I'm tired of my issues making me miss out on life

It feels easier to give in, sometimes, but is it worth missing out on ALL the things? I think not.

I almost didn’t see ZZ Top in concert last week. They were performing at the Buddy Holly Hall here in Lubbock, where I volunteer as an usher, and I was so excited to see them play because they’re one of the bands I grew up listening to.

I signed up to volunteer for their show probably a month before it happened, and I was really looking forward to it! I told all my friends I was going and everything.

The night before their performance, I went to bed thinking about how lucky I am to get to see so many cool shows for free — but when I woke up on the day of the concert, I wasn’t feeling lucky, or excited…

I was feeling anxious, tense, and nervous.

(As I always do when I’m about to go do something I really want to do…)

It seems strange, but thinking about doing fun things always gives me anxiety.

I don’t know why.

It seems like it should make me energized, happy, excited, hopeful, enthusiastic… but it doesn’t.

It makes me panic.

Every. Single. Time.

It’s like this:

I find out about some fun activity happening soon, and I really wanna be part of it.

I make plans to go and I start to get excited.

It gets closer to the day of the event and I dream about how much fun I’ll have and how it’ll be so exciting and I’ll make these great memories.

The day arrives and…

I panic.

I get sick to my stomach.

My fibromyalgia flares up.

I start to catastrophize (basically I imagine all the different things that could theoretically go wrong, and convince myself they’re all going to happen and it’s going to be a huge disaster…)

I tell myself maybe I should just stay home.

But I still want to go — I’m just so overwhelmed at this point, it feels easier to just give up.

So, I spend the whole day cycling between wanting to go, and deciding to stay home.

And more often than not, I just decide to stay home, simply because it requires less effort than actually pushing through the overwhelm, and doing the thing I really want to do.

I almost did that with ZZ Top last week. Fortunately, in this instance, I decided to go enjoy myself, in spite of all the reasons I had to give in and stay home.

But that one choice to go and do, is hardly enough to break the cycle.

It runs so much deeper than just a one-time decision.

It’s like there’s something in my psyche that says I’m not allowed to go have fun.

I’m not allowed to have new experiences.

I’m not allowed to live the life I truly want to live.

Truth be told, I feel like this about most activities I’m interested in; it’s just more pronounced when it comes to events and activities that require me to actually go somewhere and interact with other people.

But there are days when I even feel like I’m “not allowed” to enjoy playing the piano. Or reading a book. Or writing my newsletter.

There are days when I feel like I’m “not allowed” to pray, for goodness sake.

I don’t know what’s at the root of this all. It could be trauma, it could be anxiety, could be depression, PTSD, survivor’s guilt… any number of things…

I don’t know if it matters what the cause is, so much as it matters how it affects me.

Normally, it makes me shut down, and basically stop pursuing whatever event or activity is causing me to feel that way.

But what if, instead, I decide to sit in those feelings of “not being allowed” and ask myself “why?”

Why am I not allowed to live the life I want?

Who says so?

What happens if I decide not to listen?

What if I just do the thing that I think I’m not allowed to, and see what happens?

I did that with ZZ Top, and I had fun. And none of the terrible things I was so worried about ever happened.

It was an enjoyable evening.

Maybe I am allowed to have fun, after all.

Maybe I just haven’t had enough of it yet, to know that about myself…

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