The hardest thing to do is to get started.

 I love writing.  I enjoy being able to sit down and create something that wasn’t there before and to be able to connect with people while writing.  I love it, but I don’t do it very often.

I used to have a livejournal, waaaaaay back in the day.  And I liked it because I truly felt like I could write whatever I wanted and if no one read it it didn’t matter because it was a journal for me and not for anyone else.  

When livejournal died and everyone moved to facebook, it felt a lot less intimate.  It wasn’t just for me, what I posted was more for other people.  While I would occasionally get extremely personal in my facebook, doing so was hard.  Some of the feedback I got hurt my willingness to open up.

(A lot of things in my life hurt my willingness to open up, but that’s a trauma topic for another time.)

Flash forward many years and finally getting more comfortable with myself and my struggles.  I am nuero-divergent.  My brain does not like me, tells me bad things about myself, and occasionally tells me that it would be better if I weren’t alive.  Or rather, my General Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder tell me these things.  And they live in my brain.  So.

Now don’t call a wellness visit on me.  I’m not currently actively suicidal.  I’m okay.  Okay, so I’m not okay.  I’m not anywhere in the realm of okay.  There is a pandemic and I’ve been pretty much not leaving the house since March 13th, 2020, and my Depression and Anxiety blossomed into Agoraphobia with Panic (hooray for new medical labels!), I haven’t been employed since February 2021, and a whole lot of things are not okay.  But “I’m not currently suicidal,” is I guess what I mean by okay.  My Anxiety and Depression all have logical causes and my brain chemical balance isn’t horrendously out of control.  Like it was earlier this year.  But again, topic for another time.

So, back to my brain.  I struggle with my brain.  I actively do things that harm me, sabotage me, and make my life harder.  I try to catch myself doing it.  I try to train myself away from doing these things.  But it is a struggle.  A few years ago, I started being more open with people about my struggles.  I started talking more openly about my mental health and when my brain was making it really hard for me to live a “normal” and full-filling life.  

Since then, I’ve heard good responses from my friends and loved ones.  I have been told that me being so open about my struggles has helped them to be more open with theirs.  It’s almost as if there are studies that show that visibility and open communication about our mental health crisis helps people, or something.  /sarcasm.  

So, I’m going to try and do this.  My therapist suggested it as a way to help me exist.  To create something.  To actually sit down and write, because I do like doing it.  And maybe in a little while, if I can keep up with it, because I struggle with keeping up with creative endeavors, (again, thanks, brain, you’re awesome at stopping doing things that help me to live with you) I’ll let people know that I’ve started to do this.  But I want to see if I can actually do the thing first.  Because I know it will help.  Even just sitting here and doing this now, at the end of my therapy session, has helped me to feel a little better and a little more hope for the future.  

And if I help other people feel more comfortable and open themselves, that’s an awesome bonus.  Because I do care intensely about helping other people.

What will I write about?  Whatever comes to mind.  No preplans.  No format.  No rules.  Because those are barriers that I put around myself that convince me to stop doing things that help me.  I’m going to try my best, and whatever that is will be good enough.  

So let's see where this thing goes, shall we?