"People who have experienced trauma may associate the excitement of success with the same physiological reactions as trauma. They avoid subjecting themselves to excitement-inducing circumstances, which causes them to be almost phobic about success." -- Psychology Today

"The Jonah complex is the fear of success which prevents self-actualization or the realization of one's potential. It is the fear of one's own greatness, the evasion of one's destiny, or the avoidance of exercising one's talents. Just as the fear of achieving a personal worst can motivate personal growth, the fear of achieving a personal best can also hinder achievement." -- Wikipedia

Yesterday, I wrote a post about finding myself and in it, I mentioned how I'm the only thing standing in my way of so many things. Today, I woke up absolutely exhausted and immediately went into beat myself up/I'm worthless mode. I sat here feeling sorry for myself. There's no other words to describe it. When my body/brain says you need a down day, I get incredibly frustrated and I take it out on myself. A lot of us do that. We beat ourselves up over things that are outside of our control.

I'd love to tell you that I meditated or came to some brilliant conclusion that brought me here today, but the reality is that I noticed that I had Pinterest open in a tab so I decided to lazy scroll through things and see what I found. What I found was a whole lot of pins on writing and it reminded me of yesterday's post so here I am...after pinning about a dozen of them to go back to later.

If you know me well at all, you know that I write. I write stories, I write posts, I write diary entries in Word that may or may not ever be seen by the world. I write. It's what I do. It's what I've done for as long as I remember. It's what I want to do with my life. I want to write.

Seems easy enough, right? If someone said to me that they wanted to write, I'd say, "Then write." Except it's not that simple. Okay, the writing part is. Writing isn't difficult for me. Heck, hand me a notebook and a pen and I'll doodle and write all day long. It's the part that comes after that...what do I do with it once I write it? Do I file it away somewhere? Do I publish it? Do I tell anyone about it?

Just a few days ago, I got the Facebook notification that on this day a year ago, I published my first story on Amazon. I've gone on to publish something like 8 stories. In that year, I've never made enough off selling them to even receive a royalty payment. Why? Because I've been afraid to take the next steps. I have the resources. Russell Nohelty has a podcast all about building up your creative business. I'm part of at least one really good authors' group on Facebook. I'm friends (or at least Facebook friends) with multiple published writers.

So what's holding me back? Me. I am. I'm the problem. I'm terrified of what happens if I do this and I do it well. What will that mean for my life? What changes will there be? Just thinking about it has my anxiety flaring up. Then, there's the other side of it. I look around at the people surrounding me and I think "What's the point in even trying? There are so many people out there already doing this. There's nothing special about me or what I do."

I'm afraid of success and I'm afraid of failure. So, I do nothing. I write my stories and sometimes I post them and sometimes I don't. I write here and since it's mostly ignored by the outside world, I tell myself that it's a sure sign that my writing isn't any good. If it were, surely something I'd written would have gained traction by now. Is that the truth? Probably not. There are a million people out there writing the same  types of things on their blogs. There's no reason that mine would gain attention.

Still, I write because I can't imagine a life without doing it. This is part of me. I just have to decide if I'm brave enough to really show people what I can do and if I am, I have to start taking those steps. I know that I'm not alone in feeling like this and I hope that I'm not alone in whatever happens next.



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For the past few days, I've had multiple posts running around in my head, but I wasn't in a mental or emotional place where I could sit and write without it sounding like I was having some sort of breakdown. I want to start out by assuring everyone that I'm okay. I'm just having a really rough week, but I'm still here and I'm still fighting and that's the part that really matters. Now...on with the post....

Yesterday something happened that put me into a near panic attack like state for almost the entire day. It got so bad that I ended up with a migraine, which oddly enough may be the best thing that could have happened, but we'll get to that. So, what happened?

A friend of mine took the day off from work to celebrate his wife's birthday. He made her breakfast in bed, gave her amazing presents, and perhaps the best gift of all, he gave himself to her for the day. The day really was all about her. I'm sure you're shaking your head wondering what this could have possibly triggered. Fear. It triggered the biggest bout of panic and fear that I've had in a long time.

You see, I have a long history..39 years worth at this point of being tossed aside by nearly every single man who I have ever let get close to me and seeing what he was doing for his wife made me
afraid. I was afraid..and still am, though I'm working on it..that I will never have anything like that. I will never have anyone love me that much.

