Turning Over a New Leaf

So I gotta go to work soon, but I wanted to share something.

Change. Things we might not notice at first, but then one day we do.

For those readers who know me, you know I've struggled with several acronyms for anxiety, I think maybe every single one there is in the DSM V.  I've had this long standing habit of feeling like I need to explain to people why I do things, why I did things, why I say things and I'd been thinking, how do I stop?  I realize that I don't owe people explanations, and certainly not about any mental illness, but the explanations would just come out, I couldn't stop them. I'd say something and then feel the need to give the back story and let people know that I might be high strung because anxiety, I had to let people know about the tragic battles fought and the train wreck that was my life with mental illness.

But I wanted to stop.

After two years of treatment with a great therapist and a low dose of sertraline, I don't even feel like that person anymore. I don't know who that person is. I feel like when I talk about that person I'm describing someone else.

So I had a lightbulb moment last night. I was talking to someone at work and it was getting kind of personal. I was showing her pictures of my family, talking about our summer, and this is normally where I might've inserted, "Well, I was diagnosed with......(insert acronyms here)" and you know what? I didn't. I didn't feel the need. When I got in my car to leave work, I realized I hadn't once uttered a word about THAT person. Mind blown. I cried mild tears of joy that I had finally overcome something that was such a road block for me in my healing. I realized I guess that if I'm going to keep talking about it, then I'm going to keep "being" that person.

I'm hoping to continue now to be more aware and that people can know me without knowing everything. I believe last night was the turning point to when I stopped defining myself by those acronyms.

There's a person in here. And the acronyms are not part of that person anymore.

Shine on friends. Be YOU! You are worthy of all the love!