Over The Moon For Paxil: A Possible Series Announcement

I haven’t been doing as much regular blogging as I used to. As I’ve talked about in other posts, I have been struggling with some serious mental health problems for the past few years. In the past six months or so, these problems managed to completely take over my life. That makes it hard to blog regularly. It’s hard to concentrate on writing a coherent post when your brain can’t stop panicking about other things, and when even the smallest activities–like putting a stamp on an envelope–seem to drain all of your mental energy.

This year for Lent, I decided to take on practices of love and care toward my mind. It’s been a good process, and I see a drastic difference already. I am on medication, going to therapy, exercising, trying to get enough sleep, and eating as healthy as I can, and I can tell I’m slowly healing.

Still, even now, writing this is like trying to walk through ankle-deep mud. I think about how many people read my blog, remember negative, even mocking comments other bloggers have made about me and my mental health, and I get anxious, and I have to do breathing exercises for awhile to avoid losing my whole day to a panic attack.

I have, however, been able to take up the practice of journaling again. It’s something I quit doing when I started blogging, which wasn’t the best idea for an introvert like me. It’s been healthy for me to learn how to express myself in writing again, to an audience of one–Me.

I’ve been doing this for about a month, and I think I’m ready to start writing for a bigger audience again. Or, at least I think I will be ready soon. It’s hard to tell. Healing is weird like that.

I’ve been looking over my journal entries from the past month, which chronicle my slow and shaky healing process. I wonder if anyone else would benefit from hearing me talk about that process.

So here’s what I might do.

I say might, because I’m still sick. I’ve had a great week, but who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow. And since I’m loving my mind for Lent, I’m not going to push myself too far if I’m not ready.

But if I’m feeling up for it, I’m going to blog through the experiences with anxiety that I wrote about in my journal, starting with what I wrote on the first page, on February 22, 2014.

It won’t be word for word, because some of those words are mine and only mine, and some of them are sacred. It won’t be a reflection of my current state, because I’m learning to value my introverted side that needs time to privately process things.

But it will be my story, and hopefully a way to get back to this blogging thing that I used to love so much.

Stay tuned for the first post in this series (that will hopefully actually get written), “Over the Moon for Paxil: Afraid to be Alive.” 

Thanks, as always, for reading. I appreciate you, readers!