Anita,

Thanks so much for checking on me. How are you doing with all this??

I have been up and down this past week. My discomfort with anxiety has been evident. I have been doing therapy with clients over video chat. I also started a job 1 day a week working in a foster care facility. I am so grateful to be employed right now as so many people i know have lost their jobs overnight.

My sister text me last weekend pleading to unblock my mom and talk with her. I said okay but i still haven’t done it. My mom was in the hospital yesterday with kidney stones but shes okay now. I felt shame for not checking on her but i’m also just very tired of communicating with her, the conversation is always criticism of what i’m doing to hurt her and never about the abundance of things i’ve done right. My mom couldn’t have asked for two better children, yet she is always complaining about us and how we treat her. I’m sick of it and don’t feel like defending myself anymore against her opinions of me, because i frankly don’t have the capacity to care that much right now. I’m much more focused on keeping myself from spiraling into a deep depression.

My therapist pointed out to me the discomfort i feel with the tension of anxiety. I have probably said this before on here but sometimes i just want my life to go ahead and crash completely so i can just deal with it. Waiting around to see whats going to happen always feels worse than when the worst actually comes for me. Right now i have two months of savings, something i am extremely grateful for. Though it still makes me very anxious if it will be enough to keep me from being evicted if i cant keep cash flowing in. I should be okay, but again the anxiety is probably worse than the actual event, much like we’ve seen these past couple weeks with the panic vs. the actual virus in society at large. The anxiety itself seems to be the enemy. My therapist suggested i use this as opportunity to just be, be with the anxiety, and to be unproductive. Being productive has always been my coping mechanism (or achievement) , and these circumstances have forced me to be unproductive. When i’m working i feel as if im doing something to fend off the worry, as business has slowed to a trickle for me this week it has been difficult for me to stay calm without just becoming all out depressed.

This whole situation has raised some awareness in me however, its shown me how disconnected we are from the earth, and meeting our own basic needs like food and shelter. It is clear to me I am far too dependent on the system to meet my basic needs and to meet the needs of others. This disconnection has highlighted why there is so much despair within me and the world around me. I want a small affordable home with a yard where i can grow food and raise chickens or somethings, i want a community where people are interdependent on eachother for our physical and emotional well being. I want to live more humanely. This is where the dissatisfaction in my life has it’s roots i have discovered.