I'm an empath with anxiety...

It took me pretty much my entire life to actually admit those words out loud.

I battled depression growing up.  I was a cutter.  My folks tried sending me to different therapists which I hated.  There was a point they were ready to haul me off to one of those camps for troubled teens.

I dove into the drug world for a while.  Then came out of that and dove into the work out world for a while.  Then came out of that and dove into the theatre world.  From then on my life revolved around theatre.  I ran a company for a couple of years and was on the board for another for years after that.  From the time of about 1996 to 2008 that was my life.

Notice I "dove" into alot of things?  That's what I did - extreme.  Always.
 
When my theatre homes disintegrated I found myself sort of floating through life not sure what I was doing.  I still acted but the theatre world didn't consume my life anymore.  So I stepped up my drinking.  Then I threw myself into the Obstacle Course Race World.  Then my life came to a screeching halt when I almost lost that life in 2012.

Since then I've been confused.

I've been struggling with a bit of survivors guilt.  Been trying to deal with the roller coaster of emotions and thoughts that come along with a near death experience.  I've slowed down.  But not a lot.  My social calendar is full.  I'm still physically active and if the right show comes along I'm in.  And I've found writing and blogging to become a new love.

But I've learned 2 things about myself recently that I think are important in my growth as a human.  I'm an empath and I have Moderate Anxiety.

In my generation growing up, you were "an emotional child" or a "strong willed child".  Little did they realize these are usually the children growing up to be empaths.

This is not a weakness as we were raised to believe.  It's a gift.  A dear friend of mine once told me it's my spiritual gift.  I'm starting to think he's right.  I find when I take on the emotions of another person it helps.  It helps them feel less alone.  I'm compassionate to a fault and I treasure that.  It also explains a hell of a lot about me and why I'm super emotional. Why I can just tell when the environment is bad.  When morale is down.  Why I cry and fall into depressions when the world is struggling.  It makes sense.  Now I'm in the process of learning how to embrace that.  To be that.  Because it's also exhausting.

I've also learned I have Moderate Anxiety.  I can still function.  I can get up and go to work.  I can put on a pretty face and smile and continue with my life as if nothing's wrong even though inside I'm screaming.  I've started seeing a therapist who is helping me learn to deal with this as well as how to embrace being an empath.  I never understood why I was so moody.  Why my heart races when something sets me off.  As I've gotten older my anxiety and my OCD nature have increased.  When something is out of my control I feel that anxiety starting to creep up and try to take hold.  This also isn't a weakness.  This is a very common thing a shit ton of people deal with on all levels and sharing this I hope helps some of you feel less alone.

I'm seeing a dude whom I hope will be able to handle this.  So far so good.  He's getting used to my mild freak outs and over thinking.  I don't think he's used to someone as emotional as I am but he seems ok with it.  My family seems to be more understanding lately, now that I talk about it more.  Most of my friends are right there with me.

It's an interesting thing to admit you deal with.  I don't know why it's taken me so long to get here but I wanted to put it out there in the blog-i-verse.  I plan to learn more and embrace who I am as time marches on and never lose my sense of humor about it all.