July 30, 2025 • 18 mins
There was a time I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognize myself—physically or emotionally. I was anxious, breaking out, overwhelmed, and trying so hard to hold it all together. I didn’t feel like the girl I used to be, and I didn’t know if I’d ever feel like me again.
In this episode, I open up about the messy middle—the appointments, the breakdowns, the Target runs, the dates that went wrong, and the quiet moments of wondering if I’d ever feel normal again.
If you’ve ever felt lost in your own skin or unsure of who you’re becoming… this one’s for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hello friends, welcome back to the Hold On with Me podcast.
I'm your host, Riley Joe. It's your first time being here.
Welcome. I hope you can find some light
and peace and serenity on the safe space with me here.
I love connecting with people. And if you've been here before,
welcome back. I can't wait to get into this
episode today. There is a part of Maine that
(00:24):
gets anxious, and if you're new,I've been sharing on previous
episodes about life transitions that have impacted my life so
much. I used to be somebody who never
really had hope, that was alwaysnegative and didn't think that
there was anything great that could come for my life because
there was so many anxious feelings that were crippling and
(00:47):
paralyzing. And I have this big discovery
probably about a year ago on understanding why do I
constantly feel like there's something wrong with me?
How do I heal from it and what do I do?
And I've just been leaning into this journey of healing that has
helped me to discover what really went on in my past, where
I'm at now, and how I can work on these feelings to make a
(01:08):
little bit better life for myself ahead.
It doesn't always have to be negative.
And we can hope for good things to come.
We don't have to stay feeling stuck forever.
There is power within us to stepout of what's comfortable.
We can be bold and brave and live more a fulfilled purpose
life. And I want you to know that I
(01:29):
didn't always think this way like I shared.
And through time, it's taken a lot of grit and understanding
myself and practice to remember that there is always good that's
going to come. We can have hope in our
situations, even when they're tricky or when they're hard, but
better things are going to happen and we can believe that.
(01:51):
When I went on my walk this morning, I went around the
corner and there is this guy whowas mowing his lawn and then
like I kind of walked past and Igot like this, the scent of
fresh cut grass and I just, it reminded me of home when I
would, I got to my grandpa's andmow his entire big lawn.
And it was like one of those nostalgic smells that I'm sure
(02:12):
you have those too when you smell it and you think of a
memory or an experience. And today that was fresh cut
grass and it just kind of grounded me.
I love moments like that. Sometimes it's fun just to to
think back on memories or moments that we've had from our
past in a hopeful way and happy.And I mean, continuing on,
though it wasn't always, it wasn't always good.
(02:35):
There was a lot of bad. So catching up, I experienced a
lot of anxiousness. My younger self in 3rd grade,
she had a lot of hard times. And then it was in high school,
it wasn't as bad. She goes on an LDS mission, come
home, comes home early. And that is what I've kind of
talked about on previous episodes, but now I'm catching
(02:56):
up to where we're at in this journey of healing.
This is my younger self. She's back from her mission,
probably like 1920 years old andshe is back in the same room she
grew up in with her family, samehometown, everything that was so
familiar to her after having this big experience being in
(03:16):
Argentina, experience anxiousness and having to come
home early, which is not what she wanted to do.
So suddenly all this things anxiousness though came on full
force. There was just a compilation of
things. One, she didn't feel good.
So she's going to doctors, having her blood drawn, getting
(03:37):
it looked at under a microscope,oxygen treatments, like doing
every possible treatment to feelbetter because she was
determined. I came home early, but I want to
feel better. I'm going back out there and
finishing what I started. There was no other option.
But over time she kept going to doctors and doing treatments and
(03:58):
nothing was working. Honestly, the feelings kept
getting worse. So she's feeling sick, not
wanting to go to these doctors but trying to figure out what's
going on. She's wanting to just stay home
because all of the now all of these emotions and feelings
started to show up physically onher face and on her body.
(04:22):
Her hair is breaking. She's very puffy.
She has all these blemishes and she knew very well like, this is
not something I can hide When I go out in public, people are
going to see this. They're going to see all of this
on her face, which made talking to people really hard.
She would like look around, not making eye contact with people
(04:44):
or like playing with her hair because she thought they're
looking at everything on my faceand couldn't even be present in
the conversation, which was really hard to keep friendships,
be in relationships and dating because she just wasn't present
with what was being said. So worried about what people
were thinking or what they're looking at and going into
(05:05):
grocery stores, going to the movie theater.
There was this one time she walks into Target and she just
put this one Airpod in her left ear.
She's like looking around, OK, where's the nearest bathroom?
She's playing music and scrolling on her phone while
she's walking around in the store.
If I get sick, like, what do I do?
Where can I go? I don't want to be sick in front
(05:25):
of anybody. And she would just hustle
through the store really fast tomake it through.
But all of a sudden, she was nauseous to be in the store,
which was really hard to, like, grasp at the time because she
had gone into that same Target. This is this is where she'd
grown up for years. Like in high school, she could
go in there with her friends andit wasn't even hard.
(05:46):
It was fine. She didn't, she wasn't worried
about anything. But suddenly all these anxious
feelings were crippling. And it was even hard to just be
out in public around people, Sacrament meeting when it's
really quiet, you know, in a young single adult warrior,
there's no little kids and it's dead silent.
(06:07):
So of course, she's worried about what if I have to get up
in front of people? What if I throw up?
What if I get sick? Her mind's just constantly full
of all these experiences that could potentially happen.
The fear is showing up, which most of the time she'd sit in
the very back anyways on like the far right side in case she
needed to leave so nobody would see her leave anyways.
