can remind myself that I am stronger than all of it, and everything I went through--both the good and the bad--not only made me into the person I am today, but led me to the life I am so privileged to be living. No one can take that from me.

I'll repeat it like a mantra: I am here, I am strong, I am in control.

Who tells your story?

I am a girl consumed by wanderlust. Not necessarily with regard to travel -- though believe me, there are cities and mountains and beaches I will make it a point to see before I run out of time. Mostly, my form of wanderlust is intricately tied to an on-again/off-again feeling of aimlessness with life. Aimlessness might not be the perfect word for it, but it's the closest way I can articulate it. There are some days where, even while I'm headed in a clear direction, when I'm happy with those I'm surrounded by, I still feel sort of lost and inadequate. I'm always worried if what I'm doing is right, or if what I'm doing is enough. It's that "enough" part that snags at me most.

This isn't a unique feeling. It's the human condition. Doubt and fear and the horrible, shrinking feeling of being something temporary. Life is a blip, and we are all dust floating in an ever expanding universe and the chances of us doing something memorable (let alone something that will actually be worthy of being remembered) is slim. *Cue speech from 10 Things I Hate About You.* But do you know what is also a part of the human condition? Fighting back. Denying the odds and trying to make an impact anyway. Do all that you can, as best as you can, with the time you are given. That will be enough.

From Hamilton:

But when you're gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame? Who tells your story?  

And this is why I turn to art when I find myself in a wandering/wondering state. Art always answers me, quiets me down. It's not what we leave behind that we should be concerned about; it's who we leave behind, and how we leave them. Who have we loved, who have we lost, who has lost us? What ripples do we leave, what lives have we touched?

It's not important that the entire world remembers us. "Enough" isn't necessarily a big gesture to the universe; it's not an obvious moment of impact. It's the brief exchanges with strangers, small gestures and conversations that stick with friends long after you part ways. It's the hearts you held, the gentleness with which you touched the world. It is in both the good and the bad -- the ones in between. Every connection is an impression.

I have a small circle of friends. It is high in quality, not quantity, and for that I count myself blessed. I know that each person I have in my life has left a lasting impression on me. There are a select few whom I know, no matter how much time has passed, I will always hold with me. I will tell their story in the way I live my life, carrying with me all they've taught.

The impression I hope to leave behind -- my story -- is one of courage and compassion. I want to be brave, I want to be good, and I want to do all I can with those two forces driving me. I want to be remembered one day as someone who smiled freely and loved easily. I want to be thought of as someone who, despite the odds, did not give up and never developed a callousness toward the world, even though it may have been easier to do so at times. In the end, I don't know how many people will tell my story, but I do hope it is a story worth listening to.

Sad & Selfish

I have a really, really good life right now. It’s a life I never would have imagined possible when I was younger—a life I wouldn’t have known to even wish for because it was so far from my reality I would never have gotten my hopes up this high. Every day, I take stock of the things in my life I am lucky to have: a job I am excited about, a house that keeps me safe and comfortable, family and friends who want the best for me, a boyfriend who is the most compassionate and caring person I know. I've done more in these past few months than I have in my twenty-four years of living, and these opportunities will never be forgotten.

I take my tally of everything wonderful and have a moment of quiet gratitude. The universe didn’t have to let me have these things, but it did, I do, and I am thankful.

Which makes me feel like a garbage human when I have moments of stress, or sadness. It hit me this morning, out of the blue, with no cause. I finished my breakfast, washed my plates, and then sat there in a pool of unreasonable melancholy. And I got frustrated because 1) there was no trigger that I could point to that would have instigated any sort of sad feeling and 2) what right have I???

 Like I said above, I have a good life. I am so happy and grateful to be living the life I’m living and I never take a single second of that for granted. But sometimes that makes my more sensitive days all the more frustrating. I don’t want to waste time being sad when I have so many good things going for me. I want to be the smiling, energized Erica people like to hang out with. I don’t like who I am when I’m vulnerable or sad or anxious. I’m going to have to be okay with who I am in those moments, but it’s not easy.

I live in this strange cycle with anxiety and depression where my anxiety/depression acts up, I feel selfish for letting it act up, and then am increasingly hard on myself the longer it stays. I tried to explain it the other week like this:

 I get anxious. > I feel like a burden for being anxious, even though the other person is doing absolutely nothing to make me feel like a burden. > I’m told I’m not a burden. > I feel like more of a burden for making them feel like they made me feel like a burden.

 And so the spiral goes.

This is just another thing I’m adding to my long list of “areas needing improvement.” It’s okay to feel sad sometimes, even when I have things in my life that make me happy. It doesn’t make me a bad person, it means I need to sit down and try to figure out where that feeling is coming from. (And sometimes the answer is nowhere. Sometimes it’s the depression.)

My bigger task, though, is to work on the burden thing, because that gets me the most. I’m always worried that if I am not perfect and happy and everything people expect me to be—or what I think people expect me to be—that I’m going to eventually become too exhausting to be around. I don’t want the moments I have hard times to become too heavy for someone else to carry, so I’ve always carried it all on my own. It’s difficult to remember I can share part of that load, now. I’m getting better, but there’s still a far way to go.

Who I was vs who I am

There are no circumstances under which I could have ever guess that I would be where I am today. When I look back on the past year and review everything that conspired to put me in the place I am now, it’s hard not to believe that I’m getting help from some hidden hand, pushing me along. I’m not particularly religious (I would love to believe in a God, but jury’s still out as I sort through a number of things), and I don’t like to believe that my life is predetermined and that nothing I do makes a difference in my ending. But I do think that there’s such a thing as fate—probably many fates—and timing. Timing is a big one.

A year ago, I was a wholly different person. I’m not going to say that there weren’t redeeming qualities about the person I was, because there surely were, but I did not like who I was. A year ago, I was just surviving. I got through my days with grit teeth and a smile that I was working really hard to feel as real. I was sad and lonely and anxious. I had a habit of sabotaging myself, convinced that I should stay where I was in life because it was safe and steady and any risk I took might be met with failure.

Today, I am happy. I feel safe; for the first time in my life, I feel quiet and grounded and secure. I am surrounded by purely positive energy, and I am genuinely supported. There are still times when I feel like a burden due to my anxiety, but it’s getting better because of that support, and I’m slowly learning how to ask for help when I truly need it.

