I AM A SNOWBALL 2 - RECOVERY BLOG

I wake up and I already feel anxious; it’s quite intense. My heart is beating, blood pumping in the way it does when you step out into a road and then immediately jump back because you didn’t see that oncoming car. I feel like that. Like a near death experience. Although, apparently this isn’t one of those.

I find myself wanting to go back. God wouldn’t it be easier just to restrict, if only a little. Get everything back in line again. Back to making sense. Neater. More controlled.

But I know I cannot go back. Not this time. This time I have promised myself it will be different and I have to mean it. This is the only way out of repeating the same day, again, for another 14 years: the only way out is through.

What I have begun to realise is that I don’t have to jump head first into anxiety. I can let the flames of it swirl around me and brush off my skin. As long as I keep breathing, as long as I can feel the ground beneath my feet, keep moving forwards, as calmly as I can, this will pass too..

So here is what I do:

- I recognise what this feeling is, and acknowledge what will happen if I choose to act one way and what will happen if I choose to act the other.

- I get outside, I walk with my headphones playing music instead of something educational, and social media is a huge no - nothing makes me doubt myself more than comparison.

- And finally I stick to the plan, I go back to the spider diagram I made defining my own version of all in. I go back to the promises I made. And don’t change a thing.