Trying new things

In my effort to be better about posting on social media and not cocooning myself into my own little hermit world, I’m changing up my weekly layout in my Hobonichi cousin author planner.

I set up a posting schedule for social media and wrote it in my planner so that I could check them off as I go during the week. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s important to me to keep connecting with people, in both my online and offline lives. Not just because my business is largely socially based and online, but also for my own mental health.

I’m not one of those people that can take social media breaks and be happy about it. Unlike most writers, I’m extroverted so I need to connect with people. It recharges me, reminds me of why I do what I do. It’s a tough combination with being shy or anxious, because sometimes my anxiety and fear gets in the way. I hide from people, from situations that trigger the anxiety. My anxiety one of the reasons I took two years off from writing. But it’s also why I was so unhappy during that time and I didn’t really realize why until recently.

When I was a child, I had undiagnosed social anxiety (because it was the 80s and social anxiety wasn’t a thing that people knew about back then). It was so bad that I refused to talk in school. They almost held me back in the first grade because they didn’t think I was developing like the other kids. But I was a smart kid, I wasn’t behind or stupid. I just didn’t want to talk. Thankfully, my parents refused to hold me back. It took moving to another country and this wonderfully nice third-grade teacher to get me to talk to anyone that wasn’t family or someone I’d been around for a long time.

None of this is in that video up there. It’s just a fun video about me trying a new weekly layout. But in creating that weekly spread, it made me think about all this afterward. Why I get stuck in ruts a lot, why routines drive me crazy. And it’s because they’re safe. I can hide with a good routine. I don’t have to try something new that I might fail at. I knew that somewhere inside me.

Sometimes, I see people with Real Anxiety and I feel guilty because my problems aren’t as drastic as others. I don’t have panic attacks. I don’t feel depressed. In general, my life now is better than it was two years ago. But my problems are still my problems and I deserve to be as mentally healthy as the next person.

Who knew a nine minute video would provoke so many thoughts? This is me that we’re talking about, after all, so maybe I should have.