Who I am now is someone who is brave, and certain, and headstrong. I take risks. I say yes to things that I want to do, even if they scare me. I push myself to open up, to break through the walls I’ve spent twenty-four years building. I’m learning that I can still be selfless while remembering I deserve care and attention, too.

I still struggle. Anxiety will always be with me, but I don’t let it affect me nearly as terribly as it used to. And I’m always trying to grow more, to be able to put myself more fully in other people’s shoes. I’ve always been an empathetic person—sometimes to a fault, where I let it affect my mood, my day—but I’m trying to look beyond the emotion and go deeper. I may not be able to fix the problem, but I am better able to understand the underlying issue. It’s opening my eyes to a lot of thing.

And this year, I am loved more than I ever have been in my life. I know better what gentle means, how powerful acts of service can be. I value time spent with those I love, and am wholly satisfied to be gifted with just that: time. I know what it’s like to have someone understand me, to see the darkness in me and not turn away or shrug it off as a nonissue but instead grab a flashlight and help me explore it. It’s nice to have someone next to me who cares enough to ask questions, to know when to push me and when to hold me. I am very grateful for that, and I am very lucky.

When I look back on my life, I would relive it all again; good and bad, I will take it all. It’s led me to where I am now, and has pushed me down the wonderful road of opportunity. I think the hard things I went through were put before me so that all the goodness I’m about to stumble upon—that I’m living in now—evens out. Darkness and stars, and all that.

Hesitancy Toward Happiness

When I think of my mother, I remember her arm across my neck, pinning me to the wall in the hallway outside my bedroom. Behind her was a large window that overlooked the court we lived at the bottom of, and I saw a car come and go as she said nasty things to me that have since faded into a vague sense of abuse that only sharpens into something clearer and cutting on bad days. The car loped slow through the street and I wondered if they noticed the window I was looking out of, calculating how quickly I could get outside. Was I even visible through the trees that were just starting to grow dense with leaves again?

Ten years later, I still think of fourteen-year-old Erica. At an age where every small thing was susceptible to seeming incredibly dramatic and world-ending, I subverted. Major problems were dealt with through a shrug. I ignored and buried and boxed up trauma until I ran out of room. It was so much easier to fixate on smaller, petty problems than deal with something that, at the time, seemed unfixable and much too complicated and scary to face the truth of. The sensation of being trapped--in my house, in the life I was living--was overwhelming. One day, when I had locked myself in my room and sat at the bottom of my closet, putting one more set of doors between us, I tried to picture what my life would look like in a year, in three, in five. I couldn't see it. All I could picture was the same days on repeat, the same fear and vulnerability playing itself out in a loop. I would be stuck, and all of the terrible things I was told were true.

No way out; nothing better waiting. I wouldn't deserve it even if there was.

How I ever came to believe such lies is beyond me. There was nothing but better waiting for me. I haven't had actual, intentional contact with my mother in about six years, and the happiness I've found in that time is unimaginable. When I think back to the times I felt helpless, I am endlessly grateful for having made it to where I am, and for those who made me feel a little less powerless. I know I owe everything I've achieved and how far I've come to those whom I loved, and those who showed me what it was like to be loved back. My sister, my friends, my dad--people who, even unaware of what I was going through, showed me unfailing strength and kindness, shining examples of hope. At fourteen, I couldn't see a way out, or forward. At twenty-four, I see that there's nothing but possibility before me.

Now that I've had enough space and time to process things in a healthier way, I'm cleaning house. I'm unpacking those boxes, one at a time, and setting what's not useful to the side and holding onto the lessons I learned and the moments--however bad--that made me who I am. I know, for example, that I have an incredible capacity to care about others that I likely would not have achieved without those difficult times. My sister and I are as close as we are because I wanted to see her do more than I did and be happy and whole. I can endure more than I think, but instead of making me hard against the world, those experiences I survived gave me an acute sense of empathy and a desire to help, protect, and heal.

My hesitancy toward happiness is fading the farther I get away from her. It's been hard to shake the doubt when I have moments of peace, but I live my life better. I know that I am worth the contentment I wish for others, and I am capable of achieving it. It doesn't matter what I've heard in the past, because the voices I surround myself with are more supportive than anything I've experienced before; and the times when I start to forget, they're there to remind me. We are all so much more than we believe, and everyone deserves happiness and security.

I can't see my mother as a whole person anymore. She exists only in flashes of moments, only in instances of anxiety. She rarely crosses my mind, but when she does, I remind myself of all that I want to be better at--I want to be kind and happy and vulnerable; I want to be honest and I want to love and defend, never harm. I'm not mad or angry at her anymore, though there were years where I struggled with something close to hate. I've finally reached a place of indifference. There are rare times when that slips and I let her darkness worm its way back in, but I'm so full of light that it's nothing. Where's a shadow to exist at noon, after all?

She seems so small to me, now. I never thought that would be possible. I never thought any of this would be possible, but here I stand, closer to contentment than I've ever reached before. And I'm still moving forward, because there's nothing but better things waiting.

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April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. If you have the means to do so, please donate to National Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Association, a program that supplies judge-appointed volunteers to watch over and advocate for abused and neglected children, to make sure they don’t get lost in the overburdened legal and social service system or languish in an inappropriate group or foster home. 

Mimosa Pudica

On the back deck of my childhood home, sheltered and shadowed by the heavy green limbs of the woods behind our house, was a potted fern. I sat there on my heels, hands folded close to my stomach as I watched my dad plant it, patting the dirt until his hands were wet and sooty with soil. I was still wearing my watercolor blue-and-pink dress from church, so I waited patiently for him to finish before I could run inside and change into something I could wear to run around outside and play.

"Watch this," he said once he was done, and he reached out and touched the center of the thin, soft leaves of the fern.

In a lazy ripple, the leaves folded in on themselves. It closed for a minute or two before slowly opening back up again. He did it a second time, to another leaf. It did the same thing, closing and opening.

"Try it."

With the gentlest manner an excited five-year-old could muster, I reached out and stroked the leaf, letting the fern curl around my finger for a second before letting go. I laughed, half relieved it didn't snap closed on me like I'd imagined Venus Fly Traps did -- catching prey in its mouth and digesting them whole -- and half thrilled with the fact that a plant reacted to my touch. Fern Gully being one of my favorite movies at the time, I could think of no greater excitement than having a thing of nature recognize me.

