Dear Anita

Thank you for organizing all the words over the years in the forum, reading over them helps me feel a sense of where I am in life because I had been feeling lost within myself. Chloe’s book about working on training the mind through meditation seems interesting, I have been meditating mornings and nights and it is helpful. I still feel anxious about things and feel lightheaded and have upset stomachs at times, but I find myself being able to read some books when before I was too anxious to focus on reading now I can read some books. I find myself whenever I feel really lost in life and not sure if I’m going in the right direction or even if what I’m going for fits me it’s helpful to post on the forum and also find funny memes on Facebook that make me laugh. The quarantine has given me time to spring clean around the house and I’ve been donating things as well as selling some things, I hope to save some more money for therapist appointments when the quarantine is over and I can meet my gender therapist in person. This forum is helpful for me because sometimes when I’m lost in anxiety and trying to hide my emotions I feel like I’m losing myself and I am grateful to be able to talk about my emotions and put them in words so that I have them before the panic attack comes and things aren’t clear. These days with my LGBTQ friends (one of them is great at working through panic attacks) and they have been helping me work on not fighting the panick attacks but acknowledging them and then taking time to rest. There are  times when the panick attacks are more like memories that I thought I had forgotten but really are just repressed come up and I find myself becoming lost in them. I am working on not getting lost in the memories and being able to take the lessons that they teach, I think there’s a lot for me to heal on the inside. I still think that the scars won’t fully heal until I’m financially independent and out of my parents house. These days I feel like I’m going within to work on myself through meditation because I’m still feeling really annoyed and anxious about my body on the outside and that’s what’s causing me distress. I want to work on building myself up within and help myself be more confident in myself because of my parents criticisms I tend to doubt many things about myself. I still feel the need to hide my true self around my parents and the online community helps me work on myself and understand who I am when I feel numb or lost. These days there are some times when I feel lost and wonder about the meaning of life and sometimes I just wish for a day without anxiety but I think that there will always be anxiety and some scars are harder to heal than others. I find that reiki healing helps me with my disordered eating and just listening to my body, it’s still really difficult at times though and sometimes even though I know that Ive ate healthy or had enough exercise I still feel anxious. The main thing I’ve been working on is trying to manage my anxiety and gender dysphoria so that I don’t feel like it’s quicksand pulling me down deeper each day so that I can work on finding ways to save money for therapist appointments. My parents don’t really understand mental health and I don’t think that they really care much to acknowledge it so sometimes I feel alone working on mental health. Most of my anxiety comes from my parents not accepting of me but at times when it is safe I still do what makes me feel better. Another thing for my anxiety is that I feel like I have to learn all the life skills myself because my parents aren’t patient teachers and it just seems overwhelming at times. Thank you so much for your time and hope things are well.