perspective

i went out to dinner with my roommate richard tonight. he's a really sweet guy, and the best roommate ever... but i have always had the sense that he has been tiptoeing around something. i first thought it was us, but it's more than that. he admitted a while ago that he deals with anxiety, which comforted me when i was going through my panic attacks around christmastime. tonight, on the way home from dinner, he admitted much more. he went to school with kip kinkle, one of the most famous school shooters of my era. furthermore, he not only went to school with him, but was stabbed by him a few days before the shooting, and witnessed a classmate getting shot point blank in the head. i can't even imagine...

i think, as horrible as this is, it helps me put my crap in perspective. sure, what i'm going through is pretty rough, but it's in on a totally different playing field. my anxieties over losing my mom and never finding a career or partner that satisfy me are kind of middle of the road in comparison.

i saw a new therapist today. i like him - he smiles a lot and does "therapisty" things that usually bug me, but they're always followed with understanding and advice that helps. he was really good about talking to me about practical ways to manage my anxiety and the compulsions i feel to get attached to guys. for the life of me, i can't remember what his actual phrase was, but it was something like "thoughts and emotions are separate from fact." we talked about how my anxiety ebbs and flows, and how it's like seeing the world through those glasses that change from kinda clear to sunglasses when there's light on them, but they never get fully clear. but regardless of the filter, what i see is not reality. it's always through the filter of anxiety. so, whenever i feel anxious or emotional or compulsive, i will just recognize that it is the filter that is making the world seem the way it is, and i will try and figure out what the fact is separate from that. it sounds so easy.... but i know it's gonna be rough.