The little fern had thin, sensitive leaves, as soft as that robin's feather I'd found a few days prior. Immediately, I was mesmerized. I spent hours that day, sitting on the splintered deck in my dress and white buckle shoes, petting the plant. I gave it a name, though I can't remember it now. What I do remember is wondering if there would be a time when I could touch the plant and not have it close up; would we eventually reach a moment where the leaves would no longer feel the need to hide themselves and realize I was a friend, not predator?

The plant was a Mimosa Pudica, though I knew it by the less-scientific names: the sleepy plant, or the touch-me-not. It was the brightest green with small, almost translucent-purple bursts of flowers, and I loved it more than all of the colorful geraniums, impatiens, and marigolds that lined the railing, buzzing with fat little bumblebees. Even though it only lived on the deck under my bedroom window for one summer, it is one of the memories of the dewy months of May-June-July I remember most from my childhood.

Recently, I found myself thinking about it again. Out of nowhere, those leaves. The nervous plant that I felt some strange kinship to nearly twenty years ago. It's an apt and timely metaphor, as I've been fighting back some stubborn anxiety these past two weeks. It's been a stressful time, and like the mimosa pudica, my instinct is to fold up, close myself off from potential harm.

Panic disorder is an incredibly skilled liar. It sends a signal to some primal part of my brain that there is a perceived threat, a predator before me. The alarm for fight or flight sounds, and all I can do is react. Sometimes I have a sense of control over my reaction (mainly, sitting there, still and silent, waiting for the panic to pass because -- guess what! -- there's usually no real threat before me and, with time, my brain might finally react as such). Other times, I have no control. I fold.

There's this article I read about the mimosa pudica and how it evolved in such a way to differentiate between threat and non-threat. The way it folded in on itself whenever the sensitive spines of the leaves were touched prevented it from being properly watered. It would rain, and the plant would seize up. Something that was good was perceived as dangerous, and the possibility of a threat was enough to send it into its natural, ingrained reaction of closing. But, eventually, it learned not to curl up when rain drops landed on it. Scientists aren't sure how, but the plant's reaction changed.

The plant learned.

The plant opened up.

That sticks in my head, this little amazing plant. The times my anxiety wins and the fear in my head steamrolls over all other thoughts, I start to fold in on myself. Slowly, though, I'm reworking that reaction. I don't want to close down, to shelter myself to the point of being counterproductive. It's not protecting me; life is going on without me as I peel myself out again and realize there's no danger, no predators waiting. I'm unfolding. I'm evolving. I just have to open up and let the rain drops fall.

Me versus food

My relationship with food has always been a difficult one. As a child, I was picky beyond belief. If given the choice, I would have had the same dinner every night: chicken, rice, and corn. Every now and then, maybe I'd switch it up with some mac and cheese, or chicken nuggets instead of regular baked chicken (plain, mind you).

When I got older, things became more complicated. At fifteen, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which in a way may explain why I was always deferring back to plain, unseasoned meals as a child. Apparently, everything I was eating was making me sick. No wonder I was falling behind on that little pink growth scale my pediatrician always showed me. It was difficult to gain weight because the food I was digesting was slowly poisoning my system, and the longer it went on, the worse it got.

Suddenly, anything with gluten was off the table. Literally. No wheat, no flour, no barely, no malt. Do you know how many things have gluten in them? A lot. Do you know how much I suddenly wished I could have a regular sandwich, slice of pizza, piece of cake? And then when I got to thinking about all the food I had never tried before, and now would not get the chance to try, I started to really hate that I wasn't a more adventurous eater at a younger age. Now, when we go out to eat, I have to stick to things like salads or fruit mixes which, don't get me wrong, are delicious but not exactly exciting. Or filling. A beautiful snack, but not a satisfying breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Hence, I eat home. A lot.

Here's the thing about food allergies: they're usually pretty serious. If I had gone undiagnosed, I would have had a majorly increased risk of cancer, along with other potentially fatal health problems. It's great that gluten free is now becoming more main stream (yay for better, tastier options than they had back in 2006!), but unfortunately not everyone understands that eating GF is not only a trend. For me, it's essential if I want to live a somewhat normal life. If I don't, I'm incredibly sick for a substantial amount of time. Even the smallest amount -- say, if my "safe" pizza was cooked on the same pan as your regular pizza -- will keep me down for weeks.

Something particularly frustrating with having Celiac Disease is that I know I will never truly get better. Like my anxiety, this is something I will have to learn to live with and manage. Managing it, though, is proving to be difficult, especially when I'm attempting to live on a budget. Buying gluten free is more expensive, and often the packages of food are smaller than non-gluten free options. Beyond the financial annoyances is something more significant: it's still affecting my health.

Where I'm going / where I want to be

About twice a week, I have an existential crisis. It's very exhausting and vaguely entertaining in its dramatics as I start to hyper-plan and panic about every aspect of my life. I think about where I'm living, what I'm doing, where I want to go, and what I want to be. Sometimes, it feels like time is running out for me to make some of those monumental life decisions because I keep looking ahead at what could be and man does it seem like the future is much closer than it used to be. In these fits of anxiety, I get struck with a brilliant moment of clarity where I realize that right now counts. This is my life, and I am in the middle of living it. Am I doing it right? Am I doing it well? How can I make the most of it?

I don't have the answers to all of these questions yet; I'm still searching them out. It feels like I change my mind every other day about the direction I see my life going, and part of me is terrified that once I make a decision, it will be unchangeable. I'll be trapped in some version of my life, wishing I had chosen the second option.

One of my biggest fears is losing control over my life. I despise the idea of being stuck, of being unhappy and unable to do anything to change it. It's part of the reason I can be so indecisive at times -- why I have a sort of wanderlust of the mind. I can vividly imagine a dozen different scenarios played out, for better or worse. It makes me scared to move forward at times. I'm fighting that fear every day.

What if I moved to a different state? What if I stayed in Annapolis? What if I wanted to become a teacher? What if I worked in marketing and journalism? One thing I know for certain is that I want to keep the people I love close to me. I want to continue to do what I love: write. I want to create things and be happy and be able to take nice, clean, deep breaths. I want to fall in love every day and be sure of my choices, knowing that if I am unhappy, I can change things. I am never trapped, even if it feels like it sometimes.

