I had a thousand bad times.

So what’s another time to me?

Over the last, idk let’s call it three days, life has really been giving it to me. It’s been really making me look inward, trying to understand what I’m doing wrong. It’s also been making me question if I’m supposed to keep on.

I’ve been having these dreams where the anxiety and the panic become too much, and then Presley shows up, she let’s me know it’s okay, whatever I have to do it’s going to be ok. If I can’t keep going, if I need to surrender, that’s okay because we’ll join one another again in whatever comes after this.

I had a conversation about these dreams and just how I’ve been feeling like maybe this isn’t what I was meant for, the person I spoke with about it told me that whatever that voice is, telling me to surrender, telling me I’m not strong enough or I can’t keep going, that voice isn’t me. It really made me think.

I don’t think that voice is me, I think that’s the voice of anxiety, depression, ptsd, whatever the fuck you want to call it. I think all of those things are demons, and they want you to surrender to them, to give up, it’s how they remain powerful.

Today I woke up and felt a bit different, went for a short drive, ran 4 miles, did a cold plunge. A short drive isn’t what I expected today, it’s been a couple weeks since I did that, having the enthusiasm to run 4 miles isn’t what I expected today, and the cold plunge is my constant so I always do that.

Overall things haven’t felt so heavy today, they’ve felt like the darkness is easing up. Like I choose what happens here. I can tell myself the narrative that I’m not strong enough, that I can’t keep going, that it’s time to surrender.

OR

I can tell myself the anxiety can’t beat me, that I have more patience than it does, that I have more drive, more courage, and more grit than it does.

To be honest it’s been a scary few days, it’s been hard not to self harm, the SI has been nearly nonstop. Someone telling me that’s not me really made me pause and think I don’t think it is me. I told them that without the agoraphobia I’d be unstoppable.

Well what if with the agoraphobia I can teach myself to be unstoppable?

All I really know from all this is, knowing I can beat the anxiety probably won’t make the suicidal thoughts go away, but it’ll stop me from acting on them. Knowing I can beat the anxiety probably won’t make the thoughts of self harm go away, but it’ll stop me from acting on them.

Cause I can take anything that you give me,

it’s gonna take a lot more to kill me, bitch.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.