Today I am going to a Christmas party. I think for most people the idea of going to a Christmas party would be a fun event, but for me it isn’t exactly that. I’d like to believe that it can be, but with my PTSD and OCD, I just start to get anxious. I think to myself that there’s all these opportunities to interact with other people and say the wrong things or do the wrong things. I worry about not showing up to the right place, I worry about feeling that feeling of OCD “wrongness”.
I start to feel it even before I show up to the event. It all starts with this tight feeling in my chest like someone is grabbing the center of my chest and twisting it tighter and tighter. It feels very painful. Yet I know that the pain is just from anxiety. I want so much to just get outside of my head and my body and try to enjoy the next few hours. I want to know that whatever my body is feeling has nothing to do with reality. Instead my body is just feeling something from the past. Reliving trauma, feeling lost in the darkness, and not knowing how to move forward. I just need to take a huge leap of faith and realize that I’m not stuck there anymore. God’s guided me and continues to guide me to the light.
All the things that weigh heavy on my chest are all these dark lies that I have to give Him and let go. As I write this, I realize it isn’t like I can just snap my fingers and make it go away. It isn’t that simple. But every time, I acknowledge that these thoughts and feelings are lies from the past, and every time I realize that I have to give them to God and get out of my head, I become more mindful of the truth and I find myself more aware of God’s light inside of me leading me and guiding me away from those lies. I’ll probably be struggling with it for a long time, but I have hope because I know that God is strong enough to lead me to the light. I have faith in that.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
