If you’re anything like me, you reach that point. You know, when your inner turmoil gets so twisted and knotted up that you can’t hide it from anyone anymore. When you walk around with a look of permanent panic. When asked “Are you ok?” you can only shrug and try to answer. When you’re so panicked about making one mistake that you make fifteen. When your thoughts are so obsessive and singular that you’re paralysed to think about anything else – like laundry. Or whether you’ve paid your bills. Or if you got home from work and slept for 3 hours and then got up and went straight to bed. Or if this is the third day in a row without a shower.

But yeah. Yesterday I got to that point where I literally couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I had a meltdown about how hard it’s been lately just to make it through the days. In my efforts to not “feed the beast” and be “mind over matter”, I told myself this is just a phase, and it’ll pass. As soon as January is over. As soon as February is over. As soon as March is over. As soon as April ends. Now it’s May. And so far it’s been one hell of a phase.

The thing is – I don’t feel depressed. But I do feel overwhelmed. And terrified. I feel exhausted, but it’s not from working too hard. It’s from maintaining a constant state of worry. It’s all new to me, and it’s been made abundantly clear that I don’t really know how to react.  So I’ve made the decision to get professional help again. It’s hard to live in dread. I need coping mechanisms and life skills. Like implementing a schedule that would hopefully keep me more in line and manage my day to day expectations a bit more. And learning how to draw a line under certain things and acknowledging that I need my own time to do the things that are important.

Just getting it out there and acknowledging that I’m out of control helped, though. I woke up today with markedly less dread, I took a shower and put on make up, and I had a good day at work, and time to do things for myself. My mom always says “where you are now is not where you’ll always be.” And I’m going to bear this in mind as I go forward.

So yeah. Welcome to my journey out of the woods.

Again.