How To Avoid Your Feelings in Three Easy Steps!

Same, Zooey Deschanel. Same. 

Greetings, from your super slacker neighborhood anxiety blogger. Yeah, I know I never post anymore. It seems as though over the last 6 months or so, I’ve resorted to thinking about life (and all my issues) as little as possible, as a way to not freak out over them.

It worked for a while. Things seemed to be going relatively well. Sure, my contact with the outside world was slowly diminishing – even texts to my partners were slowing considerably – but surely if I avoided my feelings by any means necessary, everything would be hunky dory, right? 

How To Avoid Your Feelings in Three Easy Steps: 

• Mindlessly play games on your phone

• Watch Netflix whenever you should be cleaning

• Focus on literally anything other than your actual life

Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone. In the past few weeks it’s really caught up with me.

It’s the two-year anniversary of my husband saying he wanted a divorce. It’s hard not to remember - it was the Tuesday after Father’s day. I know it was a Tuesday because I was in an evening class at Cincinnati State when he texted saying we needed to talk. My heart started racing and I left class early.

I pulled into the garage at home and he came out to my car and said “I want a divorce.” I cried. I begged. I said “this isn’t what I want.”

I had a panic attack.

I hyperventilated.

I vomited.

I left.

My mom has told me twice now that she never left me and my sister. That comment cuts as deeply as it’s supposed to. But, my mom is a much stronger person than I. That night my world turned upside down. I had no idea what to do. I had no idea how to live without my little family intact. I didn’t want my kids to see me in that state – crying uncontrollably, not even able to take care of myself, let alone them.

So I left the house and called on those closest to me to help me survive the coming hours. I ended up taking nearly two months off work – a mental health leave. I cried every day. I started smoking.

Eventually I got to where I was mostly functional. I eventually got my very first place on my own, and then six months ago I bought my own house. I’ve worked so damn hard to get back on my feet and gain an independence that I never really had. And you know what?

Every goddamn step of the way has been so fucking terrifying.

As I write this I have tears in my eyes (oh look, I’ve cried my makeup off again…) I try so hard to not think about how scared I am. I try so hard to think of anything else. But in the end, what I can’t stop thinking about is that I’ll never be as good of a mom as my kids deserve. I’ll never make enough money on my own to give them a good life. I’ll never be emotionally stable enough to be a good influence. I’ll never be brave enough to take them to do the things we always did before as a four-part family. I’ll never be able to keep the damn house clean on my own. (The last one has really been tormenting me.)

In my head, I’m the biggest fucking failure, and not a thing anyone says can change that.

Yes, I know, I probably need therapy. Guess who doesn’t have the time or money for that – this gal.

Last week, every fear that I’ve tried to ignore came crashing down on me. I started snapping at people, making mistakes at work… It didn’t even occur to me at first what was going on, because I was trying so hard not to think about it.

I ended up getting into a fight with one of my partners that lasted a few days. Then I had a really crappy Father’s Day, in which I had a few panic attacks and drove aimlessly for an hour, bawling my eyes out, instead of going to my grandparents’ house like I was supposed to. I canceled two weeks’ worth of plans because who wants to be around a useless piece of shit like me, anyway.

I’ve mostly come out of it. Okay, I’ve come out of it a little bit. I’m at least thinking straight and trying to figure out how to get myself out of this funk. I think.

My mom would tell me to snap out of it. That I don’t need my ex, that I’m better off, that I’m doing great, to toughen up… And she’s right. I don’t need him and I am better off. That doesn’t make it any less scary though, especially with anxiety chirping in my head at every turn.

I’m just so damn tired…