When I need to remind myself that nothing is permanent, and that life is whatever I want it to be, I think of one of my close friends from high school. She knew she wasn't as happy as she could be, so she made some changes. Big ones. She moved over 26 hours away from the hometown she grew up in. She left the classes she was taking and the job she was working behind to find what made her happy. Based on what I've heard, she found it. I admire her bravery more than anything. I wonder what my version of bravery will lead me to?

Where I'm going: I don't know yet. I'm still feeling out the multiple paths diverging in my wood. I'm hoping that there will be a time when the path I'm meant to travel becomes more clear. I'll keep watching and planning. Where I want to be: In a place of peace and security, wherever that may be.

Growth

For the last two weeks, it's been stormy and gray. Today, the sun came out, and with it, I've come to a sappy realization that I'm really, really happy with where I am in my life. I've come a long way, and I'm pretty proud of myself.

Okay, so I'm still stressed about figuring this whole "adult" thing out. But I'm guessing that's more of a fake-it-till-ya-make-it situation. No one seems to know what they're doing anyway. You just get really good at pretending until suddenly things start to actually work out. AND THINGS ARE WORKING OUT REALLY WELL LATELY! Not to jinx it, but I'm getting really excited about what 2016 is doing with me, and I hope the trend continues. I don't think I've ever been in such a good place with both my work, friends, and personal life.

A lot has happened since my last update in March. A lot of good things. The biggest news: I got a promotion at work. When I started out as a seasonal associate, I never would have guessed I'd be in a manager role six months later. Retail work is hard. It's exhausting. But it's also kind of the best. Last September when I interviewed for my job, I had no idea that I would fall in love with my work the way I did -- or that I'd become close friends with the wonderful girls I work with. But I did.

With my work, I've managed to find a level of control over my stress and anxiety. The financial stability helps, but also knowing that I'm capable of doing all that I've done has instilled a level in confidence in myself I haven't had before. I've grown a lot since I let my anxiety run my life, and I'm not done growing. Like I said before, anxiety is a constant battle, but I'm still fighting. I'm surrounding myself with good people, and I'm letting that intention work its way through the rest of my life.

Summer is coming closer, and with it, I want to focus on being happy and letting go of any negativity that managed to hold onto me for so long. My sister is home for the summer and she's been filling our apartment with green things. (See above.) And they're growing! (See above.) Next step is to find great food to eat, to feel better and healthier and more energetic. And water! Drinking more water -- that'll always be on my list. I'm also pulling out my camera more (read: camera, not phone) to take pictures. I always forget to do that, and I really want to have more pictures of my friends and my favorite moments so I can relive it all.

This summer will be the best, busiest, and craziest one yet. Bring it on.

It's good to be scared

I'm a naturally anxious person. You may or may not know this about me depending on how many social media sites you follow me on. If you follow me on twitter, you've no doubt seen late night tweets about insomnia and panic attacks. Anxiety is a terrible thing to live with; it can exhaust you to no end. Like stress, too much of it can really shut you down, but there is a level of anxiety that is actually good for you. In fact, some anxiety can be helpful.

As a writer, I can work through my anxiety in different ways. Sometimes running away to my fictional worlds help me escape the realities of my own. Living inside a character's head can be easier than living in my own at times. It's nice to explore the "what if's" of somebody else's life with no consequences to my own. And of course, I love writing. The simple act of sitting down and typing out a scene or a chapter is in itself relaxing.

It's not until after I'm done writing that I get scared again. I'm suddenly on the outside of the work, looking in. I am seeing the mistakes, the sloppiness, everything that needs to be changed. What I thought (in the moment) was something original and exciting reads as drivel. And DEAR GOD why did I think this was a good book to write? The editor in me is brutal, and nothing is ever good enough. That's what most writers will tell you: they are their own worst critic. I'm definitely my worst critic, and my inner dialogue can get pretty biting.

Where does this harsh self-criticism come from? Simple answer: fear.

Why did something I once love change into something I now view as trash? Has my opinion of it really changed so drastically? No... Not really, anyway. I still will always love my characters and the stories I write, no matter how down I get on myself. There really is a reason I decided to write this book or this scene. I loved it; that's why it materialized from just an idea!

What happens (to me, at least) is fear. When I write, I write in isolation. I don't letter that inner voice or my editor-brain click on. I let the scene flow and don't look back. Sometimes I'll write in the dark or in the middle of the night because it's easier to be honest when you're too tired to think straight. There's no judgment, not pressure, just... story. That's a great place to be. If I can stay in this frame of mind long enough, I can have a very productive editing session. Revisions, when you're still in the honeymoon phase of your idea, aren't about tearing apart your manuscript -- though you might be; it's about polishing the gems you've already laid. It's about taking something good and making it great, or taking something awesome and making it... awesome...er.

But step out of this headspace and WHAM. You're smacked with not only your inner critic, but also those outside critics. It's a fear of being judged: by readers, by other writers, hell, maybe even your family or friends. What if they don't like your story? What if they think it's weird or stupid? What if... what if... And it all spirals down from there. It gets worse when you have access to negative reviews of your writing. Remember that 1-star GoodReads rating you got the other month? Of course you do! That review has been replaying in your head every day since you've read it! Or how about that article you read that discredited the YA genre as a whole (which can not only boil my blood but really let the air out of my balloon when I'm in a good-writing-mood)? And let's not even mention the hundreds of nay-sayers about making writing a career and not just a hobby.

Yeah, there's a lot to be afraid about when you choose to put yourself out there as an author. You invest so much time -- blood, sweat, tears, and red pens -- into writing the best book you can and then you just have to send it out into the world without a safety net. You throw it into the great (and amazing) abyss that is the world of publishing and cross your fingers that it's well received. (Of course there are other things you need to do to make sure people actually catch your book when you throw it, and buy a copy! But that's a different post.) There will be people who like it. There will even be those who LOVE it! But be prepared for those who don't. Because if you've written something worth reading, you will evoke some kind of emotion out of people -- positive or negative, in this respect it's all actually a good thing. And I don't think I've ever read a book that didn't have a negative review... Books with only amazing ratings are like unicorns; mystical and probably a bit dangerous.

Fear and writing... I think the two go together. Especially if you are writing about something that means something to you. And you should be! But how do we deal with fear? Should we try to eliminate it from our process? No. Absolutely not. Being scared is good. I know. It's hard to hear that, and in the moment of fear it's impossible to believe. So I'll say it again: Being scared is GOOD. It's great! It means this book means something to you! It means you have invested some part of yourself into this book. It means you care. What's important is to accept the fear and move past it.

