One Panic Attack at a Time

Part of having anxiety is being afraid to ask for help. Mostly it’s because I don’t want to be an inconvenience, but I also have an intense fear of rejection. What if I asked and they said no?! I’d die, probably.
This covers everything from needing to borrow money to needing help hanging a medicine cabinet. It extra covers needing help with my mental state, but that’s a whole other blog post.
I usually end up mentioning what I need help with in hopes that someone will offer to help, even though that’s a chicken way to go about it. My ex couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t just come right out and ask. I just can’t! Anxiety won’t let me!
Today this particular aspect of anxiety hit me hard, twice.
Yesterday one of the bosses asked for my help with something. They’re having students volunteer to come in and speak with our vendor about one of our websites so we know what needs to be improved. The boss man has an appointment and couldn’t make it to some of these interviews, so he asked …

I’ve never enjoyed cooking. I have ADHD so I have a hard time following recipes – my eyes jump around on the page and I always end up skipping a step. Making it up as I go doesn’t work either – When I look at all the food in the pantry, I see ingredients, but my brain doesn’t put them all together in a way that would make a dish.
While cooking I get myself so worked up because I’m afraid of failing. I’m afraid of ruining someone’s meal, so I work myself into a panic attack. Of course I didn’t realize that’s what was happening until about a decade ago. Before that, I thought cooking just made me angry.
I’ll never forget the time my first husband threw eggs at me because I was cooking and upset. I was making breakfast and it wasn’t going my way, as usual. In retrospect, I was obviously having a panic attack, but all he saw was that I was in a bad mood. I handed him his plate of eggs and bacon and walked back to the kitchen. While walking across the room, he threw the plate at me. It …

I’m not lazy, I have anxiety.
I’m not antisocial, I have anxiety.
I’m not a bitch, I have anxiety.
Okay, so sometimes I can be a bitch… but chances are good that anxiety has at least a little something to do with it. And honestly, I try so hard to be kind.
You might think I use anxiety as an excuse or a crutch. And maybe I do sometimes. But I also struggle to overcome it a lot more than you know. 9/10 times I try to beat anxiety, I fail. But sometimes, on that tenth try, I succeed and I’m on top of the world. Then someone criticizes something about me and I’m right back to square one.
I’ve always been overly sensitive, ever since I was a child. Hell, ever since I was an infant. Turns out a good chunk of that is caused by anxiety. Any bad thing you could think about me, I promise you I’ve had thoughts ten times worse – daily. And when you say it, the anxiety is validated, and I believe everything it says.
Sometimes I push those thoughts to the back of my mind and ignore them, bu…