One thought..seemingly innocent.."I would so badly love for someone to love me like that." turned into a day of hell. My mind spiraled to the point where I was sure that it was impossible. If people saw me the way I see me...well, surely there isn't a single soul out there who could possibly love someone as messed up as me. I cried. I tried to fight my way out of it, but the harder I fought, the deeper I sank. I sank until I could no longer function and I gave up. I had a migraine, no rational way to explain the panic I was feeling, and nobody who I would completely subject them to the entirety that is the insanity that is my brain. So, I gave up. I shut down the laptop and I laid down on the couch. I tried to watch a movie, but I couldn't focus. My mind wouldn't stop. It kept right on going with its lies and nonsense... "You have an upcoming anniversary with someone and I bet they don't even know the date and they're not going to do anything special for you. You'll never be loved like that."

I don't know what suddenly changed. The movie was about over (Life of Brian, for anyone curious. I hadn't seen it yet and thought funny might help) and in the final scene, they start singing this ridiculous song, one I've heard over and over again and suddenly something clicked. All day long, I'd been thinking that I was jealous or envious, but the reality is that I was afraid. None of those three emotional states are rational, but somehow fear is easier to deal with. I know fear to be a way that depression keeps its hold. Depression lies and uses fear to help.

Fear is the reason that I don't lose weight. Fat is a buffer against rejection. When my ex-husband cheated on me and it led to our divorce, my grandmother asked me if I thought it had anything to do with my weight gain throughout our marriage. It hadn't, but the question was out there and as I laid there last night, silence in the house, I realized the fear is keeping me from a lot of things. I don't lose the weight because what if I did and nothing changed, nobody wanted to be with me. I don't go out (partially due to finances) because what if I met someone (male/female/whatever) and I liked them and then I never heard from them again?

Fear and depression pipe up in their twin voices with a single message. It's okay because you don't deserve those things anyway. Nobody could possibly love you or want to be your good friend with your past, with how you are. It's an incredibly hard mental prison to break free from. I've given my heart fully and openly, showed my entire self to just a few people ever and of those, two of them stopped talking to me and have pushed me completely out of their lives. Fear uses that as evidence that it's right.

Knowing that fear is trying to become the motivator in my life is a blessing. Remember I said that the migraine may have been the best thing that could happen to me? This is why. It allowed me to shut out all of the outside noise that bombards so many of us every day. No Facebook, no Twitter, no music, nothing but me and when I can get to the core of me, I can find the problem. Knowing the problem allows for me to find a solution. As you may have heard, knowing is half the battle. The other half is the fight to shut down those voices, but if Fear is the enemy of love, the solution is love. Loving myself and my flaws, acknowledging them but not letting them rule me. It's not going to be easy. I have over 30 years of conditioning to conquer. Still, if I can love myself, take care of myself, and yes, even spoil myself, I'll be doing the best thing that I can do.




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Tomorrow is the day where I find out if I'm officially crazy. I've said it before and I guess I'm going to say it again...I don't know which idea is scarier..the one where he looks at me and says there's nothing wrong with you or the one where he looks at me and says yeah, you were right. You have entire subscriptions to issues. I've spent so many years fighting this and I'm so tired. I'm so dang tired and scared.

I'm tired of the days where I wake up and my brain just doesn't work right. It's so hard to explain. It's like I'm in a room and one minute, it's open and light and airy. The next minute, it's filled with dense fog and suddenly there are walls that I can't see and I keep smacking into them. If I try to push past it, I get terrible headaches.

I'm tired of the days where everything seems to be okay but then suddenly I'm caught up in this whirlwind of fear and anxiety and all I can do is sit and rock while I cry, whispering please can't someone help me? Those are the days where I feel so incredibly alone. I feel as if nobody on the planet has the time to just sit and spend a bit of time talking to me. Those are the days when I want to throw myself at the feet of some and beg them to just hug me and tell me that it's going to be okay because okay is the last thing that I can see.

I'm even tired of the up days. The up days where everything is remarkably clear and I can focus and my brain works at super sonic speeds and I get a thousand things done. I'm happy and cheerful and optimistic and nothing can bring me down. They also leave me exhausted, both mentally and physically. Plus, I can't maintain those levels and when I crash, I crash hard.

