Saying goodbye is never easy, especially when you've enjoyed where you've been and are uncertain about where you're going. As one of the writers of "Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog," I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to write about my anxiety journey, but it's time for me to say goodbye.

There's so much expectation on everyone during the holidays; to spend money, eat food, make food, drink, be festive, be jolly, be happy, want to be happy, and so on. Being such a chaotic time of year, it's no surprise that people get anxious before, during, and after the holidays. Keeping a gratitude journal helps keep me grounded, especially during the holidays.

Symptoms of dissociation can be terrifying. One night, I had horrific acute, prolonged panic symptoms, and in an out-of-body utter state of confusion, I looked at my husband and asked, "Are you going to have me committed?"

Growing up, I left the room when my parents turned on the nightly news. I had no interest. Besides, it was all bad news, or so it seemed: wars, fires, shootings, murders, robberies, injustices, bickering politicians, and so on. No, thank you, I had anxiety around the news.

Nobody likes cleaning. Wait. That's not right, because I've known people who enjoy cleaning as it provides a sense of accomplishment or something else I can't comprehend. Not me. I hate cleaning. I especially hate the big jobs. They give me anxiety. Of course, I procrastinate, the job gets bigger, and my anxiety increases. So, I procrastinate some more. And I do it again and again. It is a circle of procrastination and anxiety that eventually must be tackled.

I sleep a lot. I always have. From a certain point of view, I'm lucky that I can sleep, but it's rarely enough. This was worse when I had young children to look after, plus a house, a spouse, and a full-time job that had me up nights resolving issues. Like so many working people worldwide, my remedy to combat sleepiness and fatigue was to guzzle coffee. But I'm retired now, a young retiree at 57. I had hoped to be full of energy without the burden of full-time work. I thought once I retired and got ample regulated sleep, that the feeling of sleepiness would go away. It hasn't.

I wrote many blog posts this past year about my struggles late last summer with weeks of acute panic and anxiety that left me traumatized. I attended weekly therapy and worked hard for almost a year to get to a point where I could finally revisit the place where the worst of the trauma occurred, which I did, successfully. With that said, I'm wondering if therapy still makes sense for me.

For almost a year, I have been going to therapy to work through the trauma associated with the debilitating episodes of acute panic and anxiety I suffered late in the summer of 2021. In recent weeks, I have been practicing my anxiety-mitigation strategies and testing my resilience to anxiety triggers in preparation for a return to the location where the apex of the episodes occurred. With extreme gratitude, I'm happy to say that revisiting the place was a tremendous success.

I've considered suicide in the past, several years ago. More recently, I've had disturbing intrusive thoughts. Having experienced—and survived—both, I know how intrusive thoughts can easily bleed into thoughts of suicide. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)

On August 10, 2022, I wrote about how I reached a milestone in my trauma recovery, specifically, how I managed through a potentially high-triggering event without incident. The most significant milestone will arrive this weekend when I return to where the worst part of the trauma occurred. I'm trying to be proactive in my preparations by taking stock of the panic- and anxiety-mitigation tools I have at my disposal.