Was a good time for my new hobby and a new guitar, winter was setting in, and as I mentioned before winters are very hard on me, stuck inside mostly where I was for so long with no choice, now seemed the same. So, having something else to occupy my time besides shovelling snow, I had the guitar, and slowly got better. I'm still not that great, but not horrible, quite fun and takes the edge off of anxiety some times.
But I started to associate playing guitar with anxiety and panic a little also. Which happens with anxiety, you start to associate "what if's" with everyday life. That's what happened to me with the car, "what if I'm driving and have problems again". So, you stay out of the car. Then you have an issue out walking somewhere, so avoid walking that far. Get the picture? Soon you are stuck inside where ever you can find a safe place that isn't triggering anxiety. For me it got so bad at some points, there wasn't a safe place on this earth that didn't cause me problems.
But you continue to fight. And hope. Unfortunately I still thought this was like a cold and it would pass. Without help at this point it won't.
Since playing guitar was still fun, but since I played mostly when I started to feel panic, it started to lose it's fun, associating it with panic made me not want to play. I didn't stop, but cut back on it, and started looking for a new hobby.
I used to draw a lot, so that's what I did, and did that a ton, kept paper and pencils by everything basically, just in case panic crept in enough where I needed a distraction, I'd draw in the bathroom, in bed, anywhere everywhere. And drawing, like guitar started to become not enough.
So, let's start painting. I've never really painted, not even in school. Maybe just a little, but never been shown how to at all. And let me tell you, the first 10 paintings a pre-schooler wouldn't have been proud of wow I nearly gave that one up. But, watching videos of Bob Ross on PBS, and anywhere else I could find the old master painting I watched and learned, and adapted my own style from his, but I still love the landscape scenes the most of anything.
Painting soon really consumed me, and I couldn't get my hands on enough things to paint on, and I'm not the cleanest painter, if you've watched Bob Ross paint, he likes to wack his brush when he's cleaning it, not a good thing to do indoors let me tell ya, the walls were, well, not covered but a mess. But these 3 hobbies carried me until spring, and kept anxiety away enough it seemed I didn't start out the next year going outside nearly as tough, and we started walking right away. And pushed, we were walking down to the convenience store which is about a mile. I felt like a free man, more or less.
And this continued through the summer, but the car still seemed like an alien to me, didn't wanna touch it. Scared me to death.
But in the fall, my life took a blow, my faithful Simba, 12 year old husky/malamute fell sick, and didn't make it home from the vets office, and it still kills me to this day watching him back out of the driveway in backseat of the car, to never see him again. Tears are starting even now. So I have to stop about that. Everytime panic would start with him, he was there for me, he'd put his head on my lap, he'd follow me everywhere he felt the pain, and I felt his. Miss that friend dearly.
Life was going to be even more unbearable without that guy in my life.
Thanks,
Lance
