I'm reposting this because the original mistakenly quoted a friends-locked post. The post has now been made public.

My sweetie bastette_joyce made a really moving, compassionate post about living with chronic anxiety. Excerpt:

This was the message I took away from childhood, and it's still lurking there, in the corner of my mind, waiting to hear validation from the outside world. And, this being a macho, bravado-brandishing culture, it never has to wait long. Fear - and especially, taking care of oneself around fear - is profoundly disrespected.

I think what the disrespecters don't realize is how much energy it takes to deal with those feelings when they are constant noise in your head. If a person needs to take a rest after pushing furniture around for hours, or running a marathon, then there should be no shame in a person's taking a rest from holding chronic anxiety at bay for long enough to participate in ordinary life.

Tags: feelings, my sweetie rocks!, thoughts