Dancing with Fear and Desire

Today, over two years in to recovery, I still find myself overwhelmed with sadness a lot of the time. Sadness, anxiety, and a deep sense of loss and confusion.

Sometimes, as I sit in my room, alone, watching YouTube or reading a book or desperately trying to figure out what my ochem homework means, I am sad for myself. I’m 20 years old, and I still haven’t had a boyfriend. I’m 20 years old, and I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. I’m 20 years old, and yet I spend my Friday nights doing homework because I don’t have anyone I’m close enough with to hang out with. I rarely drink, almost never go out, and have been to a club a grand total of once in my life.

And then, the thought pops into my head: WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

I realize these worries and woes seem pathetic or meaningless. My stepmom constantly tells me if I want to have friends/do things, I just have to get out there and do it. The way she says it and how often she says it ultimately makes me incredibly angry, because, yeah, thanks, I HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE. But now that you said it, of course I’ll go out alone on a Saturday night to meet people. Yeah. You just changed everything. /sarcasm

I wish I could change everything. I’ve been making some small efforts over the past month. I hung out with people the first two Friday nights in March, and had dinner with a lovely friend this past Wednesday. I have definite plans to go snorkeling and to a Doctor Who party this break. I have maybe plans to have a wine/pancake night and go on a hike. I try to talk to people more often. I try to not be so afraid.

I’m trying. But I worry still that it’s not enough. I worry that there’s something wrong with me. Some mornings, I wake up at 6:45 to my heart racing, in a blind panic, unable to determine the origins of my anxiety or calm myself down. I find myself zoning out in class, completely unaware of what is going on around me for a few minutes as anxiety fills my veins. I tell myself at least once a week that I need to call the therapist here in Hawaii that I found, and yet every time I pick up my phone to do so the little voice in my head, the anxiety in my veins talk me out of it. Yeah, that’s right. I’m too nervous and panicky to make a phone call to the one person who could possibly help.

Ironic, no?

I guess this whole future thing still seems new and scary to me. Just 2 and ½ years ago, September 2010, I didn’t know if I was still going to be alive in a few months. That thought terrified me, but for a good year up until that point, not enough to make me save myself. At this time 3 years ago, I didn’t want to live anymore.

Not that I wanted to die. I just didn’t want to live. There’s a very important, if subtle, difference between those two feelings. If you want to die, at least you still want something; you have something you are working toward, even if, yes, you are in an incredibly fragile and dangerous mental state. When you don’t want to live anymore…you’ve lost everything. You are empty, trapped, dying whether you realize it or not. That summer, I did realize it, and I was scared. But I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself up on my own. And that scared me even more.

Looking back on who I was 3 years ago, I am scared and sad for that girl. That girl who diligently worked out for 6-8 hours a day, finding creative ways to hold her notes for her IB math test as she did endless sit ups and jumping jacks and kickboxing exercises secretly in her room. The girl who hoarded food in her room that she hid in her pockets at meals, and then threw away in a trash can in the park by her house. The girl who had lost sight of everything she loved. The girl who wasn’t letting herself grieve. The girl who thought she wasn’t good enough to live. The girl who…didn’t want anything anymore.

As much as looking back on that saddens me, it does give me hope for myself today. Because as scared and anxious and sad and lonely as I am, I know what I want. I have dreams and hopes and desires, and I (mostly) believe in myself now. However, after so many years of letting fear win over desire, this desire thing is still…terrifying to me.

At one point earlier this semester I sent an e-mail to my parents either about study abroad or a scholarship. In it, I was trying to express a deep part of myself, offering them a view inside my mind and anxious heart. Of course, they completely ignored that sentiment, focusing on the rational instead of the emotional, which frustrated me incredibly. And still does. But anyway. That sentiment was something along the lines of, “I want this. I know that I really really want this. It is such a huge opportunity for me, and I honestly think it will make me happy. But I’m scared. I’m scared because I want it so much. I’m scared of really wanting or dreaming of anything, because I know it will hurt that much more if I don’t get it.”

Have you ever wanted something so badly that your heart literally starts to ache from desire and fear and hope and sadness? Because this past Thursday, I did feel that way. One moment, I was sitting quietly in my room, researching my options to study abroad in Australia next semester. And the next, I was trying not to cry, holding back an anxiety attack in the shower, feeling my heart quite honestly ache for adventure and love and hope and something new.

I think, though, I’ve realized why I’m so scared of the future. At least partially. Because at this time three years ago, I honestly didn’t think I would have one. It’s not a thought I ever uttered to anyone, even a therapist, then or since, but here’s the truth: Back then, I didn’t think I would still be alive in college. I didn’t picture myself making it to 21, going out to drink with friends. I didn’t picture myself graduating from college. Or, I knew if I did make it to any of those milestones, I would be mostly dead, the ghost standing in the pictures, putting on an empty smile as my heart rattled in fear in the bone cage I created for it.