I'm tired of living life on this rollercoaster where there are times when I don't feel as if I have any control. I'm tired of the "side effects" of living a life this way. I need answers and tomorrow, I will get answers. It's been close to two weeks since I sat in that room and took a battery of tests. Before I took the tests, the psychologist told me that he thinks part of my problem is that I'm too smart and that I'm not using my brain to its potential so it gets bored and bored brains are bad things. He wasn't surprised that I found myself doing editing since it requires a high level of intelligence and attention to detail. Then, I took the tests and I left feeling like an idiot. It's not surprising. The tests are meant to challenge your brain and mine hasn't been properly challenged in a long time. It's like using muscles that haven't been used in years..they moan and groan and struggle.

Tomorrow, I get answers and I'm scared. Deep down I know that it will all be okay but on those upper levels, I'm scared and I just want someone to hug me, to hold me and to tell me that it's all going to be okay.




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So, that's the question. Well, really the question is, Should I go to grad school? I think most people would say yes. I know that I should. Right now, I have an expensive piece of paper for a bachelor's degree. While it looks really nice, it's not going to get me a job or help to provide for my children. So, yes, I should go to grad school.

Will I? Well, that depends on two things. One, will I actually write out the essay and then mail the packet in? Two, if I do those things, will they say yes?  Those are the questions. I don't have the answers.

Ok, I know the answer to the first one. Yes, I will. I'm going to do it. I'm going to sit down over this weekend and write it. Why this weekend? Because it has to be in their hands by the 15th. Yes, I have massively procrastinated on this. Why? Well, that's the entire point of this post.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I do this and they say no, that I will take the rejection personally and it will send me spiraling. Of course, if they say no, I also have no idea what I'm going to do. I need to go back to school and finish this degree so that I can get a job that allows me to take care of my boys. I also need to go back and get an assistantship to help pay the bills. There are so many things that need to be done that haven't been done because the money just isn't there. We're living one "emergency" to the next right now and all of the should get dones aren't getting done.

Then, there's the other side of the coin. What happens if I do this and they say yes? This bring up a whole other set of fears. Let's see, there's the fear that I just won't be able to do the work. Yes, I have a BA in Psychology but what if I somehow just learned it to pass the tests? What if I don't really know it? I had someone ask me a psych 101 question a few weeks ago and I had to look up answers for it. That's scary. I ought to be able to recite that stuff in my sleep. Plus, there's the fear of having to drive almost an hour every day to campus and that's assuming I find a house in Hastings. If I don't, I could be driving who knows how far. Ugh!

You see, I've gotten myself into a perfect tizzy over this and really, it's just silly. If they turn me down, there's always next year to reapply or maybe it will be for a good reason, like I won't be living close enough this year.  If they say yes, then good. I can do this. I'm a smart woman and I can learn. My brain may not be 22 anymore but it's not 102 either. I can learn and I'm good with people. I would make a good therapist. I know that I would.

So, I'm going to ask all of you for some help. If you read this post and you see me online, ask me if I've written that essay yet. Post comments here, reminding me to get it done. I'm asking for your support and encouragement. I know you won't let me down.


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Fear. It seems lately that every post I write somehow comes back to this one little word. Then, I looked at it closely and realized it's not just a little word. It's a four letter word that starts with the letter F. Perhaps this is the real F word that I should have grown up knowing it was a "bad word."  It's far more damaging than the other one, after all.

So, why am I so very familiar with it? Well, I'm going to let you in on some "secrets" that I'm sure others would prefer I kept all to myself. I'm not going to hoard those secrets though. I'm going to let them out and I'm going to be real about how they've made me into the person that I am today. After all, we've agreed that hoarding is bad and that this is my place to clear out the bad emotion along with all of the stuff I've spent my life collecting.

Growing up, I was raised by my grandparents. They were/are good people but it's not the same as being raised by your parents. I envied my friends who had two parents at home and grandparents to go visit. I didn't have that luxury. I had a father who took off on a trip across the country and who went on to father 2 more children who he treated as if they were gold, while my sister and I were worth less than a copper penny. I don't remember him being a part of my childhood except for two occasions.

On the other hand, my mother was around. She was around to tell me that she hated me and wished I'd never been born because I'd ruined her life. She was around to kick me out of her house and to tell me not to ever come back after my younger brother blatantly disobeyed me while I was babysitting and took off and called her at work with some story. The fact that I had adult witnesses didn't count for anything. She was around to make me promises of doll houses and Disney World that never happened. She knew they wouldn't happen but she told me them anyway. As a child, I believed her.

