The Reason Why

"Listen. You gotta live each day as if you are going to die tomorrow!” My very good friend tells me as I hesitate and worry and stress about the plan we have made for the upcoming weekend of our summer vacation. I have always liked this motto, and have tried to live by it for most of my life. Emphasis on most. There was a pretty big chunk, I want to say about 2 years, of my life that I didn’t care about living. I wanted to live, of course, but I didn’t actually live. I was consumed. I was entombed by the life that ED wanted me to have, and I never lived. For two years. My life started to get better towards the end of those two years and I started to reinvent myself and figure out what I wanted my life to be, but I still felt incomplete. I still felt the tug of my past life pulling me and pressuring me to go back, to go back to everything I knew so well, and was so comfortable doing. Sometimes I did. In fact, I did go back there for a while and I almost let it take over once again. I never told anyone this of course because that’s what ED does. He keeps secrets. He lies. But there was no way I was going to let it land me in another hospital bed. I couldn’t. I had come so far. So I changed my life up. I found what I was missing and started living like I was going to die tomorrow. Whenever you hear about something tragic that happens to someone else, most of us can agree that we never think something like that will actually happen to us too. You never imagine your life taking such a drastic turn and changing so rapidly…until it actually does. I recently have had a few experiences with anxiety. Not just the kind of anxiety where you’re scared to go on a date or you’re scared to get a shot at the doctors. The kind of anxiety where you’re sitting on the bathroom floor, tears streaming down your face, unable to control the muscles in your body from going numb, or the room spinning out of control like a top. The kind of anxiety that actually leaves you scared for your life. Now, if you’re reading this and if you’ve read my blogs before, you know well and good that I like to write in a very raw and intense way. I am not going to sit here and write something for the whole world to read and just sugar coat everything. You want the truth? Here it is. I was close to experiencing death. Thinking about it now sparks my anxiety. I had no control over anything. I had gotten to the point where I literally put my life into the hands of strangers. My anxiety shows up at the times when I least expect it. At times that make absolutely no sense to me and don't warrant any need for anxiety, but there it is. I don't know why it happens to be honest. Part of me thinks it's because I just have a lot of new things going on in my life, and the other very small part of me thinks it's just because I'm scared. I'm scared of all of these new things and I'm scared for the future, because...what if ED screws it up?

At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that I started to reinvent myself and figure out what I want my life to be. Anxiety was definitely not part of that plan, but like my momma said in her own blog, "recovery is a journey, a road with twists and turns and corners that you can’t always see around." If I am being completely honest, I don't think I would have posted this blog if it were not for my mom and her writing. I have been putting this off. For a very long time. Part of it is because I really didn't think some people would care, or agree, or support it. I didn't think it would matter to me or to anyone whether I spoke about this or not. Then I read my mother's blog. Then I had an anxiety attack. Then I had a friend tell me that I am much more than what I let myself think I am, and I knew. I knew what I needed to do and this is it. One of the only things that became a part of my life that really helped my anxiety and made me feel sane and in touch with myself, was edm. If you are not familiar with this type of music, it is simply just electronic dance music. However, it isn't simple at all. It is so much more than just dance music. It is music that touched me, and has touched a great deal of other people who listen to this music as well. I met a lot of different people through raving, and every single person I have met and gotten to know have experienced some of the hardest shit. A lot of the same shit I have experienced. Anxiety, anorexia, body dysmorphia, depression, verbal abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, and others that used to define us and gloom over our everyday lives. Everyone I've met through the edm community, have in some way or another been impacted by edm. The music, the people, the festivals, the atmosphere of rave culture and the edm world are used as coping mechanisms and outlets from their darkness. I know that there is A LOT of stigma and stereotypes around raves and what people do at them, but I want to assure you, that all of it, is false. Everyone has a story. They all have a reason for being there and for raving. I have a reason too. At one of the raves that I went to in my home town I remember during one of my favorite DJ’s sets, I looked up at the sky through all of the lights and the hands, and just felt so happy. So happy to be where I was right at that moment and to be living the life that I was living. To actually be living and not thinking about anything else but the music, my friends, and the energy around me. In that moment there was no anxiety, no worry, no feelings of dying, no tears, no responsibilities, no judgement, no hate, nothing. It was just me, the sky, and music. So you ask me why I turned into this "rave chick," and why I like it and why I do what I do...because it connects me to what is real. It connects me to the misfits of this world and it calms my anxiety almost as much as my meds do (yes...meds). I hope this can shed a light on just how easily manipulating the world can be and how easily people's minds can be convinced to believe something, that is in fact, not true, until seen and experienced for themselves. So, I continue to live this life with the bumps and roadblocks that it keeps throwing my way. I'll live with the anxiety and I'll keep fighting whatever remnants of my past and my eating disorder that's trying to creep back in. Whether that's by taking a risk and listening to my therapist, my doctor, and my friends and taking medications...or by changing some things in my life that are clearly triggers to my anxiety and doing it with confidence and love for myself. Whatever I do, life is a journey, and I plan on living it, the way that I want to, without ED, but as if he could take it away in one single day.

"I want these songs and the words that I've written to reach someone out there and help them make a change. Hopefully it speaks to someone and it can help them make one small step and know I've gone through it and other people are going through it. For me, that's super important.” - Alison Wonderland (my favorite edm artist and the rave that changed my whole perspective on life)