Throughout my life, when I am left to my own thoughts, it can be hard to understand what is real or what is just fear. Oftentimes my feelings of fear or not wanting to deal with things will overwhelm me and I cannot see that doing what I need to do will benefit me and not hurt me. I am learning to not let my anxiety rule my thoughts and do what I need to do.

It feels shameful in a way that I am in my late 30s and when I must prepare for the next day’s activity that fearful thoughts arise that make me not want to do what I need to do. I can think of a million reasons why not to do something when in fact I also know that I need to go out and do something that is helpful to me.

Those initial fearful thoughts that the worst possible thing is going to happen can be the thing that can ruin an evening or the time before it is ready to go and do what I need to do. Even though I have done the same thing time and time again, my brain can be fearful of something happening that would be least expected.

It is not like what I must go through is at all that bad, it is just that my brain produces adrenaline and cortisol then causes a reaction of wanting to avoid something because I am in panic about whether something is good for me or not. Even though what I am experiencing is challenging it is in no way the worst possible thing that I have ever experienced, even though my thoughts will make it as such and that the only way to avoid the pain is to escape the fear of what I must do that I am experiencing.

Given all the changes in the past year or so, I have done so much better on the surface, but there is the time the night before that the thoughts run deep and want me to think nothing other than avoiding doing what I must do. But once I get to sleep and wake up the next day, I feel better about it and know I must be ready for the ride to wherever I must go.

And even as it has gotten better with the thoughts recently once I do what I need to do to sleep, there  is the part I hate when they appear in my headspace. But as with any other thought that I know that is invalid, I just remember that it is just my body overreacting and what I must experience isn’t that bad. I am only as worst as what my thoughts are made out to be. I must be willing to do the work I know that I can do to absolve myself of the feelings that I am experiencing and learn to focus on better things for my mind.

I know that I am stronger than what my thoughts tell me. I have been through so much stress over the years with fearful thoughts and finally, things are in a place where they are manageable. I know that while there are parts that are not perfect in the situation that I am handed, it is in a much better place than where it ever was, and my mental health is so much better because I keep looking forward to the future and the way things were now instead of being in the past. Part of that is learning to let go of fearful thoughts and be the person I know I can be!