Don't let fear stop you in your tracks. Instead let it nip at your heels as you press forward. Let the fear bring passion to your writing; let your fear motivate you to always try better than the last time, to keep pushing yourself to write the best you can. Allow the fear to inspire you. Don't compare yourself to other writers (trust me -- that's a bottomless pit of doom and despair). Don't dote on those negative reviews, and every now and then, tell your internal editor to put a sock in it. If you're having a hard time shaking off the anxiety about writing that next scene, revisit your early notes of your manuscript. Remember what made you start writing and what you love about this story. And then write. WRITE LIKE THE WIND, no matter how scared you get. Because being scared is good.

This post has been revived from the archives.

You just do

I am particularly practiced at pushing aside stress. Well, it's less pushing it aside than it is shoving it in a box with all the other stress and anxiety I have, taping up that box, and compressing it into as small a thing as possible. Damn, is it dense, with how packed that little box is. All that stress sits right between my ribs. I call it The Void.

For the most part, I can ignore The Void until a more appropriate time. Meaning that, in the moment, that terrible thing will be put away until I have time to unpack it and deal with it. Put it in the box, figure out how to handle it later when I have the time, or a clearer head, or am not in public, whatever. The problem is, when I finally get around to opening The Void, it's sort of a Pandora's box situation. I am not able to take out only one thing to analyze at a time. Everything sort of...spills out. And when that box is overpacked, I usually don't have a say in when it's open because it will just explode. What a mess that is.

This week was a lot, for a lot of reasons, but chiefly among them are the increased hours at work, a busier personal life, and missing my family. The perfect storm for The Void to grow large enough for me to lose that control I practice so hard to maintain. And guess what happened? The box opened. Exploded. It made a mess, and not at an optimal time.

Thursday at work, I had a panic attack. It was of the lowkey, quiet variety where customers (or coworkers) wouldn't notice, but it was a bad one. Really bad. The thing is, I've been lucky. I haven't had many panic attacks at work (four, maybe?). Mostly, my bad days at work are ones where my anxiety is on constant high alert. My base line of anxiety and stress is MEGA HIGH but an inch below panic, so I tolerate it. I deal. The last panic attack I had was way back during the holiday season, where the store I work at was so busy, crowded, and hot that I couldn't calm myself down. I think I finally was able to work my way out of a panic back in December when it happened because I was sent to work in a cold part of the store in the back where I freaked out for a little and then it was over. Thank god.

So what happened Thursday? What triggered this panic attack after working for so long without the interruption? The Void. I was tired. The store was busy. I was mildly overheated. Add all this together, and I got flustered and suddenly it felt like there was something wrapped tight around my neck and I couldn't breath and HELLO PANIC ATTACK it's been a while! To make matters worse, this all began an hour into my shift. It was still going to be a while before my shift ended and I went home, and even if things got worse I couldn't leave. (You see, I have this thing where my anxiety becomes even more unbearable if I feel that I'm inconveniencing others. Leaving the store short staffed -- especially when I was to help close that night, and we were busy -- would be the epitome of inconveniencing. So that option was out.)

Thursday was awful. Yet here I am, alive. I'm okay. I didn't leave the store and run home when my panic attack begun; I knew that that would only make things worse, if it were even an option for me at that point. I knew that if I let panic stake its claim at my work, I would never be able to go back in without having major spikes of anxiety and panic. And what if I had another panic attack at work? Would I leave again? If that happened, the cycle would never end. I had to stay, I had to survive. I had to deal with it head on. And I did. I stuck it out so that by the time I left work that night, I was calmer. I had something other than panic to associate with my shift for the day.

I get a lot of people asking me things like: How do you cope with/manage your anxiety? The answer, as shitty as it is, is that you just do. You take it one minute at a time. Sometimes ten seconds, if that's all you can manage. Grit your teeth and stay where you are, no matter how loud the urge to run is screaming in your head. If you run, you let your anxiety win, and slowly your world will shrink smaller and smaller until nowhere feels safe. Don't let that happen. It's miserable, trust me.

My panic disorder will never go away. It's something I've found hard to reconcile with, but this is something that will always be with me. It is mine, and I have to own that. There will be times when it is hardly noticeable; there will be times when it's all I can see. But I won't let it dictate my life, like it used to. I'm so tired from running all the time that I'm ready to stand there and fight. Because that's what a panic attack is: fight or flight. You survive it but surviving it. You just do. Make the decision to not give up and see how strong you really are. I bet you'll impress even yourself.

Emotional range of a teaspoon

Hello, my name is Erica and I like to pretend that everything is a-okay, always. I get all squirrelly when people try to give me an earnest compliment. My ability to laugh off actual problems is unmatched. Minimizing that which is upsetting is second nature. Having serious conversations is difficult for me. I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Here's a secret: I'm actually all mushy inside. I'm a hopeless optimist, even in the face of a bleak pessimistic reality. When I love people, I love them instantly. I love them hard and without exception. It's why I'm ready to go to battle for them at the drop of a hat. If you upset one of the few people I hold close to me, prepare for all hell to break loose.

When I sit and think about how I deal with Things Of Significance (please note the intentional capitalization), I can easily pinpoint the reason I have this strange juxtaposition. My sister's the same way; we grew up this way. We don't want to burden people with our problems -- or even letting anyone know that there is a problem at all -- but we will protect those we love against even the greatest threats in the world. We'll bleed for them, but refuse to accept the fact that we've got wounds that need tending to ourselves. I've talked about this before. My ability to repress my own problems is one of the reasons I can have a panic attack and the person sitting across from me may have no idea. I box it all up and bury it deep. I place it in The Void, as I like to call it.

I have a problem, as I think most people do, of talking myself out of acknowledging that whatever issue I have in the moment is something that deserves to be addressed. I'll tell myself things like "other people have it so much worse." I convince myself that whatever I'm feeling is petty and unimportant and, at its core, selfish because I have a life more privileged than so many others in the world. And while all of this may be true -- people do have it worse than I do, and I do have to recognize the privilege I've seen (of which I am very grateful for) -- it doesn't devalue what I'm going through in the moment. It doesn't take away the anxiety/pain/etc.

