Day 5 Took a little break!

Hey everyone! Did you think I gave up? ( just kidding )
Like someone else said in their post, I'm going at this slowly... but surely!

I had to take a break because I got a new job opportunity! In my industry (animation pre-production) rather than having a traditional interview, we have something called a "test", where you have to do a little demonstration of your work to prove you can fit in with the style of the show/movie, show your skills, etc. They typically last a week, so that's what I've been doing for the past few days. I've done them before (4 or 5 times) but I feel like this one is the best opportunity I've had - the others were all sort of long-shots (really successful, high profile shows) or semi-anonymous (the director saw my work online but there was nobody on the staff who knows me personally, etc)... but this time, my dear friend recommended me for her old job as she moves on to bigger things. So, I put a LOT of pressure on myself, because it seemed like I might actually have a shot!

And wouldn't you know it, after about 5 days of not doing any journaling or other TMS things, I started to get stomach problems again. It's definitely so clear to me now that my "IBS" is TMS... why else would my stomach have been fine since I started the program, and only flare up again now?

With my journals, I've been thinking a lot about the subject of Regret. The first big event I freeform journaled about today was in my freshman/sophomore years of college, when an estranged immediate family member died. I wondered if I should have talked to them one last time after we cut them off for their abusive behavior. Lately I've been starting to think that I might regret not contacting them... but then I think about how scared I was then. It's hard for me to believe, but I've changed a lot as a person since I was a freshman! It hasn't been so long, but graduating and moving out on my own has changed me a lot. It's easy to look back now nostalgically and talk about "one last time"... but thinking about my state of mind when I made the decision, I was so full of fear of this person! I was going to school states away and I had frequent fears and nightmares of them showing up at my door. I kept my restraining order against them in a drawer near my bed, even long after they had died.

In my journal, I came to the conclusion that I need to trust myself more. Not only my current self, accepting that I feel this sort of taboo regret at not contacting this abusive person - but also in my past self, who was very young and very scared and made the right choice for herself at the time.

This is getting to be long so I'll wrap it up, but finally addressing the question to ponder - in my past posts I've talked about how I'm scared to go out to eat because of my stomach troubles - so as you can imagine hanging out with friends casually and especially dating has become almost impossible - almost every activity seems to involve food! And even when it doesn't, I still get scared if something I ate before I even went out is going to come back to get me....
But it's not the food. It's my stress, fear, TMS! So tonight, I'm going to try to go to my first real social event in my new town - a friend's birthday party at a restaurant/brewery. There are going to be a lot of people there that I don't know, and it's like 15 minutes away (when you get sick like I do, 15 minutes in the car with a stomachache might as well be 7 hours.... yikes!!!)
I'm scared, but I want to get back out there and enjoy life! And even if it doesn't go well, it's okay. The worst that can happen is not that bad. Besides, I want to work myself up to going to a bigger Halloween party at the end of the month! I love Halloween, but haven't done anything fun for it since I was a little kid.

Sorry for writing another huge post, thanks if you read this!!!

 

Hehe, thank you Jan!!!

I just got back from a fun night out. Okay, I cheated a little bit and took an imodium before I left but... STILL. I went out and stayed out and even drank and ate and was fine! This feels like progress, even if it's just a little bit of it, so I'm happy for now. Excited to get back to the next day of SEP tomorrow.