The Blogging Experiement.

Warning: This is more of a rant. It's long and tedious and probably not worth reading.

I've started this blog after receiving advice from my doctor to do so.

"Your doctor told you to start a blog?" Yeah, I know. I went in with breathing difficulties, I came out with instructions to start a blog. What gives?

Well, I'm having anxiety issues which are caused by my Fibromyalgia, and anxiety causes my illnesses to flare up horribly. Long story short, my mom opened up her big mouth and went on a rant about how I've been through so much but have never spoken about it and refuse to talk about anything that might stress me out. She and my doctors are worried I might develop one of the most common symptoms of Fibro I've thus been able to avoid: Depression.

It was suggested that perhaps my lack of speaking and "properly dealing" with my issues was adding to my fibro. When I was younger, my mom sent me to therapist after therapist. I would either refuse to speak to them, or I'd speak to them about how wonderful and fabulous everything was and how happy and carefree I was.

For the most part, that's been true. But most of the time, I was aiming to troll since I wasn't happy about being there. It is my belief, and always has been, that it is fully possible to be mentally healthy without needing to "get things out" in the conventional sense.

So let's get this straight: I am not "bottling things up." Not communicating about "bad" things that have happened to me does not equate to me being unhappy. That said, speaking about said "bad" things does cause me excessive anxiety and always has. I realize this. This is why I do not speak about them.

But it's not because of some form of "not dealing" with things. Not speaking about them is how I deal with it.

X bad thing has happened. Okay. I accept the reality and that which I cannot change. Speaking about X bad thing (understandably) causes sadness. Okay. I want to move on. I cannot do so by dwelling on X. Speaking about X is not going to change X or make it disappear. Not to mention that speaking about X is either 1. Going to cost me money to see a professional, or 2. Make the other person feel uncomfortable or awkward.

To me, it makes little sense to speak about that which makes you sad if you've not the power to ever change it. There are some things you simply can never "move on" from. Nothing can change it, and it's just something we need to accept. For those things, I say "Fuck you! I'm not letting you waste any more of my life than you already have!" My way of doing so is moving on, starting over, pushing through, and avoiding the sadness it brings me.

Time can't heal everything; but it has an incredible tendency to make things better to some extent. Time, to me, is more powerful than venting about something so much that you develop numbness toward it. You can go through time and avoid what makes you sad until one day you allow yourself to think or speak about it, and the sting of it has dulled; or, you can speak about it and thus become sad about it over and over again in the vain pursuit of attaining closure for something you can never truly achieve closure for.

There are simply things for which closure does not truly exist. Sexual abuse, for instance. Is it ever possible to ever disassociate pain from the abuse? Sure, there are things to make it better, easier. But let's be realistic here.

We're taught that if we don't achieve closure, we are somehow defunct, unresolved, unfulfilled, incomplete, unable to move on, ect... Bullocks. Acheiving closure after the death of a loved one is very different from achieving closure of an past relationship. Seeing the body in the casket may solidify some things, but the pain will always be there. Some experiences truly change you and stay with you. It doesn't mean it defines you, but it can most certainly become a significant part of who you are.

I am not saying closure is impossible for every case of sexual abuse. Every situation and every person is different. Nothing I EVER say is meant to be absolute. All I'm saying is that closure, for certain situations and most people, is incredibly unlikely. I'm also not saying that talking about bad experiences is a waste of time for everyone. For some people, it truly helps them.

But for me, it doesn't, and that doesn't equate to me not dealing with my problems and somehow being a fragile person unable to move on because of it. My bad experiences were bad. Speaking about them makes me feel bad. I want to move on and won't dare let any of it claim my life or any more time so long as it's in my control. Obviously, "sad episodes" do occur that I cannot help, but for the vast majority, I can control it.

I am so committed to being truly happy that any threat to that causes me severe anxiety. It's not the threat of the past event, it's the threat to my happiness that scares me. I will never, under any circumstances, be "okay" with the horrid six months I spent in the hospital and all of the aftereffects of it. Avoiding it and concentrating on positive things may not make it go away, but nor will speaking about it. Either way, I'll get the same result. I can spend that time reliving the sadness while wasting time, effort, and money, or I can spend it simple and happy.

But I'll admit; my anxiety is out of control and I want to reduce it. I am fine not talking or thinking about the "bad" things. Anxiety only kicks in when someone tries to get me to talk about them. I cannot ever, no matter how hard I try, get myself to open up to someone about almost anything I'm feeling - good or bad.

A month ago I told my doctor about how I could not speak to anyone about most anything personal. I explained how this included any form of communication and that while it's worse when it involves someone I know, it's still present with those I don't. After a few suggestions, he came up with starting a blog, something totally anonymous.

I'll write about my experiences and will probably focus mostly on my fibromyalgia, but this is actually a self-journey to reach the root of my problem. I want to find out why I am as anxious as I am about opening up, and I'm ready to test my limits. It may work, it may not. As we speak, I'm fighting off an anxiety attack and shaking fingers preparing to post this into nowheresville where it will most likely never be read. And it frightens me more than I can accurately explain.

Hopefully other posts won't be quite as long. I'm going to work on my "writing too much" issue through this, as well. If anyone is actually reading this, bear with me here.