Suffering is not a competition. You do not need to have it the most worst to take the time and care for yourself.

Again, like accepting compliments, realizing that I need to sometimes ask for help makes me squirm. I hate it, but I'm working at it. I'm slowly trying to tell those who are important to me more about my life and why I am the way that I am. Not because I have an obligation to tell anyone anything, but because I want to -- because I think that when they know about the things who made me who I am today, they'll understand me better. And while I've always been one to hold people at arms length so they don't really get the chance to understand me too well (because, you know, fear reasons and the whole "emotional range of a teaspoon" thing again), I'm starting to drop my guard.

I use this blog primarily as a way to expel some of the thoughts bouncing around my head. Shake something loose and let something go. Maybe, in the process, I get to know myself better. At the very least, I'm learning to exhale. So, with that in mind, here are two of the small secrets I like to keep to myself because I'm afraid that if I tell people, they'll see me differently. (They'll see me too well.) Deep breath for a moment of vulnerability.

I know why I have panic attacks; my mother gave them to me as a way of remembering her, even after she left, and I can never forgive her for what she's done to me or my family. 

My biggest fear is that another person will find it overly taxing to love me back. I don't want to be seen as "too much work."

Slowly, I'm letting go of my secrets. Even if most of the time when I share them I shrug them off like it's not a big deal, I'm getting a slightly better at it. It feels good in the end, though I'll be honest in saying that in the moment it makes me really nervous. But we can't keep holding on to secrets. Share them with those who love you and they'll understand. Let others in, even if it scares you shitless. Even if you have the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Looking ahead

New Year's Eve has always been an extremely stressful holiday for me. As if I needed another reason to sit down and overthink what I've done with my life and what I want to do with it in the future. Before I had a handle on my anxiety, I dreaded New Year's. There was an enormous amount of pressure to make the next twelve months of my life something spectacular -- to be more successful and improve my life in some major ways.

In all honesty, New Year's is still stressful. The pressure to be a bigger/better version of myself hasn't dissipated. Now, I just handle it in a more practical, less dramatic way. I think a large reason of my coming to peace with New Year's is that I have a clearer view of what I want my life to look like. I know what I want to do with my life, and I have laid out steps I need to take in order to accomplish these goals.

This year, I can also look back on the Erica from 2014 and see a very obvious "before" and "after" version of myself. 2015 brought along a lot of major changes. In 2016, I think I'll see even more.

Looking ahead into the next year of my life, I know I'll grow to be a better person. I'm using my voice more, and I know what I want to say with it. And, unlike the complicated, often unrealistic New Year's resolutions I normally set for myself, my 2016 resolutions are obtainable, practical, and all about being a healthier, happier me.

My 2016 resolutions

• Eat better. I want to eat healthier food -- food that doesn't necessarily come in a box or a bag. Food that "spoils" because it hasn't been packed with unhealthy preservatives. I want to make plans for dinners, have fuller breakfasts. I want to eat food that's so good I'll become one of those annoying people who Instagram pictures of their meals because wow, avocado and scrambled eggs on toasts looks GOOD with a Valencia filter. Also, maybe every now and then, I'll stop down at my community gym and do a few minutes on the elliptical because I may be thin, but I am not in good shape.
• Compliment people more. I'm getting better at this. Whenever I pass people on the street, I make a conscious decision to smile at all of them (unless the wind is especially nasty that day and distracting me). I'll often think to myself "Man, I love that girl's scarf" or "That guy has a great jacket," but I'll keep the thought to myself. Why? A simple, small compliment can mean the world to someone else. So strangers, friends, family... get ready to feel flattered. I've got some nice things to say about you, and I think you need to hear it. (Because, really. People need to start being actively nicer to one another.)
• Stop apologizing for things I'm not sorry for. I tend to say "yes," "please," and "sorry," a lot. I almost always agree to help someone out with something, even if I don't have the time. Please -- well, I don't want to cut that out of my vocabulary, even if I overuse it. And sorry? God, I apologize for everything. I apologize for bumping into inanimate objects. I apologize for sneezing. I apologize for my feelings or moments of anxiety. I'm through with that. I will never do something to intentionally offend someone, but I need to start retraining myself to accept that my feelings are valid, too, and not everything (or everyone) deserves an apology. This "stop apologizing" thing also applies to me valuing myself more and demanding respect. I want to go after the things I want and do so unapologetically because I deserve to be happy, too.
• Pet all dogs. This one is very specific, but can be pulled back to a more broad resolution of "be happier." I want to indulge in what makes me happy and forget about the rest. I want to laugh and smile and find peace. Petting all dogs is just the perfect metaphor for that feeling, isn't it?

I don't know what 2016 will bring, but I have faith it's going to be something great. We deserve greatness this year, and happiness. Hopefully, we can all start being nicer to one another. I want to be proud of what I will accomplish, and proud of what the person next to me is accomplishing, too. We may all be going at different paces -- what looks like success to me may be completely different than what looks like success to you -- but let's all encourage one another no matter what.

In 2016, I want to share more of myself with others. I want to speak out more about things that are important to me, like mental health awareness, or how I deal with celiac disease, or what it's like figuring out how to feel important in my adult life. I'm practicing better social consciousness and learning more every day. It feels good; I feel good.

What does 2016 have in store for you?

Don't stand still

It's been a while since I've written a new blog post, but I've been incredibly busy and -- in all honesty -- I've also felt a bit uninspired. The stress of life was taking away my energy to think of anything worth saying or doing outside of the whole "surviving" bits of life. It's why I haven't read/finished a book since October. (I know, I know, I'm remedying this problem.) It's also why I haven't truly written anything of substance since the middle of November. It's frustrating to say the least.

But all this pent up creativity has led to some pretty interesting thoughts. I guess you get to observe more when you're just standing by watching life unfold in front of you. So let's not allow my... "time off" ... to go to waste.

One of the most important insights I was slapped in the face with in the past month is this: Don't continue to do something simply because it is easier than to stop doing it. Fear of not having something sometimes stops us from letting go of what is toxic. Or not even necessarily toxic, but just negative. If it's not making you happy, if it's not something that is improving your life, then let it go. And in its place, pull tighter that which makes you smile. Friends, family, books, whatever it is in your life that makes you feel at peace. Hold on to that.

