I guess before you can answer the question or whether or not it would be more beneficial to change who you are or to accept who you are, you necessarily need to know who you are. I’m not sure that I know who I am. I’m sitting here pondering life. I feel unbalanced, unsettled, worried about all kinds of things that could possibly happen. It’s a pretty nice day for a change. Lots of sunlight. There’s so much I could do with a day like today but here I am making myself sick with worry about things that I fear.
These fears that have controlled my life are the reason I say that I’m not so sure I know who I am. What might I have done, how different might my life be from what it is today, had I not been so afraid of everything and everyone? All of my choices throughout my lifetime to date have been made with fear as the main factor controlling my decisions; and this goes as far back as when I was a little girl growing up in Antigua.
I am more inclined to believe that we are who we are and it’s more important to accept ourselves with all of our flaws; but even so, I understand that sometimes people can have traits that are not in their best interest to just accept. But does there come a point by which it’s really too late to try to change those life destructive traits that you possess?
I suffer with severe anxiety and a panic attack disorder. Often times even just the thought of something can bring on a panic attack. That’s sort of what I’m dealing with right now. I have built up a high level of anxiety thinking about something that I dread and I’m finding it very difficult to come out from inside of my head and focus on what “is” instead of focusing on that thing I fear could happen in the future. This is really the definition of madness. It is the way I have lived for most of my life, and because of it I pretty much have no life. Yet, to say I have no life isn’t really accurate because, while I don’t have a “normal” life, I do have have a life. So I guess that’s where my conflict arises. It seems to me that sometimes it is a more worthwhile goal to learn to accept who you are and to accept the life that you have regardless if it meets the standards of normalcy or not, than it is to pressure yourself to become someone different who is more acceptable to everyone else, and to struggle to re-build your life so that you can say your life is “normal”.
If I was born with traits that predisposed me to being anxious and having panic attacks and being afraid, then we’re talking about having to rewire some aspect of my genetic makeup in order to not be anxious and afraid and go through panic attacks. I guess that’s what some of the medication they prescribe for people with mental problems are meant to attempt. I do believe that we can learn and unlearn behavior regardless of how we are wired and what we are inclined to do or not do based on our wiring; but I wonder if there’s a window of time for doing this? I kind of feel like this is something that needs to happen in childhood ideally; but certainly long before you reach the age of 43.
I have said that I am on a mission to transform my life. I have also said that I keep falling down and having to get up and start over. I’ve made this attempt more times throughout my life than I care to count. Any “change” I made during any one or other of my previous attempts failed to stick. I inevitably fall back to what I know. I could easily blame this person or that person and say they pulled me off the path. My husband immediately comes to mind. But at the end of the day it’s my fears that cripple me. Since I was a girl I was afraid of everything. I didn’t get to travel with my father when he would make trips to Guadeloupe because I was afraid of airplanes and I was afraid that the volcano in Guadeloupe was going to erupt. I didn’t get to go on stage and sing and recite poetry (except maybe once or twice that I can remember) because I was too shy. I was terrified. I wanted to do these things but I couldn’t rise above my fears. I could go on and on listing examples of times throughout my life when I have not done something I wanted to do because I was too afraid. Now I live with agoraphobia. My fears have made just going out of my house difficult. It’s not impossible. I do it if I have to; but it’s always an ordeal. I don’t know where I will be ten years from now. Ten years ago I was where I am now. I hope ten years from now, if I am still alive, that I will not be struggling with the question of whether I should be focused on changing myself or focused on accepting myself. I hope I will have been successful at doing one or the other.
