The Balance of Moments

     A lot of the time, living with a mental illness can feel like living with a bully inside our heads. It can feel like OCD and other anxiety disorders hoard our worst fears or our most embarrassing and most shameful memories to use against us when we start to feel the least bit secure or confident. Another way that our mental illness can be a bit of a bully, too, is by making us feel like we're difficult to deal with or a burden to our family and friends. 
    Life with anxiety comes with its fair share of panic attacks and stress crying. Sometimes, I end up catastrophizing in a situation, and all I can see are bad, worse, and end-of-the-world types of outcomes, which, of course leads to panic, hopelessness, and crying. Then loved ones have to deal with me after the crying or sometimes even during the crying. I'm frustrated that I've catastrophized myself into a panicked meltdown when I can logically see that I have catastrophized AGAIN, but I can't stop it once that ball starts rolling. They're frustrated because they may not even know why I'm crying or how to talk me down from that panicked ledge that looks right down at the end of the world.
    After it's all over, I'm left feeling, at best, like I was difficult in a situation that didn't even need to be made difficult by me or, at worst, like I'm a burden that my loved ones probably wish they didn't have to deal with at all. After every panicked meltdown I have that my mother has to witness, I'm so sure she's just going to be so tired of having to deal with me that she kicks me out of the house. In reality, she would never do that, but my anxiety often is not based in reality. My anxiety makes me feel like I'm such a difficult person, that I'm so hard to live with most of the time, that the only logical option is that people must not want to have to deal with me at all. I mean, some days I don't want to deal with myself either, so I get it.
    When I talked to my therapist about these feelings, she told me that just because we have moments that are difficult doesn't mean that we, as people, are difficult or a burden. She asked me if I had a friend who was experiencing something and catastrophizing until they cried if I would think they were difficult or a burden. Of course, I wouldn't. So, she asked me, "What makes you different from your friend? What makes you feel like you're more difficult and that people don't want to deal with you?" I didn't have a logical answer that didn't have to do with my mental illness. 
    My therapist also asked me to think about the balance of the moments. Sure, there are difficult moments. Sure, there are moments when I'm a difficult person to deal with and people get frustrated with me. However, there are also good moments in my relationships with people...moments in which I'm funny, moments in which I'm caring, moments in which I'm the one listening to loved ones and offering helpful advice, and moments in which I make people's lives a little bit better because I'm part of their lives. She also reminded me that it's likely that the difficult moments don't actually outnumber the good moments and that the difficult moments don't take away from the good moments. 
    It's also important to remember that all humans have moments when they're difficult to deal with, whether or not they live with a mental health condition. Nobody is pleasant and agreeable all the time because we all have changing moods, unpleasant thoughts, and days that feel like they're terrible for lots of internal and external reasons. What's important is to view the bad days in the whole balance of good and bad moments and to try to remember not to believe everything you think.
    I'll end with this: Life with mental illness comes with its fair share of moments that are difficult for us and of moments in which we're difficult to deal with. The moments in which we feel like we're being difficult or making a situation difficult can often lead us to feel like we're too difficult so that our loved ones wish they didn't have to put up with us or like we're a burden. Instead of letting that feeling take hold it's important to take the time to view the difficult moments in the whole balance of moments in our lives. Sure, you were difficult in that one moment, but that doesn't mean there weren't moments before and won't be moments after the difficult moment in which you did or can improve the lives of your loved ones by being yourself and being the kind, understanding, funny, and/or helpful person that you usually are.