Britney

These are things that I need to keep in mind, that the rational part of my brain has come up with:

1. Do not talk to the Pisces. Do not hurt yourself over someone that you briefly trusted and thought you had found something in. Face the reality of your situation and don’t allow yourself to be caught up in the promises of someone’s past words, of the way they once looked at you. You deserve better, Britney. Move on. Move on. Move on.

2. This summer, I will be getting on a plane for the first time. I will be leaving the country where I’ve grown—slowly, and then all at once, for almost 16 years—for over a month, to go to Israel and then France. I can’t drag along the things that are bringing me down. Every summer I think that I will become a new person and end up coming out with more baggage than I started with. I cannot force certain changes but I can make an effort not to dwell in nostalgia, not to be my own anchor.

3. Stop catastrophizing. The people I love the most have taught me this and it’s up to me to actually do it. I’m trying, which I’m proud of. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired and I’m sick and tired of constantly returning to my comfort place of absolute depression. I don’t want to be sad when I don’t need to be sad.

“I miss the comfort in being sad.” Sadness was a kind of escape for me that ended up morphing into a crutch over the past few years, even more so in the past few months. I hate being trapped underneath its weight. I need to find ways out in order to save myself.

4. I miss my mother. This isn’t something that I need to keep in mind, not like everything else. She visits me in my dreams sometimes, but it’s always so hazy that I can’t fully see her face, can’t hear her voice. I tell my therapist that I am afraid of the people that I care about—the woman I’ve grown to refer to as my mother when I introduce her to people and even in my own mind, the woman that I live with, the woman that I confide in every day and look forward to seeing every time I leave my house to go to school—dying, disappearing on me, of the the prospect of life without them. I think about this every day and it’s a horrible feeling. My therapist tells me that it is a result of trauma. It’s anxiety finding new ways to manifest itself within me. I know the cause and yet I still cannot remedy the symptoms.

5. Don’t dwell on small things that have no effect on you. In other words, stop blowing things out of proportion. Stop working against yourself. You’ll feel a lot better when you do. ♦