Guest post from “Tektenjezetat”
I am not your average girl. I have a house which I bought myself, I have a job with a great salary that I want to leave but can’t for the moment. I have a business and trying to open my second one, I have a dog and a wonderful family. Yes, I’m in my twenties and I have achieved what society thinks that is more than enough for my age, but I don’t agree.
I constantly feel that I am not enough and I can not seem to feel any joy in my achievements. One can say that I am not grateful for what I have and that I seek attention, but things are never as they seem. Have you ever felt like your heart is racing, pounding, or fluttering? I do, almost every day as I suffer from anxiety. I live with anxiety and I sleep with anxiety.
When I came to Tirana to start university, life slapped me in the face big time. No one prepares you for what comes after you leave home, no one tells you that you have to figure it all out by yourself. I was struggling at even the most basic things like cooking, taking care of my home, trying to be social and doing all this while trying to be a great student. Slowly I began to lose most of my highschool friends and yes,that is something that will happen to everyone, but still very hard to deal with. I was so mad, no one told me that this was life. I blamed no one I just learned to let it go.
While my peers were becoming doctors or engineers, I found myself trying to figure ‘me’ out. What do I like, what am I good at? It was very, very hard to find something that made me feel good and fulfilled. I tried so many hobbies and but I quit them all after a week or a month, tops. Not knowing what would happen next, comparing myself to others, that fear of failure- all these small things result in anxiety.
Society tells girls in their twenties that they have to graduate with superb grades, find a steady job with a good salary, find a man, get married, and immediately start a family. You have to do all this before turning 30 as in that age you are then considered old.
I would lie if I told you that I was not influenced a bit by all these made up rules. These expectations are the root of so many problems that we all face. When I finally decided to change my mindset was when I understood that I suffered from anxiety.
Now I didn’t have a pre-designed path to follow, I had to face the unknown. You have to overcome your biggest fears when trying to become your own person when trying to love yourself for who you are. Do what you need to do and enjoy life as it happens.
After starting to slowly, really slowly understand what I was dealing with, I realised how much anxiety restricted me to do stuff. I decided that I would stop feeling bad about myself. So what I did was recreate my past and confront it.
When I was in my teen years I tried to kill myself twice. I had to go back to a really bad place and understand why it happened and let me tell you, it takes a lot of guts to love yourself for who you really are.
- The most important thing I did was accept my parents for who they are, it made me see things differently. I am not bitter anymore, I am not hurt and I am in peace.
- I prayed a lot.
- I gave myself permission to cry, a lot
- I read like crazy; books and online articles
- I made up a planner and I wrote my progress down. It is very helpful to see where I was a month before and how I felt about the same things now. Do the same things that bothered me a month before still bother me?
- I danced like crazy
- I did, and still do yoga
- I cuddled my dog
- I broke glasses
- I isolated myself in the bedroom and cried for 6 hours straight
- I paint. I cannot describe how I feel when painting. It’s like a whole other universe where I can breathe.
I am not a psychologist and I have never been to one but these are the things that helped me overcome my anxiety. This is my story and why now I have an Instagram page with a mission: to make twenty-somethings that suffer from any sort of mental illness, see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To make people understand that only they are in charge of changing this for the better.
Have I gotten a handle on my anxiety? Yes.
Am I able to continue living my life anyway, happy and successful as can be? Yes, honey, I can and I did.
So how long will it be before you find the strength to face yourself?
You can follow Tektenjezetat’s instagram here.
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