It’s 2 am and I hope I can make this somewhat understandable. It’s rather long and jarbled. I apologize beforehand.

I’m 27 and I’m at a crossroads in my life. I have constantly run away from opportunities in my life because they caused so much anxiety and scared the living daylights out of me. I have also caused those anxieties in a way because in the past I procrastinated so often and usually relied on rote memory for tests. However, that type of thinking never really served me for tests like the SAT and I never forced myself to sit down and properly study. I also did this when I had to practice for something and only waited about 3 weeks before a recital to actually start practicing.

I have also had stomach issues that had stemmed back 14 years to when I was taking doxycycline for Lyme’s Disease. The medicine completely burned out my digestive tract and I felt like I couldn’t swallow for a couple months. Before that time, I felt like I was a pretty out-going person that loved life. I was pretty chubby and then when I got sick, I lost the weight in a couple of months. I felt slightly better from taking proton pump inhibitors for the first round, but I never felt like my old self before I got Lyme’s Disease. I’m constantly thinking about moving back to Japan to start over again, but I’m also thinking about what I’m meant to do in the US. For the passed three years, I have had to stay home with my parents due to my health issues that started to get unbearable in Japan. I came home very ill from living in Japan for a little over a year. I did not want to come home, and I wanted to push to stay there, but I knew it was for the best to come home because my body problems were progressively becoming worse. I am doing part-time jobs with no motivation to save money. When I came back to the US, I started to do part-time jobs with the hopes of getting into arts administration. Because the economy was tanked and my lack of connections in the city, I couldn’t find anyone who would hire me full-time. Around 2 years ago, I threw up at work and proceeded to throw up an hour-and-a-half on the train all the way home. Then I threw up for a couple more hours when I came home, and proceeded to be in horrible back pain for the rest of the week. I went to the GI doctor who was of no help, and told me to just stay away from possible trigger foods. My stomach issues settled for a while but I knew I wasn’t getting the answer that actually helped to put me back into optimal health. It wasn’t until last August that I took antibiotics for a chest cold that I realized nothing I ate settled in my digestive tract properly. While foods like soy used to take a few weeks to bother me, one bite sent me to the bathroom immediately. I was also taking proton pump inhibitors (acid reducing medicine) for 7 years when any patient is only supposed to be on them for 1 month. I decided that I had enough and contacted a naturopathic doctor and I had a breath test and was diagnosed with a severe case of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth that got so bad that my back was constantly aching and I could never sleep properly. I also found out that my adrenal glands were shot from all the constant stress that lingered from college and staying in a bad relationship with my ex-boyfriend.

I’m feeling a lot better now after being on herbal antimicrobial and fungicide for a month and drastically changing my diet. The ex-boyfriend did me a favor and dumped me and I’m a lot happier without him. I feel ready to take the next step in my life but I’m finding all of a sudden I’m terrified of all the pressure. I was a good student and worked really hard in college. I majored in piano, but it never seemed like I could get passed a point where I felt comfortable with the performance anxieties and facing harsh criticism from my professors/ other students just about all the time. I admit that I wasn’t practicing that hard when I was a freshman, and it took me some time to grow up and enhance my piano skills. I also avoided talking to a lot of my classmates because I think at that time I didn’t want people to think that I wasn’t good enough. As my playing got better and better, I started becoming really depressed. I was really controlling with my best friend at the time and I was hitting this glass ceiling with my performance anxiety feeling like I’ll never make it passed the next level of my playing. I never accepted to accompany people because I didn’t have a lot of practice with it and my perfectionism would make me super anxious on stage. After I graduated, I felt like I was used and tossed out by a lot of my professors because I could never meet their expectations. I then went to live in Japan by myself and learn enough Japanese to enter into the Japanese work force. I originally wanted to stay for 2 years, but my health, ex-boyfriend coming to the US, and family issues forced me to finally throw in the towel to come home.

After I came home, things seemed to completely fall apart. I couldn’t find a full-time job. I wasn’t interested in playing piano for ANYBODY because I was so terrified of messing things up all the time. My dog died and then my first cat that I had since I was six had died a year ago from April 2 years after my dog died. I took on a part-time job about a year after my dog died as a pet-sitter/ dog walker so I could be around dogs since I couldn’t see mine anymore. While I love walking and taking care of the pets, I don’t love the job. All of my clients love the work that I do for their pets. However, I feel like my mental capacities need something a lot more exciting.

For now, I’ve been thinking about entering into a Japanese company here in the US for a few months to a year so I can improve my Japanese and hopefully save some money so I can either go back to Japan or figure out the next step in my life. I started looking into taking a huge exam called the JLPT and I’m actually taking the time to study properly this time, but I can’t seem to let go of the anxiety of studying. The test isn’t until December! But, I can’t help thinking of how many answers I don’t know or what I’ll mess up. How do I let go of these toxic patterns?! I know a little stress can be motivating, but I don’t want to have to go on stomach pain medications again every time I feel anxiety for something as silly as this. I also don’t want to keep avoiding things that are challenging because they’re uncomfortable for the rest of my life. The thought of living with my parents for the rest of my life makes me even more uncomfortable.

I want to motivate myself to study for it so I can prove to myself that I can pass it.
After all of this crap years later I’m starting to feel like my old self. I want to do something crazy since I felt like I’ve lost 3 years and then some to this illness that was never diagnosed properly. I still love music, but I also want to have a life outside of music. I’m also constantly thinking about going back to Japan. I’m really tempted to try commercial modelling even though I’m already 27. I also want to learn how to play the shamisen. I also want to do a job that actually gives back to people. I have always wanted to be a performer when I was a kid. I was always playing violin or piano or singing in recitals and I loved it. Ever since I had to go on proton pump inhibitors, it actually made it so I couldn’t absorb vitamins and nutrients from food properly which caused a lot of anxiety. I also never learned how to cope properly. I’m on the mend, but I still have a long ways to go to overcoming my over-whelming and performance anxieties. I felt like I have been held back and missed out on so many things because these anxieties and uncomfortable feelings that I haven’t been able to get over yet. I feel so close and yet so far away still to being my best self.