Anxiety

I just read the my last post, and I’m thinking that everything feels so far in the past. I know that’s a good feeling since life feels almost normal again.

I think there will always be parts of life that will remind me I’m “different.” Most of the reminders have disappeared or are just worries that I can brush off. I’ll always be
bothered that I can’t live a totally care-free lifestyle like I used to, but I’ll try to come as close as I can. I get small fears sometimes that I’ll have another seizure,
but I always work to control those as well. Also, sometimes I feel pretty lonely that very few people I know feels some of these emotions, and I wouldn’t want them to either.

In light of those negatives, I’m proud that I’ve come far enough to be thinking of them instead of the physical health problems. I don’t intend to talk much more in this post about seizures or epilepsy, but instead about the removing the anxiety that leads to seizures.

Just like everyone else, life makes me anxious sometimes. But in my case, I make myself anxious more than life. If I’m dishonest, my brain ends up working against itself, and therein lies anxiety.

Here’s an example.

I’m really good at lying to myself about things that make me uncomfortable. If I get embarrassed by something, I want to convince myself I’m not embarrassed to avoid being uncomfortable. So I build a conflict in my head - embarrassment versus my efforts to counteract them. It feels like I’m trying to reverse a waterfall. When I just admit that I’m embarrassed, the mess cleans itself up. I’m still embarrassed, the anxiety is gone, I’m comfortable, and I just go on with my life.

After I wrote that example, it felt pretty obvious that I’m a lot less anxious when I’m not working against myself.

There are plenty of other examples about how lying to myself leads to problems, but they’re all pretty much the same. Lying to others creates a similar type of anxiety too. I make more work for myself to remember the lie, and sometimes come up with further lies to support the first one. It’s all a waste of time and energy.

I’m glad it’s only taken me 26 years to realize instead of a lot longer. This is the only time I can remember that I’ve felt this unconditional confidence and calm because I’m comfortable being honest with everyone, especially myself.

I’m proud to say (and thankful to everyone who helped) that I’m a much better person now than I was before my first seizure. Unfortunately it took 6 seizures and Epilepsy to spark this transition, but I’m here now and I’m happy for it. I haven’t decided what I’ll write about going forward, but I know that I’m gonna keep writing about my feelings, experiences, etc… These past 3 posts have made me understand myself more than anything else has, and I’ll keep going as long as it helps.