"Get a life!"

In the past I've struggled a lot with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and bipolar. Lately I've been struggling with agoraphobia, or the fear of going outside. I've been indoors 90% of the time for a number of years, and I'm trying to work through it now.

I stopped going to public school sophomore year. I can't handle the environment, with timed expectations and feeling like people have their eyes on me when I mess up, so I take classes at home through the school. Every so often I have to go to the high school to do paperwork or something. My anxiety gets to me pretty often, but I try my hardest to relax and keep my head up. Keeping happy is my way of getting back at all the misfortune in my life, even if it's difficult. 

One day as I was getting ready to go to the high school to do some errands, I decided for the first time in forever that I wanted to dress up a little. Feeling confident makes it easier for me to go outside. It makes me feel like if people look at me, they won't judge what they see. 

As I was getting ready to cross the street to go home, someone sped by in a car and screamed at me, "GET A LIFE!" 

I stood and stared at the street for a moment. I felt like a paper thin glass bottle getting dropped on the ground. I wanted to sit down and cry, but I wanted even more desperately to just go back home and be inside. Indoors, nobody would call me names or tell me what to do with my life. 

I wanted to stop that car and shriek into his ears, "Do you know what you've just done to me? Do you know what I am going through? It took every single ounce of my energy to get out of bed today, and you have the audacity to tell me to get a life. I'm trying. I'm TRYING to get a life and I'm TRYING to maintain it. You don't know what it's like to get up with the intentions of going outside, look at the front door for fifteen minutes, undo the deadbolt, and then start crying and go back to bed because people like you make me wish I had never been born. I hope you're happy with yourself. I worked up every last bit of courage I had to walk out the front door today and you shattered it. You took it and threw it in a trash compactor." 

The three words he screamed at me made me feel empty and alone. It kept me wondering what I did wrong. What did I do to deserve that scream? What did I do to make you hate me? Just exist? 

Since then I've been working on going outside more. It isn't as scary now as it was then. I went out all on my own today and applied for a number of jobs. It feels good to smile and look people in the eyes, shake their hands and introduce myself. Even if I don't get the job(s), I'm happy with myself because I tried. 

I have a life. I'm doing all I can with it. With what I've been through in my life, trying and succeeding even at little tasks is more than just "enough." 

I'm excelling in places I never thought I would, and that is what makes me happy.