I learned the fear of abandonment at the age of perhaps 2 when I was left with my grandparents. I was taught that I couldn't trust my own parents by their actions. Do you know what happens when you learn you can't trust the very people who should be teaching you about trust and love? You have a hard time trusting anyone. I learned when I was young that people prefer little girls with long blonde hair from listening to them always comment on my sister's hair and ignoring how I looked. I never thought I was pretty.  I thought the boys in high school didn't want to date me because I wasn't as pretty as the other girls.

Remember how I said I surround myself with things because they can't abandon me? This is where it all started. It continued with me marrying the first man who I honestly thought loved me. Now, I'm not saying that he didn't, but I will say that when you're 19, you shouldn't marry the first man who you think loves you. The marriage wasn't meant to last and I don't regret it. However, I do regret that my low self-esteem and fears just continued to grow throughout that time. My collecting really kicked into gear about that time, as well.

After the divorce, I moved 8 hours away from my boys and everything got worse. I started collecting more items because I couldn't handle the pain of being away from them. Since they were born, they were my world. Heck, they still are. I would do anything for those two. My fears that they would think I was like my parents drove me to surround myself with even more items.

Now, I'm back living near them. Not near enough, but a heck of a lot closer. I'm making..yes, making myself go out from time to time to meet new people with similar interests. It's not easy. I know that when I go out, I come across as this confidant person but deep down, I am terrified that these people will reject me. It's so much easier to stay in my house surrounded by my things than to risk that. I need to risk it though. I need to get out there just like I need to continue purging items from this house.

I want to semi-apologize for my last post. I don't think it came out the way I had wanted it to. It seems that when other's read it, they thought I was having issues with just this group that I belong to. That's not the case at all. I meant for that post to be about my issues that I have with making friends. I wanted it to be about my own fears and how I'm having a hard time getting past those to open up to others. The women in that group are totally fantastic and really are wonderful about supporting each other and me. One of them, after I poured my heart out to them on all of this was kind enough to contact me off group and just tell me that she was proud of me for putting myself out there. The problem isn't these women, the problem is me. I'm great at meeting people..heck, some of you have met me via your blogs, etc and probably think I'm super friendly etc..and I am. The problem comes that once I meet someone, I'm afraid to follow up with them. I go through this whole "well if they really liked me, they'd contact me and since they haven't, they clearly didn't" thing. I'm afraid to take that first step because what if they say no or what if they think I'm being too pushy, etc.

So to the girls in that group who read that post and were hurt, I really am sorry. It didn't come out in the way that I intended. Monkey's Momma..thank you for posting your support here. I'm looking forward to that list and I might even be brave and check some of them out. As Corinna has reminded me, sometimes it's all about "Doing it afraid."

I had something happen to me yesterday/today on a group that I belong to. I posted something as a joke..just a how come you guys don't ooh and ahh over pics and stuff of my kids like you do the others..and got told I'm being too sensitive. Ok, it totally wasn't meant like that and their response made me cry..but in that, I guess it was time to do some thinking.

Am I sensitive? Yeah..super sensitive. I've been hurt so many times in my life that it's made me scared. I'm terrified of opening myself up to these women because it would be so easy for them to hurt me, sometimes they already do without even knowing it. I don't want them to know that sometimes they make me cry because if they knew, it would give them power over me.

A little while back, I basically disappeared from the group and only one person got in touch with me to make sure I was ok. When I apologized to the group, they all pretty much said no big deal, which to me said they didn't really care if I was there or not. That might not be the case, but that's how it felt. I've been back with this group of women for a year or so now and I still feel like an outsider.

I promised myself that this year was going to be about trying to nurture friendships and to actually have some real friends, but the truth is that I'm afraid. Every time I start to open up to these women, some comment is made and I get hurt and close right back up. I'm afraid of being hurt. I'm so afraid that if I let these women know the truth about me, that instead of accepting me like they have one another, they'll tell me I'm too sensitive and reject me.

I don't have many friends..maybe only 3. One of them I haven't heard much from lately and honestly, part of me is scared that she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. I know how wonderful she is and how people seem to just adore her. Honestly, I'm pretty surprised that she's my friend at all.

Anyway, that's enough of me crying here. Life must go on and I have a cheesecake to go buy for class.