Lost

I’ve been wanting to write more posts about things like feelings and everyday life, but sometimes the sheer idea of that scares the crap out of me. Do I really want everyone to know just how miserable and vulnerable I feel lately? How Lost I feel? How scared I am of EVERYTHING!

About a week ago a friend of mine posted she felt the same way, and said she had shared it with the world so she was now accountable for those feelings, so she could try and change them. I like the idea of that. The idea that if I put it out there, it is known, it is no longer my own secret. It is something I can try and change.

I feel super lost. I wake up every morning and have so much that I want to do, but I feel so overwhelmed that I don’t get anything done. Two months of being super tired and trying to (mostly) hide it made things even worse. I don’t even want to leave the house, yet I feel like I’m probably missing out by not doing so. I am constantly struggling with myself about everything. Even the smallest details frustrate the hell out of me right now. “Tea or Coffee? I have no idea so I won’t drink either”.

It’s seriously affecting my creativity too!! I can’t decide on anything! I have no idea what I want to do, who I am, where am I going, what am I doing with my life. Art School Dropout turning 10 years old this month made me question a lot. Do I want to continue this path? Do I want to do something different? I love making things, but still ask these things daily, maybe that means I should try something different?

I look in the mirror everyday and don’t even recognize myself anymore. I look tired and sad, no matter how much I try to smile. Before the gluten test crap, I was going to the gym regularly and losing weight, I felt great. Now it is a nightmare to even think about going to the gym, or how I’ll get there! My gym buddy has a super large workload right now and cant drive me (If your reading this Ash, I’m not upset about that), which brings me to the biggest thing bringing me down. I don’t drive, I did once, but I haven’t had a drivers license in 10 years. Before moving out to the country I didn’t need to drive. We lived in the city! I had public transit and a scooter. Now I have daily reminders that yes, I am 30, and I do not have a drivers license. It is now my own fault that I don’t drive. The idea of driving scares me. Especially now that I have a little in tow. But the idea of wasting away in the house also scares me.

“What If?”. that phrase really is my biggest problem. “What if I wear so and so dress, will I be looked at funny because I’m not the right size?” “What if I submit my fabric designs and no one likes them?” “What if I wreck the car?” “What if they hate me because I speak my mind?”

“Why even try?”

At first I felt selfish spouting out all this negative talk, I have edited and re-written this post so many times. But then I remembered, this is my space to talk and I should feel comfortable enough in it to say whatever I feel like saying. I feel it also shows I am a real person whose definitively not all cheery and colorful all the time. I have feelings, pretty sensitive ones actually. Sometimes you just need to get it all out without forcing one innocent bystander to listen constantly (like my poor husband and friends). I feel like this might be my first step to being a better ME, and if not, writing this post was way cheaper than a therapy session.

Has anyone else out there felt this way? Did you ever get over it? Without the help of prescribed drugs? I would love to hear your stories! If you already have a blog post just link it, otherwise I’m cool with long comments or private emails!

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6 thoughts on “Lost

  1. I feel ya girl. This past year has been the WORST of my life. I’ve had a lot of the same feelings as you, as well as tummy problems with gluten and such. You know about my tummy stuff. I too even stopped driving for a while. Started having panic attacks when I’d get onto the freeway. The lost/what if feelings too are so familiar to me!

    I think mine started after my 2nd daughter was born and I was really sick, stopped working and was just…stuck. A little over a year ago, we decided to pack up and quit his job to follow our dreams. We are moving to the city to go to art school. It’s such a scary yet excited time. And I guess I’ve had this past year to try to get my ducks all in a row before the big change. It’s been tough, but I feel like it’s finally clearing up a bit.

    I guess what I’m trying to say is that you are not alone!!!! Big hugs to you and it will get better, I promise. (we gotta tell ourselves something, right?)

    • I seriously wonder if the hormones from pregnancy jump start some stomach issues? I was super sick the last two months before my daughter was born. I actually went into labor a few times, but since I was so paranoid they caught it early and were able to stop it each time. Right after I had my daughter I had constant stomach and abdomen pains. I went to the doctors and asked if it could be my gallbladder, they said it was just stress since I was a new mom and sent me home with antidepressants (which I never took). TWO MONTHS LATER I was rushed to the hospital during a horrible snow storm and found out I had pancreatitis due to gallstones and had to stay there for a week waiting for a surgeon to show up and remove my gall bladder. It’s been down hill fast since then, non stop doctors and tests and my poor daughter has never had a mom who wasn’t sick.

      It really is nice to hear I’m not alone in this ridiculous fight with health, creativity and all around life stuff. I am beyond impressed by your guts to pick up everything and follow your dreams! That is amazing and I hope it works out for the best. Plus maybe new surroundings, public transit and new doctors will be just the thing you need. Im excited for you. I’ll be there on IG watching and rooting for you!

      • Oh my gosh! My gallbladder is gone too!!! It’s crazy how much of this sickness stuff we have in common. Right before my 2nd was born, I started getting hives and when she was finally born, they were covering my entire body. It was crazy. I thought they would never go away. My girls have seen me go from bad to worse to better to bad…it’s a never ending cycle. Poor things! This chronic illness stuff is not fun!

  2. I love that you put this out there! It’s so easy to appear to have it all together online, because we pick and choose what we want to share. That’s not real life, though. This post is real! I think we all feel this way sometimes, love. You know I certainly have and I’m not shy about sharing, because it does help to get it all out and it does add some accountability. I feel like I’m working pretty hard to get out of the funk I’ve been in and I’m not at all ashamed to say that prescribed medication, albeit a pretty low dose, is one small piece in that. Thank you for sharing and although I never like to see my friends down, I know you will get past this and I will be there for you if you need an innocent bystander. :)

    • I’m glad you approve of my openness! (no joke) I have def been picking and choosing what to share online, and even in person. I have been a lot worse off than I let on because I just didn’t want to be a burden or pitied. But I realized it was just eating away at my inside, and I felt like I was going to burst.
      As for rambling on to you, one of my innocent bystanders, I knew you were trying to get out of your funk and I didn’t want to bring you down!! That whole, “misery loves company thing” or something. Also, I’m not against prescribed meds as an aid, I just know that even high doses don’t work for me personally. Maybe I’m immune? I took them for almost half my life.
      I know that eventually I’ll get away from these feelings, but right now I’m just trying to figure out HOW.
      Thank you so much for being there and for your beyond kind words!!

  3. I don’t know your whole story–I just found your blog today. That said, I wanted to comment because I’ve been feeling a bit lost too recently and I’m also celebrating ten years in what I do. It makes me wonder if the questioning is just part of marking the time…?

    Two things helped me shake the funk-feeling:

    1) Changing the exercise I’d been doing. I have endometriosis and, though I’ve been feeling better in the last few months, I felt like I had plateaued at a certain less-sick level. Then I began doing more intense exercising (more intense than the yoga and tai chi I had been doing), and it changed things for me both physically and mentally.

    2) I dove into a new project. I’m an artist, a painter, and I think part of my struggle and my “is this what i want to be doing?” was coming from worrying that I wouldn’t be able to keep making good-useful-powerful work. Since I happened upon the new theme, the process of digging into it has helped me clear out the sticky question marks and re-focus on making good art.

    Bon courage!

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