I am very hard on myself at times. My elementary school teachers used to tell me to stop erasing so much as it made my papers illegible. I had a thing for perfection at an early age. However, this has slowly evolved over the years. At one span in my youth it took the form of extreme anxiety, in which bouts of depression and an ever-mounting work load would culminate in tearful distress. I still battle with this, though it is not nearly as awful as it once was.
Nowadays, I suffer small bouts of anxiety whenever I see my bank account balance, or when my bills start piling up. Most of this stress is centered around money. My family has a rough history with money and it was the source of my parents' stress and a large part of the reason for their divorce. This, in turn, told me it was something worth arguing and crying over. My anxiety was, in this sense, a learned behavior. I do not believe in indulging my anxiety anymore; however, after years of one certain behavior, it has taken great strength and a lot of patience to show my mind a new way of seeing things.
A large part of my ability to see outside of myself at this juncture is thanks to a young student of mine. This student has the constant task of dealing with the supposed life-long complication that is Bipolar Disorder. Helping him grow and develop as a person throughout this last year has been an amazing and exhausting endeavor. To see his physical and emotional response to stress was an eye-opening experience that inspired me to reexamine how I see myself. I was forced to really stare into the depths of my own heart and determine why I felt the need to indulge in my self-consuming behavior. Why do I want to be the victim?
(to be continued)
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