So here's a mental project I've been working on recently.

Those of you who know me might be baffled to learn I didn't realize I had ENORMOUS amounts of anxiety until...basically this month. I'm 29.

I never pieced it together, because I always thought it was something else..

Be it living with my parents still (until last year, embarassing), or being in a toxic romantic situation (nearly nonstop for the last decade, up until 3 years ago), or depression, or ADHD, I always figured the anxiety I felt was a result of one of those things, or a combination.

Now that all of those things are either no longer a reality of my life, or I've figured out how to manage them (or at the least, identify their impact), I'm suddenly left with a pile of anxiety on its own, festering, un-dealt with for so long.

I've been trying lately to find myself - to identify who I am, what I like, what I want to do - and I've been digging in my brain. But I've been frustrated, because everything I'm finding is pain and confusion. It's runoff from my anxiety.

It's felt like trying to excavate what I thought was going to be a temple of myself, only to find it's just a fucking septic tank. Piles of shit. It's been driving me insane.

But guess what?

Something clicked that it was abnormal. I found thoughts so egregiously guilt-ridden - FOR NO REASON - that it finally dawned on me that that wasn't me. I haven't been uncovering pieces of myself. It's just been anxiety I somehow never knew was there.

And now - while I'm still trying to keep in mind that progress isn't linear and can feel like a pendulum - I'm starting to find the real me again. I'm pulling pieces of the anxiety away, as kindly as I can, and I'm finding someone there. Someone really cool.

I'm finding a person with a voice of his own, someone with a clear(er) sense of self, someone who isn't dragged to the bottom of a pit with fear.

My husband's a Dune fan, and he told me, "Fear is the mind-killer". And it is. It's been killing me.

But not anymore.