It’s the early evening and another day has slipped away fairly quickly. The morning was a blur, which slid into heading to the hospital, which in some weird way feels like another home. The first appointment I had was a group therapy for anxiety session. It’s the second program I’ve been in that focuses on skills for managing anxiety. Another program earlier this year focused on tools for depression. But it’s a place where I find I often clam up. Normally noisy Steve, totally silent. I’ve even been passing on the opportunities to check-in at the start of each session, choosing instead to sheepishly stare at the floor, as I softly say “pass.” The soloist part of my imposter syndrome takes over, standing behind me and grabbing me by my shoulders to hurriedly shuffle me away, exit through the gift shop, stage left.

I often doubt why I’m even there, as I hear others sharing deeply, others who “…have it so much worse than me,” my monkey mind reminds me again and again. Broadly speaking, in all the groups I’ve been in, there are some who have lost loved ones to suicide. And others who simply lost their life partners to disease or old age. Some who have grappled with providing care to loved ones battling physical and / or mental illnesses without providing the same care to themselves. Others who suffered their own physical injuries that turned their lives upside down. Others who live with depression and self-doubt. The list goes on.

So, I normally clam up, but today I shared about all the things I’m falling behind in, and how one nurse feels my toe needs amputation, and how the antibiotics leave me exhausted and with the shits. It felt good to share and to hear feedback on how I might approach some things. But then I fall back into the circle of my week. A circle that takes me nowhere but backwards, carving deep tracks into the ground from which I fear I’ll never dig myself out of.

This was originally posted on Flickr and Instagram.

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