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With Friends Like These

If you're going through hell, don't stop. You'll get out eventually.

By Lane VaughnPublished 7 years ago 4 min read
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Life is hard man. It's just like—where do people get their energy to keep going? Not physical energy you can get from like coffee or energy drinks, but more of spiritual? energy. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like a pulling force.

I feel like I've lost the thing that pulls me.

I graduated high school when I was seventeen, took a year of a break before heading to college and dropped out after two years. No real reason why other than I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I feel as though something snapped when I turned eighteen; maybe the sudden realization of I'm legally an adult or I'm supposed to have a life plan already or something along those lines but something definitely changed.

I started to isolate myself from people; passing opportunities to hang out with friends, not going shopping with mom, saying I'm tired and telling my sisters to hang out without me, I just didn't want to be around people. Hell, I didn't like being alone in a room with my brother, still don't. Not that he's ever done anything mean or bad—aside from regular sibling things—I just don't like being alone with people.

It wasn't until January of 2016 that I finally pieced together that I have anxiety. Can you believe that? Twenty-one years and I figured it out at the beginning of last year. Looking back on things though, it's kinda obvious now.

I absolutely hated being away from my parents. One time they went to Texas for two weeks and my brother and I had to stay with our grandma and it was horrifying for me, knowing that when I went to school and I wouldn't being going home to see mom and dad was just, you know, bad. I never went to sleepovers at friends' for birthday parties either and always felt really bad about it afterwords.

All that jazz was when I was probably in the age range of seven to thirteen so generally it was over looked as a child merely missing their parents.

It got better as the years went on though. When I entered high school, I joined the water polo team and with every team comes all the team bonding. It wasn't all that much freshman year; a few of us had classes together and were old friends but we never really did anything team-y per say. Fast forward to senior year. The varsity team was basically the same group of girls that had been together freshman year. We had all grown close; eaten lunch together at school, gone out to breakfast on the weekends, celebrated birthdays together, the whole shebang. There was a thing the varsity team was sort of notorious for and that was the Christmas party every year. Low and behold would there be a talent contest between the fifteen girls. As soon as I heard that my mind was made up, and I didn't stay. All I did was drop off my secret sister gift and I was out.

I still regret not staying.

Of course I've gotten a lot better with things. I can go to parties, I go out to lunch with friends, I like having people over, I like going out to go shopping; I enjoy all of it.

But it still gets hard to do things. I'm tired all the time, I still isolate myself in my room, I still deny lunch with people sometimes, and I really don't have a reason to. Sure there are times where I can do all of that and more, I swear the random bursts of energy are a god send, but it all comes back to this; me sitting in my room on my computer, listening to music, and spilling my guts out to anonymous people on the internet.

It's that damn computer's fault. No, okay? It's really not. I have gotten more help from random strangers on the internet than I ever have from someone I see on a daily basis. Just recently I've been going through a sort of rough time and the people I've met through the internet have more or less saved my life.

Such simple little messages—Hey, you're cool, You're awesome, You are fantastic, You are perfect, Hey someone buy them a pizza. They're doing a great job—these are what get me through the day. People that I've know for months, strangers that have only interacted with me once or twice, friends I've know for years but I have never physically interacted with, they have become my pull and my push. They are the reason I am here and writing all this right now.

My anxiety makes me feel like no matter what I do, I'm not good enough, even though I know I'm wonderful, my anxiety shreds the thought up.

There's a quote I saved from my friend I've known for about eight years and he said [She] needs praise from another human being to feel like a person and I find it really funny because it's absolutely true. I need someone else to tell me I'm good enough and I need feedback from someone to tell me what I've been doing is good enough and that I am good enough. When I get a message from someone telling me I'm doing a good job or they have a lot of fun when I'm there, I just—I get so happy and excited. To know that someone out there enjoys my company is enough to keep me going and give me an energy boost. It's all just so pure and positive but—

Life's still hard man.

But knowing that you're walking through hell and other people are right there, pushing and pulling you along, make it just that much better.

anxiety
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About the Creator

Lane Vaughn

Writing has become a hobby to help deal with stressful things in life. Hopefully the small tidbits I create can help or entertain you in some fashion

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