One thing about dealing with my anxiety with drugs and therapy has taught me: I'm actually very brave, to deal as well as I have with the underlying panic and be a fairly successful adult.

(If I could have stood the taste of alcohol, I could SO have ended up an alcoholic, as self-medication might have led me to be.)

Sometimes I think the only control we have over our lives is what stories we tell ourselves to make sense of what we do and what happens to us, but we don't exactly have perfect control even over that.

Yuuup.

I would pay folding money for someone to come clean this pit for me.

Yeah, you know that's a thing you can actually do, right?

I think if I had a regular cleaning service, I would do more "cleaning for the cleaners" tidying up stuff and my house would be so much less cluttered.

We have cleaners once a month and the night before is definitely a clean for the cleaners night. I hate it each time, but it does prevent stuff from accumulating.

I just need to have people over semi-regularly, and the place stays OK. But then when I don't for a while, it's Too Much, and I don't invite anyone over anymore. Oops.

Hey everyone, have an award: [link]

Tom, don't beat yourself up for surviving something awful. That's an accomplishment, and something to be proud of.

I'm not beating myself up (at least not in this particular instance), I'm just struggling to grasp what actually happened to me.

You guys, I need to interrupt. Because CINNAMON APPLE PIE CAKE.

I wish I had more control over my inner fairy tale. I don't know how to see overcoming where I currently see overreacting, I don't know how to swap understandable in place of unreliable.

I mean, that'd be hard enough if I felt *well*, but when I have as little left over as this, that's some pretty considerable heavy lifting.

But, it's consistently clear that it isn't for lack of support and encouragement, especially on your part, and I need to take that more deeply into consideration. So, thank you.