It’s about time I dusted this thing off. I’ve wanted to start writing again for months, because it’s my therapy, but thinking about it caused an up-swell of the anxiety that choked off the words to begin with.

I need to write to be less anxious, but thinking about writing gives me anxiety. Which I could dispel, if I could write. But…anxiety.

Kind of feel like a cat on a leash—every move is an antagonist. I know that if I could just settle for 5 minutes I’d be able to stop fighting myself, but I’m too jacked up to actually apply any sort of logic to the situation. So instead I bite my tethers, the people who love me, and my own feet.

I considered therapy, but imagined sitting in an office for an hour, not saying anything due to paralyzing social anxiety, then paying $120 for the privilege.

Painting the porch blue and sitting out there with a potted fern and some magazines would accomplish essentially the same thing, but without the ding to the bank account.

I tried reading self-help books and inspiring quotes, but they just make me angry. Anger makes me anxious, since I don’t have a good outlet for it. You can’t yell at a meme. Well, you can, but probably shouldn’t, if you don’t want that therapy to become an involuntary thing.

I wished I could talk to Mom, but she thinks Al-Queda are hanging out in the ceiling vent, and that one of them leaves her whoopie pies when she’s asleep.

I’d talk to Dad, but he’s dead, and I don’t talk to dead people anymore.

I used to, until one night I was talking to a dead person, and something really strange happened that was totally the type of thing that particular dead person would have thought funny. I have enough to worry about without worrying about the dead playing practical jokes on me. So I don’t talk to dead people anymore.

I even caved and sought medication from my doctor.

But, like earlier efforts at better living through chemistry, it didn’t do anything. At least nothing good. I still had the anxiety, the insomnia, the paralyzing fear. The medication just made it so I also felt dull and disconnected from everything.

Time kept ticking by and I kept closing in, and in, and in, until I’d left my house exactly 1 time in 8 months for something not strictly necessary.

Then I started thinking about agoraphobia. That made me more anxious, and I decided it was time to force myself to do…something. It was time to jump

So I opened the blog. I tinkered around until I had a new layout and header. I read old posts and decided I sucked. Then I read other old posts and decided I was funny.

Then I looked around the room I have occupied for a disturbing number of hours each day, and decided it didn’t matter.

So here we are at the end, if you, too, made it this far. And I didn’t even tell you a story.

Sooo…

Thanks?

I’m sorry?

Measure twice, cut once?

I don’t really know what to say. I should probably strive to get over that.