It's something I've seen play out before me. People stay in a relationship that they are unsatisfied or unhappy with because it is easier to continue dating said person instead of letting them go. Letting someone go is hard. I get it -- it's scary to take that chance that by dropping someone, you might not have anyone's hand to hold. But there will always be someone there, even if it's not right away. No one is ever as alone as they believe themselves to be. All we have to do is reach out. Let go of what's behind you so you can move on to what lies ahead.

This realization spreads beyond relationships, of course. I associate it closely to my own anxiety. For the longest time, I was coping with anxiety in the same way. I'd do the same thing over and over again (mainly, removing myself from situations that made me the slightest bit anxious, which led to me isolating myself in damaging ways) and be upset that I wasn't getting better. That, if anything, my anxiety was getting worse instead of better. Well, of fucking course it was. You have to do things that may be uncomfortable to grow. You have to change your habits to become better, change your routine to be happier.

Don't stand still in your life, because that's as good as giving up. Say yes to more things, and focus on the light. You'll notice the darkness fades significantly when you surround yourself with lovely positive people. Hug them close to you and let go of everything else. Make the changes that scare you so you can become the amazing person you are meant to be. I believe in you, and I love you with all of my heart for being so brave.

Everything's happening so much

It's November 6th, and I am thoroughly overwhelmed. November, in case you haven't heard, is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), wherein writers -- who might have gotten hit in the head one too many times -- decide to take on the momentous task of writing a novel-ish in one month. The ultimate goal of the month is to write a whopping 50,000 words in 31 days. (November has 31 days, right? Right. I think that's right.) That breaks down to 1,667 words every day, which at first blush doesn't necessarily seem like a lot. I mean, I write by the chapter, and my chapters typically run between 2-4,000 words. So I got 1,667 words easy!

Except not really. Writing is a task that gets easier* with habit. *Easier as in, the act of writing comes more naturally. Not the words, necessarily. See Surviving First Drafts for more on that.

I've been a bad writer over the last few months. I did just about everything except for sit down and write. Really, I did want to start getting back into my full-time-writing-routine, but I couldn't find the motivation to sit down. Part of that was depression/anxiety induced procrastination, and part of it was just don't feel like it procrastination.

I love writing. I always forget this, but really, I love writing. But I've spent so much time away from it that every time I sit down to get something written, it feels a little like I'm forcing myself. If I'm being completely honest, I'll tell you that I almost decided to not do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a new (exhausting) job. I've been having longer periods of increased anxiety -- it feels like I'm constantly living in this elevated anxious mode every minute of every day. I have WordNerds, and next Wednesday, I'll be traveling to Charleston for the week to go to YALLFest. All of the things are happening.

The list of reasons why I shouldn't do NaNoWriMo was long and growing longer the more stress that popped into my life. (My ceiling had a leak. My ceiling had a hole. Two holes. Another leak. I needed to find a way to deal with the anxiety my job had stirred up. And so on and so forth.) The only bullet point in my reasons that I should do NaNoWriMo is that I wanted to write this book. The project I chose to work on this November is Lovely Dark & Deep, which according to my notebook I started writing in July. Yuuuuuuup. Bad writer Erica. The first draft of LD&D should really have been finished by now. In fact, it should have been published by now, but... Well, see reasons above for why that didn't happen. And I was starting to feel really shitty about the fact that I wasn't publishing a book yet. It was beginning to feel like it's been too long since my last book came out. Which, for the record, was September 29th, so I need to chill -- but that was a nonfiction book. My last fiction book to come out was Infinite, the final installment in the Ignite series, and that came out mid-June.

So I'm writing. Every day. Because NaNoWriMo. It's going well, and I'm starting to fall back into step with the story. I was able to pick up where I left the story off without too much difficulty, thanks to the copious notes I've made myself. So many of these notes are of little use to the plot of the piece, but they help inform on character, world building, and the magic of the story that made me fall in love with the concept.

In case you haven't heard of Lovely Dark & Deep, it's a new adult dark fantasy romance that takes the concept of sirens and puts them in the woods -- so instead of luring sailors to their death, these sirens (or silvirn) lure hunters to their death, thus restoring the balance of nature and offering payment to the woods that protect them. That's my elevator pitch. Read more about it on GoodReads. As of tonight, the stats for LD&D are: 2,131 words written today; 16,804 counted toward NaNoWriMo and 36,867 total. Here are a few excerpts...

“Men go to war over many stupid things.”

These streets will run with their blood before they spill a drop of ours.

No one who lives in Valmead is innocent.

“What do you want to hear? I’ll tell you anything.” “That’s the problem, solider. I don’t want to hear just anything.” 

“Do you enjoy the taste of their bones?” [...] “It’s more pleasurable than the finest wine anyone could ever bottle."

November is a lot already with just NaNoWriMo to consider, but on top of that, the WordNerds are partnering with NaNoWriMo to help produce content, and (as I mentioned above), I'm going to Charleston next weel for YALLFest! I'm very, very excited about the trip -- I'll finally get to meet all the WordNerds in person -- but I'm also hella, crazy nervous. Because flying. Because new place. Because we're sharing a house while we're down there and I'm a weirdo who gets anxious about that kind of thing. Oddly enough, there's also a small part of myself that worries that I won't live up to who I am online when they meet me in person because I am a lot more lowkey (i.e., less SUPER MEGA HAPPY AND EXCITED ALL THE TIME) than I am online. And even though all of this makes my anxiety cry, I'm doing it anyway because I want to. And I won't let anxiety hold me back from doing anything because it's my life, goddammit, and I'll do what I want!

Let me know in the comments if you're going to YALLFest or if you are also working on a project for NaNoWriMo! I'd love to hear from more people who are as busy/stressed/excited as I am!

Take up as much space as you want

“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man[...] We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.”

-- Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You may recognize the above quote -- possibly from the background of a Beyoncé song, maybe you've read it online, or even heard it quoted in the context of feminism (which it has been more and more as the conversation about gendered social conditioning has come to the forefront of our social commentary which is beyond awesome). I'm from the Beyoncé camp; I'm sure I've come across this quote before in my literature classes at some point, but it was never given the proper attention it deserved until I heard it booming over a screaming crowd at the VMAs. It struck a chord with me. A booming chord.

