Not so many moons ago, I was born a Taurus. Thus, I was born stubborn.

Some moons later, I was made into a person with mental health issues. Nice!

These stagnant qualities within me make any form of change a mountainous hurdle, one that’s left me face down on the track with seriously harsh rubber rash for as long as I can remember.

In the last few months, I’ve experienced one of the last formative changes of youth: less than a month after graduating college, I was thrown face-first into the real world. On my first day in my new office, I think I managed to trip three times on nothing but the anxiety hanging from me, my already-petite frame continuously making itself smaller as the first days and weeks (and, fine, months) went on.

With each new coworker introduced, piece of feedback received, or team in-joke I missed out on, I felt like I was either going to disappear entirely or explode at any moment.

A new space, a new routine, and a small team in a fast-paced industry were, until recently, the ingredients in my personal pressure cooker. Being new in any professional environment is tough, but this is my first real job in an expert environment. I thought my many internships and life experience has prepared me, but I was wrong. My need to be liked by my coworkers, my need to be great at my work, and my unsuccessful attempts at adjusting to my new schedule competed relentlessly to destroy me.

Volcanic-level anxiety attacks began to occur about once a week. As these uncontrollable attacks are wont to do, they didn’t consider time or place: I was crouched over the sink at home, tossing and turning in my sleep, and even sat right in front of coworkers in our office space.

That said, the most recent one has given me a kick in the ass to take my mental health more seriously than ever before. I’ve been on medication for a few years now, which was absolutely life-changing. But If I want to survive this life change, I need to work on myself further. I’m already very active and open about my struggles online, but I think accountability in recording my “mental health journey” or whatever term the marketing teams use now, will be a good thing.

As the smog of this most recent depressive/anxious/I-don’t-even-know-how-long of an episode has lifted, I’ve reminded myself (and will continue to remind myself) that:

1) My life not over, it’s just beginning.

2) Capitalism sucks, but if I have to participate in it, I’m glad that it’s doing something I love.

3) My coworkers do, in fact, enjoy my presence & I’m a necessary, wanted part of the team.

4) Watching old movies alone and going to sleep at 9:30 isn’t lame, it’s self-preservation and actually very fucking cool of me.

It’s been about a decade I’ve been dealing with this devil on my shoulder, so it’s high time I send him packing for what is hopefully a long and restful vacation. One day, he’ll be back.

But this time, I’ll have changed the locks.

Listen to Change (Taylor’s Version) by clicking below.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I love my job, this post isn’t meant to correlate my anxiety with my work specifically. It’s just to say that I am awful with change. I’ve been wanting to write this for a while, and starting work was the biggest change I’ve dealt with recently.