First off, I once again experienced some heightened anxiety tonight while at Saturday evening service. My mom and I were asked to take the offertory gifts up to the alter tonight. I felt anxiety after we were asked but I was quickly able to calm myself. Then another family sat next to us. I've never really been a big fan of people sitting next to me; strangers I mean. It definitely heightens my anxiety whenever this happens. So I was even more anxious but once again, it passed. Everything seemed fine for the most part. The thing is though is that once again, I just felt a bit out of it. This has been happening a bit more often lately and I'm not entirely sure why. But everything seemed to be ok in general. Even taking up the offertory gifts was not too bad. At least not until after we were heading back to our seats. That's when my anxiety just shot up. I felt like I could just break down in a panic attack. But I didn't. Inside I felt extremely anxious but I just tried to relax and breathe deeply. Just try and calm myself down as much as possible and it seemed to work. I still felt pretty anxious for a bit though.
The whole thing about it is that I don't get why I was so anxious. I used to do things like this without a second thought. Yet now, it seems like I get anxious with all sorts of things and I don't always understand. It usually comes as a shock to me whenever I get anxious for no apparent reason. But it's just something I'm learning to deal with.
Speaking of religion, I'm still having conflicted thoughts on my relationship with my religion. I mean I still believe in God and what my religion says for the most part. But lately, I've just felt more and more distanced. I don't feel like my faith is nearly as strong anymore. I've felt this way for a while now; pretty much since I've been struggling with mental health issues. To be honest, I have times where I really just don't feel like going to church services that week. When I was living away from home, it was my decision if I went or not. But now that I'm living back home with my parents, I feel like I don't really have a choice but to attend. I just feel like I'm not as interested in my faith so much anymore.
I've said before how I've never really been an overly religious person and I'm still not. But lately, I feel even less so. If I could, I probably wouldn't attend services as often. Right now though, I don't have that choice. At least I don't feel like I do. Like I said, the whole thing is just complicated.
Another thing that's been on my mind is this upcoming family reunion on my mom's side of the family. I'm not too thrilled about it. I'm happy to be getting away from my hometown for a bit but I'm not exactly thrilled to see relatives. The thing is that I'm the youngest of the first cousins and have always been. I was the last of the grandchildren. This reunion is with the cousin's and aunts and uncles from my grandfather's side of the family. My mom's side of the family is pretty large and this is the first family reunion in about 15 years. I was a lot younger at the last one.
The thing is that I'm not exactly thrilled to be going and seeing all these relatives. First of all, being the youngest of the first cousins mean's that I'm pretty much on my own. There's 11 years difference between me and the next youngest cousins. There might be some other cousins but chances are that they'll either be way older than me or way younger than me. So regardless, I'm alone.
Then there's the fact that because I'm the youngest, I'm also the only one not married and with a family. Not that that's a big deal. Just stating another fact.
But the biggest thing is that I'm also the furthest away and have always been. My other cousins and relatives have all lived fairly close to one another. Because of this, they always spent a lot of time together. I've always felt like an outsider and I still feel that way a lot. I hate feeling this way but it feels like that's just who I'm destined to be. I've almost always felt like an outsider. Too young to really interact with my older cousins and too old to really interact with some of my second and third cousins. Just an outsider.
Then there's some family issues with my mom's siblings that I'm not exactly looking forward to. I'm going to have to be civil and most likely talk to them but I'm not exactly comfortable about the idea. Basically, I'm not looking forward to the reunion much. I'm not sure what I'm even going to be doing. Most likely I'm just going to be attempting to make conversation and spending most of my time reading a book or working on my novel. Alone as usual. *sigh* It's just hard to be excited about spending time with relatives that I don't exactly know that well.
I had a couple random memories pop into my head tonight involving some old "friends" of mine back when I was younger. One memory I have is that one of my "friends" would secretly steal something of mine as a joke and then laugh whenever I freaked out over it. This happened a couple times when I was in middle school. I never found it funny. It was usually something small but whenever I'd notice it was gone and then ask my friends about it, they'd deny it and then laugh. I didn't find it funny at all. It was a mean prank to me and whenever I told my "friends" how mean it was, they'd get defensive and say I ruined their joke by taking it so seriously. I had a sense of humor but this wasn't something I found very funny.
Another random memory that popped up in my mine involved sleepovers with some of my "friends". More than once, I fell victim to being the one that would fall asleep first and then the other girls would play tricks on me. I hated it every time. What's even worse is that more than once my "friends" would convince me that they weren't going to do anything and I believed them. But they still would do things to me. I tried so hard and so many times to stay awake but I just couldn't do it. I remember once getting so angry with the others because I had to get up and volunteer at the library the next morning and they weren't letting me get sleep.
Once again, they thought what they were doing was funny and I didn't. I'll admit that had I not been the victim at these sleepovers, I probably would have been a participated in playing tricks on another girl. But it never ended up that way. It's not as fun when you're the one being tricked.
I guess in their eyes, I wasn't very "fun". I was different and I know they thought I was weird. Yet, they still invited me to do things with them. Granted, I was usually the last resort but still. I guess I've just never been much of a person who likes being tricked even if it's just for fun.
Thinking of this just now, made me remember how one of my teacher's played an April Fool's Day trick on us by giving us a hard test and saying it was a big part of our grade. I fell for it and got so upset that I was in tears because I couldn't do it. I felt even worse when told it was just a trick.
I'll admit that I'm a bit of a gullible person and I do take things a little too seriously at times. But that's just how I am. I'm not as bad as I was when I was a child but still sometimes I don't always know when people are teasing or joking with me and take it seriously.
Speaking of my "friends" and tricks, I remember another time when they had me sit in a chair and covered my head with a blanket. It was all part of a "mind" game/trick. They had me imagine I was in a hot desert and I needed to cool down. What item would I take off first? I said the blanket but that wasn't the answer they were looking for. So I remember taking off each item of clothing one by one thinking it was the answer until finally I had nothing left and my friends finally took off the blanket. They told me that the blanket was a hat and I was supposed to say hat. I of course didn't know that so here I was without any clothes on and feeling extremely exposed and awkward. Also angry with them.
Now that I think about it, my "friends" were never really nice to me and it seemed as though they loved to play tricks on me because they knew how upset I'd get. It's like they did it on purpose. I mean, I did eventually realize that these girls were never really my "friends" but when I was younger, I didn't really know better. It's really no wonder why I have trouble making friends even now. After everything I went through growing up. I was basically a "joke" to those girls. I was the one they chose to pick on and leave outside of things.
I still feel like an outsider a lot and I still struggle to feel like part of a group. I guess it now makes sense why.
So those are all the thoughts that have been on my mind. At least the thoughts I've had today.
That's the problem with having depression and anxiety and not having a whole lot to distract me. I tend to think too much which isn't good. My therapist pointed this out to me. I need to keep busy and distracted in order to keep my mind from thinking too much. I don't really have that right now. I'm working on it but it's a difficult process.
So many thoughts....
No comments:
Post a Comment