We teach girls to shrink themselves. It wasn't until fairly recently that I realized just how true this is, and I was immediately able to come up with multiple scenarios in my own experiences in which this was true. For the entirety of my life, I've been concerning myself with taking up as little space as possible. I apologize when I haven't done anything wrong. It's a knee-jerk instinct that I'm quietly trying to work on. I use conciliatory language like "just" (see above) or language that undermines my own ideas like "I think..." or "In my opinion..." I step out of the way on a sidewalk when someone else is approaching me, even if they see me coming too -- I'm always the first to move.

This pattern of thinking and behaving reminds me still of a poem I heard waaaay back in 2013 from Lily Myers called -- get this! -- "Shrinking Woman." In the poem, which was first presented (to my knowledge) at a slam poetry event, Myers excavates the idea that women are socialized to grow inward while men are encouraged to grow outward. We shrink while they bloom.

Since then, dozens of studies have been published backing up this notion. There was one study I recall about the frequency with which women apologize. Turns out women apologize more than men, mostly because they feel they have something to apologize for more often than men do. In negotiations over salaries or promotions, women tend to underscore their achievements while men have a tendency to overstate theirs (The Atlantic, "The Confidence Gap"). Another study was focused on an even smaller detail that may go unnoticed: the fact that women tend to take up less room/sit compressed on public transportation while men tend to sprawl. Think about how many girls you've seen sitting cross-legged on the subway compared to men sitting with legs wide open, often taking up more than one seat.

It’s fairly typical for women to fold into themselves making room for others in public spaces, while many men seem comfortable splaying themselves out. Where did this behavior come from, asks Soraya Chemaly? (x)

Women have literally been conditioned to become small and unobtrusive. We don't want to be seen as a burden. Always, we are conscious of the space we displace and those we may inconvenience.

A while ago, I had half-jokingly changed all of my social media profile descriptions to two words: "A handful." It felt like my anxiety was halving me, and that I was bothering everyone around me because I was going through a rough time. I don't often ask for help, and the rare time that I did, I felt like I had immediately become the most burdensome, selfish person in the world. Which, at first, seems overdramatic and is truly ridiculous, but in this case, there had been some negative reinforcements of this fear and the doubting, terrified voice in my head was validated by people who didn't want to take the time to understand. I was, as my social media accounts could verify for that week and a half, actually "a handful." Fuck that.

I've since taken that half-joke/half-not-joke description down. My life is a mess, but I'm not a handful. I'm a human being (or a human bean, as my sister says) and I deserve consideration, even on my off days. Everyone does. Never forget that.

Every day, I impress myself simply by getting out of bed. And then I do more. I survive some days, while other days -- good days -- I get to really live. I challenge myself to grow outside of my comfort zone and do new things, even when I don't necessarily feel up to doing those things. I do them anyway. In my daily planner and my journals, I've written down mantras like "Your feelings are valid" and "You are allowed to take up space." Because I need those reminders, and I need them often, especially when the clouds are rolling in overhead or a storm is threatening just over the horizon. 

Apologies are handed out too often when there is nothing to actually apologize for. I'm guilty of this, and my anxiety makes it worse. Once, I was out with friends and began to have a panic attack and immediately started to apologize, and when I said this, my friends just stared at me and said (as if this should be obvious) that I had nothing to be sorry for. They were right. I didn't. This was a moment I was going through, and I wasn't doing it to be rude or try and ruin their night -- though I did feel as though a was stopping the fun, despite their protests. I'm lucky I have such amazing friends. Those are the kinds of people you should keep in your life -- people who understand and don't place blame or stigma over your experience.

So yes, I apologize too often, and for things I either 1) am not sorry for or 2) do not need to be sorry for. I am trying to be more aware of that. I also want to be more mindful of when I say "it's okay" (when it's so not okay) after receiving an apology myself. You know, when someone goes, "Hey sorry for being a total dick," and you respond, without thinking, "It's okay." Nope, you don't have to say that their behavior was okay, or fine, or however you are minimizing its affect on you. A simple "thank you" is enough to acknowledge their apology. Accept the apology and let it rest at that.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't times to apologize. Obviously there are! But things that definitely do not warrant an apology:

• My anxiety or depression. If you cannot understand what I'm going through, it is not my responsibility to explain myself to you. And to be honest, I am probably not in the right place to explain what I'm going through at the moment anyway. This is not me being rude or inconsiderate; if you feel it is, I'd recommend you taking a less self centric look at the situation.
• The fact that I'm not as (whatever) as someone else. (As independent, as stable, as fun, as "normal", etc.) We all have our set backs in life, and if I'm constantly comparing my growth to the growth of someone next to me, I will always feel like a failure. I'd rather focus on how far I've come than how far I've left to go.
• Putting myself first sometimes. I'm a caring person, and I will go well out of my way to be polite. I've told my dad once that I try to be considerate with my breakdowns (which about sums up my life). There are days when I have to look out for myself before I can consider anything else. This is not a slight. When I am in crisis or panic mode, I am focusing wholly on staying okay. Often during a panic attack, I'll become nearly immobile and completely silent. Let me come back to myself without putting the pressure of your expectations on my shoulders, on top of whatever else I am dealing with.
• For cutting negative, toxic people out of my life. This doesn't need much explanation but I'll give one anyway. I don't have space for people in my life who are unwilling to understand what I am going through, or that every day I am trying to be better. I don't have the time to try to educate them because I am, well, trying to be better. Such toxic people I will cut out of my life. That is my propagative and I owe you no explanation. If I choose to give you one, great; if not, deal. It's my life and not yours, and I am looking after my own mental health at this point. That comes first. See previous bullet point.

The list could go on, but those four points are a pretty solid start. You should never feel the need to apologize for who you are or what you're going through. Take care of yourself however you can, surround yourself with a support system of positive and understanding friends, and remember to be gentle with yourself. Life is hard, and when you're managing something like anxiety, depression, or any other mental illness, there are days when just making it through the day (or night) feels impossible. But you can do it.

You're okay, even if you aren't right at this moment. You are allowed to take up space and ask for help. That does not make you selfish and that does not make you weak. Everyone needs a life boat now and then, so reach for one. Allow yourself to be saved when you cannot manage it on your own. Anyone who sees you or what you are going through as a burden is not worth your time and obviously has a warped view of the world. Let them go, and feel sorry for their lack of empathy. And know, beyond a doubt, that you deserve so much better than that. No more shrinking yourself; it's time to grow. I give you permission to take up as much space as you want.