1. What Makes You Happy?
It’s a lot of pressure coming up with something good for my very first blog post. Especially when this is supposed to be the all encompassing introduction to me.
Ok, here I go…
I live in Los Angeles, CA. I moved here after I graduated college in 2002. I was originally a Film Major, but I left the film industry after a few years and my career progressed to media and technology. I met my husband while we were both working in “the industry,” as people call it here. If you include dating and marriage, we’ve been together for 15 years.
I also suffer from anxiety and this is where the story really starts for me. About 4 years ago after a health scare, a major housing issue, and a stolen identity within the span of a year, I never reset back to my version of “normal.” I was in a constant state of stress. When I was done worrying about one thing my brain looked for the next thing to stress about. It was exhausting and I rationally understood that I was worrying too much, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
In order to try and help myself, I started seeing a therapist. Early on, she asked me what should have been an easy question, “What makes you happy?” and I didn’t have an answer. I had been so consumed with establishing a career, that an ever increasing level of anxiety forced me into survival mode. I was always worrying about something. The idea that I couldn’t answer the question, “What makes you happy?” made me sad.
I tried to think about when I had last been happy. I was happy when I was in high school and college, where I did so many activities. I was lost in a world of creativity. I took ballet, participated in theater, and when I got to college, I was involved in endless student films. It was such a wonderful environment to dream something up and then go do it.
But then I graduated from college and real life started. Suddenly, I was in a career that wasn’t creative; while I worked with creative people, I was on the administrative side of things. Time had slipped by and I was so far away from making my own projects that it felt like there was no going back. If I really thought about it, my career wasn’t feeding my soul, but I had no idea what would fill that emptiness for me.
As I struggled with anxiety, I went to a new doctor for another health issue, which had become yet another anxiety trigger for me. After a complete panic attack in her office (which included tears), my new doctor said, “I’d like to talk about your anxiety.” Long story short, she ran tests and found I was lacking in vitamins that were contributing to my anxiety and she recommended a cocktail of supplements.
It took a few months for everything to start to take effect, and when it did, clouds I hadn’t realized were there, started to part. I began to feel calmer. For the first time I could sit alone with myself and not worry. It was a new me. I didn’t know I could feel this good. Even now, writing this, I am starting to tear up. I am so grateful to my doctor and my therapist for changing my life and showing me what it meant to feel happy again.
As I begun to settle in this new version of me, past loves started to come back to mind. I really missed theater, so my husband and I started going to shows. It was a good start, but I missed being creative. I thought about what was available to me at this point in my life. Trying to get back into film projects seemed too complicated, especially because I have a full time job. I needed something that didn’t involve a lot of equipment. Then the idea of writing started to trickle into my head. I had enjoyed it in school, and all I would need was my brain and a computer.
I was going to figure out how to write something…
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