But now I do have a future. I know that, and I try to embrace it. For the first time in my life, I realize I really can do anything I want with my life (ignoring any financial obligations). I can become a marine biologist studying sharks. I could go spend a year being a park ranger in Alaska. I can go study abroad in Australia. Maybe, I can find someone to share my life with. If I want, I can go drink wine with friends on a Saturday night. I can make mistakes and dream big and chase my dreams.

All of that opportunity still frightens me, though. And so, I tend to curl up into a little ball in my room, ignoring the big world out there because it still fills me with anxiety. I hope, though, that I am slowly coming out of that cocoon. I hope someday soon to throw off this terrible demon that sits on my shoulders every day, whispering in my ear and beating down my desires.

On a related note, as I am talking about fear, I have recently found myself liking this wonderful guy in my classes. We’ve only been friends/known each other since September. Last semester, I realized I loved spending time with him, laughing with him on the boat, running a race with him. He was sweet, he always said hi to me and hugged me goodbye. We laughed together; he introduced me to a new type of rum. I helped him study for our oceanography final, and, generally, I was pleased to have a new friend.

But recently those feelings of friendship have turned into something more. I find myself seeking him out in the library or the front lanai at lunchtimes, and feeling that little pang in my heart when he’s not there. We don’t even talk all of the time, but I like being able to glance over my computer screen and see him working on the computer across from me. The nurses were selling cupcakes on Monday, and I bought one. Partially because I wanted one, but partially because I wanted to offer him some, since we had a slight joke about the time these girls brought cookies to class and offered them to everyone but the two of us. As it turned out, he wasn’t in class. And I found myself feeling more upset than I thought I would. I mean, I got to eat the whole cupcake (hooray!), but I genuinely missed having him sitting next to me. I missed getting to glance over at him and smile or sigh or make some other nonverbal communication about whatever ridiculous thing the teacher was saying.

Then, when I saw him on Tuesday, my heart leaped. And I actually found myself telling him I missed having him in class. Luckily, he didn’t seem to think that sentiment was weird, but….uuuuuuuurgh. I just don’t know how to go about making my feelings known to him.

I realize this probably sounds ridiculous. And more like the musings of a 13 year old with a crush than a 20 year old college student. But I’ve only ever had a “crush” or felt this way about a boy once before in high school. We ended up going to prom together, but it was just as friends. To this day, I regret not asking him to go with me as an actual date. I regret not seeing if a relationship could have worked there. I don’t want to have that regret again.

But, yeah, I am being a little ridiculous. I feel like I should be past the point where I’m too scared to tell a guy that I like him. Truthfully, though, I never got to go through that crushy schoolgirl phase in middle and high school, because I instead spent those years falling into a black hole, living in a bone cage, unable to love myself or anyone else. And I definitely wasn’t in a place where I could let anyone else love me.

This is not to say I love this guy or anything, but these feeling are certainly different than anything I’ve felt before. Something special, new, and…again, utterly terrifying. Because I really do have as much experience with guys as I did when I was 12, which is great.

Anyway. I slightly got off topic there, but I’ll try to wrap this up nicely.

Going back to my beginning statement. Even though I still find myself overwhelmed with sadness and grief and anxiety, I know I am 1000x times better now than I was 3 or even 2 years ago. I want things again. I have dreams. I have a future. I may be scared of that future, but I am nevertheless actively going after my dreams instead of starving my body and brain until it gives up on the world for me.

I still am probably letting fear win too much in the dance between fear and desire. So I’m going to take this moment to list a few things I do want, even if the voice in my head is consistently telling me I won’t get these things.

I want to travel the world. I want to write a series of short stories. I want to hike the mountains of Patagonia. I want to spend my time studying sharks and the environment they interact with. I want to find friends who love and accept me for who I am, instead of having to change myself to have fun. I want to find a guy I feel I can share my life and myself with. I want to sit on the roof with him, sipping champagne under the stars and talking of everything from How I Met Your Mother to the meaning of the universe until the sun comes up. I want to stop being so afraid of everything. I want to dance more often. I want to tell my mother I love her. And I want to let myself…be myself finally.

Maybe not all of those things are possible, but I have to hope they are. I don’t know where I’ll be three years from now, but I know where I won’t be. I won’t be spending hours in my room exercising and wishing I wasn’t alive. I won’t be falling asleep to the sound of a heart monitor telling me I am still alive.

I realize now how sick I was three years ago. And that, in turn, has made me realize how well I am doing now. I am healthy. Yes, I am also sad and anxious and lonely and scared, but I don’t run from those feelings anymore. I happily go out for pancakes with my friends late at night. I eat peanut butter from the jar with a spoon again to give myself energy during my late nights of studying. I smile a lot more. I keep dancing. And I keep dreaming.

I’m not perfect. I’m not all the way healed, and I doubt I ever will be. But I am wonderful. And I am alive. I have so much ahead of me, and I’ll just have to see where I am in three years and trust that wherever that is, I’m on the right path today.

One thing I do know? No matter where I end up or what I end up doing, I’ll be dancing.

I’ll never stop dancing.