Brushing Out the Knots
I feel as if it has been months since I last wrote. Sometimes that is how a day or week feels to me in this current period of my life, when I am desperately trying to keep my life balanced between my financial woes, family, personal life, and my relationship. Most days, even though I have what feels like too much leisure time on my hands, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. My mental health feels okay some days, but most of the time I am holding panic attacks at bay and drowning in pessimistic thoughts about life not getting better. It sounds almost silly when I release these private thoughts on paper. Of course life will get better; it goes through phases, and naturally going through a post-grad transition, life will be rocky as it is right now. I suppose the truly difficult part is acknowledging that while this may be true, my emotions are still valid. It's all too easy to dismiss bad feelings when reason comes creeping in. Spending too much time alone has been hard for me in this specific area, because others struggling with depression and anxiety will understand how easy for your mind to tangle itself into inextricable knots.
So, in this post I'm going to attempt to untangle some of the knots in my mind.
First up: alone time. Despite being an introvert who enjoys mostly solitary activities, I've always struggled with spending time alone. Loneliness is a persistent adversary that I know nearly everyone struggles with, but with the consistent anxiety, it's difficult for me to fully be comfortable being alone while my family, friends, and boyfriend are busy with work and school. It's even frightening to be left alone with all the churning negative thoughts in my mind, and all I want to do is curl up next to my boyfriend and let him hold me for a few hours. This is impossible 95% of the time with the hours he works and our current separate living situations. So, with all the time I have alone, I've been catching up on books I've been meaning to read, painting, exercising, and watching movies to help take myself out of my thoughts when they become too condensed. These are things I normally love to do in my free time and thankfully have been balms to me scratching my mind raw.
Sometimes though, these activities are not enough to keep the simmering anxiety at bay. Alongside navigating the near-impossible chaos of being a fresh, unemployed post-grad looking for entry-level work with no experience, I've been endeavoring to validate my quiet, unassuming, introvert lifestyle.
Having left the university environment in which socializing and partying is the norm, I've pretty much entirely shunned social activities in favor of quieter solitary activities mentioned above and time spent with my family and boyfriend. Ie: going airplane watching and shopping with my dad. Dinner and cuddle dates with my man. Reading an entire book in one day. Painting the autumn trees. Altogether, these are activities that I would rather be doing and that suit my introverted nature, as I have never particularly enjoyed large, loud social events, but for some reason, there's often a small, annoying voice in the corner of my mind telling me,
Oh, Peggy, you're 23 years old. Why are you settling down now? Why are you working an office job? Why aren't you out there having adventures like all your friends? You should be getting drunk and traveling and making new friends! Socialize! Go outside! Hike a mountain! Do something bold!
I thought accepting my introverted side was something I'd gotten better at throughout my years at university, but it turns out not. Maybe I've been influenced too much by hyped up Instagram photos and online articles that promote grandiose living. Maybe it's just my own insecurity and lack of community that is getting to me. Maybe it's the lack of direction and control I feel my life has right now. Honestly, it's probably a mixture of all of that, but it's without a doubt one of the annoying knots that I struggle to untangle in my head.
My life is my own. I shouldn't feel like I'm living it wrong or that there is one "correct" way of living (and why is the extroverted lifestyle the one that's culturally assigned as more appealing?), especially if I'm not especially drawn or motivated to do lots of social or extroverted things. This self-defeating way of thinking is only detrimental to the satisfaction I can get out of living life the way I want to. If I can tell a friend or even a stranger that there is no shame in living a modest, quiet, simple life, I can and should tell myself. And enough it should be.
So, in this post I'm going to attempt to untangle some of the knots in my mind.
First up: alone time. Despite being an introvert who enjoys mostly solitary activities, I've always struggled with spending time alone. Loneliness is a persistent adversary that I know nearly everyone struggles with, but with the consistent anxiety, it's difficult for me to fully be comfortable being alone while my family, friends, and boyfriend are busy with work and school. It's even frightening to be left alone with all the churning negative thoughts in my mind, and all I want to do is curl up next to my boyfriend and let him hold me for a few hours. This is impossible 95% of the time with the hours he works and our current separate living situations. So, with all the time I have alone, I've been catching up on books I've been meaning to read, painting, exercising, and watching movies to help take myself out of my thoughts when they become too condensed. These are things I normally love to do in my free time and thankfully have been balms to me scratching my mind raw.
Sometimes though, these activities are not enough to keep the simmering anxiety at bay. Alongside navigating the near-impossible chaos of being a fresh, unemployed post-grad looking for entry-level work with no experience, I've been endeavoring to validate my quiet, unassuming, introvert lifestyle.
Having left the university environment in which socializing and partying is the norm, I've pretty much entirely shunned social activities in favor of quieter solitary activities mentioned above and time spent with my family and boyfriend. Ie: going airplane watching and shopping with my dad. Dinner and cuddle dates with my man. Reading an entire book in one day. Painting the autumn trees. Altogether, these are activities that I would rather be doing and that suit my introverted nature, as I have never particularly enjoyed large, loud social events, but for some reason, there's often a small, annoying voice in the corner of my mind telling me,
Oh, Peggy, you're 23 years old. Why are you settling down now? Why are you working an office job? Why aren't you out there having adventures like all your friends? You should be getting drunk and traveling and making new friends! Socialize! Go outside! Hike a mountain! Do something bold!
I thought accepting my introverted side was something I'd gotten better at throughout my years at university, but it turns out not. Maybe I've been influenced too much by hyped up Instagram photos and online articles that promote grandiose living. Maybe it's just my own insecurity and lack of community that is getting to me. Maybe it's the lack of direction and control I feel my life has right now. Honestly, it's probably a mixture of all of that, but it's without a doubt one of the annoying knots that I struggle to untangle in my head.
My life is my own. I shouldn't feel like I'm living it wrong or that there is one "correct" way of living (and why is the extroverted lifestyle the one that's culturally assigned as more appealing?), especially if I'm not especially drawn or motivated to do lots of social or extroverted things. This self-defeating way of thinking is only detrimental to the satisfaction I can get out of living life the way I want to. If I can tell a friend or even a stranger that there is no shame in living a modest, quiet, simple life, I can and should tell myself. And enough it should be.
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