"Wonder Shannon"

I deal with this at least once a week, usually twice. Overwhelming anxiety. It stops me cold. My heart beats fast, I become depressed, angry. I have a tantrum, I need to cry, I need to throw something. I never know how to make the feeling go away. Some things help but the anxiety still drums in the background. There are days I wake up with it. I feel like I can't control my emotions, my actions. Then I feel like I can't do anything. 

I hold myself to non-human standards. I know this deep-down but I refuse to accept it. I believe that I should be able to do everything. "Wonder Shannon." She works, she cares, she studies, she volunteers, she loves... There's SO much more I'm embarrassed to list it all. I am so disappointed in myself when I don't do it all, when I can't find a way to make everything perfect.

I truly don't know how to cope. I feel as though over the past couple of years it's gotten worse. At this very moment I am anxious. I want to cry but I'm not. I want to yell and throw but I'm not going to. Instead I'm walking very slowly on my treadmill and writing this. I thought it would help but it doesn't. At my current rate of speed my treadmill tells me it will take 42 minutes to walk a mile. Ugh, more disappointment.

It's been a bad year. This is a bad month. It was last year and it's proving to be the same this year. I'm not saying there hasn't been some good over the past year, there definitely has. When I feel like this it's hard for me to see the good.

I have been living with different forms of "this" since I was little, I mean elementary-school-little. 37 years and I still haven't found a successful way to deal with it. 

I still hope.

Sandy Hook

What am I feeling right now? I feel like I am without words but at the same time feel like I could scream from the rooftops.

No one knows the exact details yet of what has happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Of course I have horrendous thoughts in my head. I am literally sick to my stomach thinking of what those in Newton have been through. I can't imagine the fear and horror.

Right now though I am filled with anger. How does a person get to this point where they can go into a school and kill teachers, administrators, children? Where was this person's support system? Have we all become so self-absorbed that we can't see those around us? There is no compassion left, no empathy left, it's a scary, scary world we live in.

I know this is such a negative way to think and I truly want to be hopeful but it's hard. It's hard when you are constantly surrounded by the events in the news. I fear for all of us. I fear that if we don't find the ability to see outside of ourselves things will only get worse. I'm as guilty as the next person, I admit it. It's sad that it takes events like this to remind ourselves that there are people hurting. I absolutely do not condone AT ALL what this young man did today. Whatever he was feeling inside let to a tragedy and pain beyond words for dozens of families. What he did was WRONG.

But... my goodness, we have become such a violent society. Was this young man raised on violent video games, tv shows, movies? Because of those games and shows did he think it was OK to have a gun and shoot people to resolve his issues? I look at kids now and they're absorbed in mature video games, inappropriate television shows, watching rated R movies and there's very rarely any parental involvement - there's no parent telling them what's right and wrong.

I digress, as usual. I don't know why today has shocked me as it has. School shootings, employment shootings, these have been going on for years now. Maybe because it's an elementary school. Maybe because so many were killed. Maybe because it's the holiday season. Maybe because I'm tired. Tired of the constant pain that we inflict on ourselves and others.

I'll stay hopeful, though it's hard. I need to. We all need to.