Hello fellow anxious friends! This is long I apologize. I really got carried away! 

I'm just posting because I need to get some thoughts out. I've journaled already, but there's something cathartic about ranting to strangers on the internet lmao. Anyway, guess I'll get into it. 

At the end of next month, I'll be heading down to Florida to visit some family. This is not uncommon for me. When I was a kid, I'd go for an entire month during the summer. As I got older, my anxieties got worse (diagnosed) and I haven't gone by myself in a long time. My mom or my friends always come with me and that's the way I prefer it. 

I'll be staying with my aunt and my grandma. I love them very much, let me start with that. There's no bad blood between us at all. And I'm pretty comfortable with my aunt. However, my grandma, she's different. We are different. 

When I was a kid, we were kind of attached at the hip. She was a very young grandma and therefore she was always up for fun. We've done a lot together over the years and I'm so grateful for that. But now I'm older. I'm in my 30s and I was diagnosed in high school with anxiety and depression and a couple of other things that aren't important right now. Point is, the feelings I always had finally made sense. 

My grandma knows this. Most of family know because it's easier to just say "I have anxiety" rather than try to explain all of the things that I'm feeling in that moment. Most of them are understanding and they respect the boundaries I've put in place. Grandma...she's trying. At first, it felt like she didn't care at all. But I can see these days (because I don't back down) that she's putting in an effort. I appreciate that. It means everything to me. But my grandma is a very loud personality. And I am not. She's very aggressive with her affections. And I don't like being touched. She still sees me as her little baby. And that makes it a bit harder for me to be able to talk to her about things. 

Now, back to the trip. Sometime in July, I was having a pretty good week. I'm in therapy, I see a psychiatrist, I use apps - all that fun stuff. So I had been in a pretty good mental space. My grandma reached out and asked if I'd come to visit at the end of September. I said yes because it's something she asks me every year and I felt good, I figured it was time to put any anxious feelings aside and go for once. My grandma was so happy she cried. And two minutes later I had a plane ticket. 

Fast forward to middle of August. I start freaking out because I know the trip is coming up and the last time my grandma visited us, she respected my boundaries at the beginning of the trip. But as time went on, it was kind of like she gave up on that and proceeded to do things that she knows make me uncomfortable. It's really just about the hugging, the kissing, the invading my personal space and talking to me like I'm 12. So now it's the end of August and I've been thinking about this trip every day. It's even caused anxiety dreams where I'll wake up sweating, panting, and shaking. I know that it's the anticipation. I have a serious problem with that. I will think of something every single day a month before it happens until it happens. And I'll make myself sick over it. 

September is approaching and I know that's why I can't focus on anything else but this trip. And as I've said, I've written it out in my journal. I've even talked about it with my therapist. But it's just that every time I think, hey, I'm leaving soon, my brain starts to spiral. And I can't think about anything else. 

So yeah, I'm sorry for the rant. Sometimes it just helps for me to write unfiltered publicly where no one knows me lol. If you read all this, thank you for listening. 

Hope you're all doing well. &lt;3