This Last Year in review

So I am super staunch in always convincing myself that the New Year is in December when we come upon the Jewish New Year and basically just running away from looking back over what was the past of any time. So now I'm combining my year in university with the Jewish New Year and looking back at all the things I've learned and experienced into a list cuz I like lists.

1. Finding and living my authentic self is the hardest journey with the most rewarding views, along the ever-changing path of life.
2. Finding your north star changes through the storms but is always there.
3. Identity evolves. The question is are you listening and willing to evolve or are you going to try and lock up the evolution.
4. Fine is my "cop-out" word for saying something is wrong. When that is the mantra running through my head I'm heading down the wrong path.
5. Feeling and processing pain is the only way to find an equilibrium of honesty in yourself.
6. The fear of emotional pain is worse than the emotional pain, as the fear never ends and the pain does.
7. Failure is rather healing, as hitting rock bottom removes the fear of hitting rock bottom.
8. The balancing act is impossible if you give yourself no place to drop a ball you're juggling, after learning that all the balls cycle through you can focus on the ones you are holding at that time.
9. Society's perception of health is engrained deeper than you think, and your own family pressures don't help. The stigma of Mental hospitals and wards depicted in society's movies and such, makes it harder to believe and trust that they are a place of healing, when in fact they are just another ward, like the neurological ward.
10. Psychiatric medication isn't the devil, rather it gives you chemicals you are lacking in your brain that help you live your best self.
11. The shame pushed on you by others and society stems from fear, breaking that cycle within yourself does not mean the rest of the world has moved on with you.
12. Secrets rot, no matter how well you think you have packaged them away in the recesses of your brain are still there and only once you process and heal can you move forward.
13. A healthy amount of pressure creates diamonds of success after the pressure cleans off failures and misconceptions.
14. Tempering myself to the extent of losing my inner compass kills me, and doesn't help me fit in with those around me.
15. Learning to put blinders on the idea of comparison to other people's perceived success, or even their own success leaves you way more energy to focus on your own path. 
16. The more you learn to give yourself patience, gives you more patience to build relationships with others.
17. When driven by fear you end of in scarier places.
18. The people looking for perfection are the ones not moving forward.
19. The people who don't understand your honesty are usually afraid of not living their own.
20. You can have many different facets at any time and they are all valid.

Here is to a new year filled with growth, happiness, and reaching new goals

The Fear of Always Being Broken

My first thought for the title of this post was "the fear of never getting back to being healthy". The major problem with this title that I found for me was that I have this illusion of healthy that I want to get back to. For me its the year 2015 I was living in Florida training for the Paralympics in rowing, that includes training twice a day most days and then even managing two semesters in community college. Now my mind like many minds likes to gloss over the weekends I spent curled up in my closet in this silent stunned dysfunction, freaking out from thunder sending my mind on loops about dying from some PTS after an incident in the summer war (that's a story for another time). While I was having fewer struggles with my binge eating disorders (partially because I wasn't fully aware of the depth of the issue) there were totally Friday binges and then Saturday and Sunday fasts. The problem that is created with cracking holes in my facade of the perfect year, is the feeling that comes from that, the feeling of having never actually been ok. This realization of never actually being ok before leads my mind down the rabbit hole of anxiety, always being broken, never being whole within myself. This leads to intense fear about a personal inability to be whole within me. It does release the idea of getting back to myself, which in some ways creates the opportunity to be better every single day, yet creates a larger fear of the unknown, and feeling like I have no idea what tools I need to get to this place of being not broken. In a way, this creates the necessity of being ok with being in a broken state while still working to no longer being in this state, which is rather hard to achieve. I'm not sure the fear will ever disappear, and I'm not sure it would be healthy for it to completely disappear,hopefully, I will at least learn better tools in which to function in the fear.