Well, im back.

I have reached a place in life where, if I do not make some serious internal changes, I feel as if I will never reach a true emotional happiness. I tend to be a happy person, and see the good side of things. But I have struggled with severe anxiety my whole life, and it has adversely affected me in many ways. There are days where my body ACHES in the evening because I have been so tense all day. I remember having this feeling in childhood, it has always been with me.

I have always been a forward thinker, mentally calculating what will happen in a week, a month, a year from now. In some ways it is good, it keeps me motivated. In other ways, it is disastrous. Such as in my personal relationships. I am a very emotional and attached person. While I am able to find my own happiness, my greatest joy in life comes from others. I also absolutely despise being alone for any length of time. In that, I tend to get incredibly attached to the people in my life. Whereas a friend may laugh me off as "clingy", my romantic partners have to deal with it on a whole other level.
I am the person who misses you when you are in the shower, because I want to be next to you. Most people find it sweet at first, and then quickly decide it is just annoying. Theres another side to relationship anxiety for me though. "Living in the moment" is not something I have ever been able to do. While I can wholeheartedly and passionately enjoy every second, a small part of my mind is still living in the future. Most of the time I can ignore it. But if something triggers that part of my brain, its over. This end up putting unintentional stress and guilt on my partner, and making us both miserable. I have struggled with this in ALL of my past relationships. I truly mean well, but yet somehow I cant reign in these issues. I take FULL responsibility for my own actions, and am not using anxiety as an excuse for anything. I am simply trying to find a way to get past it.

Currently these issues have caused the dissolution of a relationship that I had intended to be in for the rest of my life. My inability to be happy and satisfied with the time we were spending together and not sad that it was going to come to an end eventually got to be TOO much stress and guilt for her to handle. Of course there is a larger back story to this, one that maybe I will write about at some point, but for now these are the facts. A quote I read the other day kind of summed it up for me. "If you live with one foot planted in the future, and one in the past, you are pissing on the present." And thats pretty much what ive done.

I dont believe in ever changing yourself to suit another. That is not what I am trying to do. I want to deal with my personal issues in order to become a better, healthier person for myself; which in turn will help me to be a better partner.

Ok, enough blabbering for now. Im off to research!