mental health – E. A. Young Writes

Greed and Guilt

I talked to my mother a few weeks ago about all this guilt I have been having,
saying that I must have been a catholic in a past life with how hard I am on myself.
She laughed and said no, it wasn’t catholicism,
it’s just the Southern Baptist guilt that she passed down to me.
My family isn’t very religious–my dad believes in reincarnation but only a little, and my mother,
you guessed it,
grew up Southern Baptist.
(Before my grandmother passed away, she participated in both a Baptist and Methodist church in Tennessee, and would go on trips with either church depending on which had the better alcohol. Guess which one she went to more often?)

Thoughts

My therapist asked me to describe my thoughts, and what they looked and felt like.
Here they are.

New Year, New Life Update

It feels like months since I have last written a blog post, but really it’s only been one.

I’ve written three drafts of this blog post, each one not feeling right. That may be my inner critic talking, bashing me down. Truth be told, a lot has happened in only a few months, and it’s hard to figure out where to start.

autumn

A poem about the yearly anxieties that come to mind whenever the trees start to change color. This poem was featured in the first issue of the Southern Oregon Zine The Junk Drawer.

Legal Yellow Notepads

I’ve been spending more and more time writing on
LEGAL YELLOW NOTEPADS
Instead of my private journal lately
And I don’t know why.

Recent Thoughts on Anxiety

I’m not going to lie, starting this blog was a big step for me. It also has brought me a lot of anxiety.

I have suffered from anxiety for many years, long before I had a name to call the feeling of being on the verge of tears, the feeling of my head getting hot, the paranoia, the look of exasperation that loved ones gave me when I asked them to validate my fears or assure me for the fifth time that everything would be alright.