Hey,

Thanks for being here.

Can personal space be a sort of metaphor? Can personal space be a place that exists in a non-physical sense?

I’m not sure how to ask the question I have, I just know it makes sense in my head, maybe I can explain..

Has someone ever said something to you, that felt like a personal attack on your insecurities? A sort of verbal sense of stepping into your personal space?

We all have insecurities right?

I realized during an interaction with someone, it wasn’t necessarily me responding, it was my defense, a defense I had up because what the person had said touched one of my insecurities, so it felt like they were in my personal space. The space I reserve for me, no one else.

I’ve never really been one to let people into my personal space, it makes me uncomfortable, both physical space, and mental.

My biggest insecurity right now is my ability to leave the house, or what my brain tells me is my ability to leave the house. It’s very sensitive, and I get very defensive around it. It’s a problem I have.

I think I often feel misunderstood around my mental health, which in some sense is fine, I don’t expect anyone to understand something that I have trouble understanding myself. I guess I do expect people to respect the boundary of not saying anything insensitive about it, which is where my current problem is.

I’d like to be clear, this is my problem, mine and mine alone. I’m not putting this problem on anyone else, speaking out about it is just how I try to understand it and come up with solutions.

I’ve had a couple comments the last couple days about me not being able to do things, go places, especially work. And it’s true, in my current mental state I couldn’t go to work, and that makes me feel bad about myself. I know we are not defined by our ability to work or not, but we are, aren’t we?

Look if I broke my leg and couldn’t walk, no one is giving me a hard time for not showing up to work, they think its terrible, send you a fucking card that says get well.

Well just because you can’t physically see my illness doesn’t mean it’s not there? Just because my health condition is on the inside doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the get well card too.

I guess I’m not sure if this passage is about my aggravation with mental health stigmas, or my aggravation with my insecurities, it’s my passage so I guess it can be about both right?

I wish I didn’t get so sensitive around my insecurities, more often than not I deflect those emotions, the last week or so I guess I’ve just been feeling a lot more than usual, on purpose. I’m trying to understand myself, and be kinder to myself, and love myself, but I have all these problems with myself.

I can’t go to work because I have panic attacks and agoraphobia

I currently weigh the most I ever have, and I don’t love the way it looks

Despite working out more than ever, I don’t feel healthy

I feel sad, and alone.

I don’t feel good enough

I don’t feel like the person I want to be

I’m not acting as the person I want to be

I don’t know how to get out of the rut

People compliment semi regularly about being open with my struggles, I’m open with them in the most selfish way possible. I’m open about them because if I say I don’t like the way my body looks because I’m 25lbs heavier than I’ve ever been, someone relates to that, maybe someone feels a little less bad knowing that someone else knows what they’re going through.

Life’s not fair, and honestly, I don’t want it to be, I don’t need a bunch of money, to be the best, the best looking, I don’t need societies definitions of success, or what makes you valuable as a person.. I need to figure out how to feel valuable as a person on my own, and that’s really hard to do when people be little you, step into your personal space because of a condition you have, that they can’t see.

I guess this was a long winded way of saying, maybe we should all be a little nicer to each other. Every day we wake up and try to survive, and you really don’t know what kind of shit other people are going through. Do you really want to be the dickhead that adds to someones struggle? I don’t

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.