I wanted to start off the year on a positive note. That’s why, I was putting off writing until I felt the urge to write something positive. I think I might have had to wait for a very long time before being able to do that or I would have eventually written something fake. That’s not to say that I don’t feel any positivism but what I feel much more are some rather emotional, self-reflecting, deep thoughts and feelings.

So maybe I just need to be real for once – something that I am always trying to achieve here – and just get it out there.

I have always been rather introverted person – I feel this deep need to keep things to myself, to wait until I know someone very well to be able to share something personal with them and to pretend in the meantime and act as an extrovert.

However, at some point in time anxiety came into my life along with various phobias, panic disorder and so much more and I just was not able to pretend anymore, it was getting so much harder that I just needed to let someone know so that they could help me somehow. Eventually I even started therapy, which was and still is (almost two years later) a big challenge for the introvert inside of me. I let a very small number of people in, I let them know my deepest fears, my crazy thoughts, my irrational behaviours, everything. Ironically right now this actually makes me feel even more as an introvert. I am so f*cking scared of everything that they know about me and how they will use it against me that I find myself spending hours contemplating their reactions, the way they act around me, what they say, what they think, how they look at me, everything. This actually drives me crazy because I feel that they have so much power over me. They could literary make or break my day.

And then I remember why I wanted to keep everything private…

I am not sure if you are born an introvert or you become one along the way or probably it is a combination of the two. In my case, I think it is the latter. I was kind of born feeling afraid of people and what they will do to me but this fear became massive when I was forced to go to a school where I was badly bullied by my peers at the fragile age of seven.

I know that I was bound to be bullied by my classmates wherever I ended up because I was always the odd kid, but this particular school was definitely too much for my psyche. For the good part of four years I was trying so hard to fit in, I was forcing myself to get up in the morning and leave for school with a big lump in my throat, being deeply traumatised by what the day will bring. The worst of all is that I started feeling ashamed of myself, I started hating myself for being this way, I learned to expect the worst from everyone and I also learned that I will never be accepted for who I am. I learned that people always use your weaknesses against you, which means being ashamed of having them and essentially of being a human being that can easily be broken.

That’s why, waking up one day with mental health problems made things impossible for me. I fear being find out, because people will know and they will destroy me. For some people, it is a relief to know that a panic attack cannot harm them – the worst that could happen is to feel sick and throw up – this definitely is not a relief for me, this means being seen for what you are – a sick, broken human. This means giving people so much more reasons to bully you.

With time this made leaving my home seem like an impossible task. Actually, right now it is at its peak and leaving through the door to go somewhere and be around people is the worst. I could not even explain how impossibly bad I feel when I have to go out and about – there are so many people, hence so many treats. And it is not just about the panic attacks, it is about me, it is about feeling the way I used to, it is about things going wrong and me not being able to deal with them. Because for four years of my life things were going wrong every day and I could never figure out how to make them better.

I feel so stuck in this traumatising experience of my childhood and I try to make sense of things, to analyse them, to understand them better, but no rational thought can help this feeling I have deep inside.

I do not want to be feeling like that, I do not want to have to miss on parties and dinners and travels and even work but probably I am not ready yet. Maybe, just maybe there is a part of me accepting that I am only human and that I am broken and that I might miss on life and that is OK.

Things always change. This will change too. After all, these terrible four years of my childhood did eventually end and things changed although it feels like my soul is frozen in time.

Our body and soul have an amazing ability to heal and I believe that mine are on the path to healing. I hope yours is too.

Whatever your troubles right now I am praying you find healing. ❤

Thank you, guys, for reading!

Lots of love xx