But the feeling was still there.It was still going on.
(06:31):
When she would work at the physical therapy office during
lunch, she would drink maybe like a tiny bit of, you know,
those Premier Protein drinks, they're so good, but maybe just
a little sip of that to have a little bit of nutrients because
she didn't want to go back into work and throw up and be sick.
It was just just compilation of things stacking on top of each
(06:54):
other, adding up one thing afteranother.
And don't even get me started ondating.
Oh, it was awful. It was horrible because she
wanted to feel normal. But you know, she has all these
blemishes going on. She's so up or down with
emotions, anxiousness, can't even go out in public.
But she wanted to go out. And there's this time that she
(07:15):
goes to Olive Garden with one ofher really good friends,
actually at the time, I still think the world of them today.
But they go to Olive Garden, they're sitting down, they got
the salad and the soup, and theyorder their food.
And then all of a sudden she's like looking at all these people
wondering, oh, I'm going to haveto eat this.
What if I get sick? So what was going on in her mind
was starting to cause all this commotion in her stomach.
(07:37):
Because I'm a big believer that our stomachs and our brains,
it's connected. So what if she's not eating?
She's not going to be able to think through anything because
there's no nutrients to go off of.
But then she thinks, well, if I put food into my stomach, then
what if I get sick? So then she's starting to think
in her mind all these bad things.
She gets so worked out to the point where she hearing runs
like around the corner into the bathroom just mid sentence,
(07:59):
probably in this conversation onthe date and goes in the
bathroom because she's like, I'mgoing to throw up.
And she gets in there and almostjust is so depleted.
Like what is what is going on? Like what is wrong with me?
Why can't I do what I did like ayear or two ago when I was in
high school? So she gets out, goes, talks for
a date, you know, asks hey, can we leave?
(08:20):
Like I need to go home to get their food, pack it up to go.
And he just takes her home. And she gets this idea that if I
stay home as much as possible, it's going to be way easier.
I can manage the anxiousness, not afraid to go out in public,
No one has to see me like this. But guess what?
That's depressing. Nobody wants to stay home all
(08:41):
day every day for the rest of their life and in their parents
basement. I mean OK, if you want to do
that, that's totally fine. But for her, why would I want to
do that? I want to be like everyone else
my age, go to college, get married, have kids.
I don't want to stay stuck here forever.
There has to be other things that will come into my life.
I have to keep trying. But the the low self esteem, low
(09:05):
confidence because I mean if going out it meant she had to
think of people seeing her. And now this is where it got
really bad. All of a sudden all of these
bumps and I don't even know how to explain them now I say like
boils because I don't know how to even describe them.
I am going to share a video on my page or some pictures of what
(09:27):
this looked like. They hurt so bad, so bad.
I saw the scar now on my right shoulder that has come from
these and never healed. But I got them like on my
forehead, on my legs, my arms, like my face.
There was some that were so painful.
I look like I got my wisdom teeth out because my face was so
swollen and they were just chilling there.
Now she went to doctors, nobody knew what was going on, still to
(09:51):
this day have no idea what it was and did everything she could
to relieve the pressure with like Castor oil packs and heat
and all. Oh my gosh, trying all these
things. And that was just honestly the
last straw. She was down in the dumps in the
darkest moment, depleted, You know, more of the victim mindset
(10:12):
of I'm never going to make it out of this.
My skin's going to be like this forever.
She would just constantly cry because it was so hard to look
in the mirror and just love the girl who she saw when there was
so much going on physically, it was noticeable.
And it was really hard to love herself in that moment because
(10:32):
of everything that was happening.
And if you're, I mean, I was going to say like, if you're a
girl, but honestly, if you're someone who feels this way, like
I see you when I hear you, it's really hard when we feel like
everybody's looking at us. So we have all these blemishes
or maybe our hair isn't as healthy as we want, or maybe we
want to be more toned and fit. But life has got away from us.
(10:54):
And, you know, we can be really hard on ourselves in those
moments of wanting to look like this picture perfect or maybe
look like how we looked four or five years ago in high school.
Like sometimes I think, oh, I would love to go back to that.
I was so much healthier and stronger.
But it is really hard when we experiences these changes,
especially physically, to have confidence in ourselves, to love
(11:16):
us right where we're at and lovethe flaws anyways.
And I totally get it. You're great just the way you
are. And honestly, most of the time
people don't even notice the things that we noticed.
I've learned that the hard way. I really have been having
(11:37):
conversations and people like I didn't even notice.
I had no idea because most of the time people are so stuck in
their own minds that they're actually not worried about what
you have going on because they're worried about what they
have going on. Not everybody is not everybody's
worried about your life as much as they're worried about their
own. I just I think that's a good
hopeful thought. So anyways, keep going with the
(11:57):
story we we're getting closer tothe fall younger self started.
She had already applied to go toUtah State and would be leaving
so soon. But all like there's these bumps
that are starting to get better.They were improving but her skin
or hair it wasn't where she really hoped it would be but she
knew she had to go anyways. So she packed up her stuff, left
(12:18):
get to Utah State and is really hopeful about this new
experience that she's going to have.
She'd already kind of grieved. OK, I'm not going back on my
mission because I still don't have answers on why I don't feel
good. So this is the next step.
Like very hopeful and excited tolean into it.
But guess what? The anxious, the anxious moments
came back again. They're still there and she
(12:40):
starts going to class and I'm not even kidding, the back of
the room is where she would sit every time she'd walk in one
Airpod and again, scrolling Pinterest, listening to music to
distract herself just to sit through the lecture.
Now that doesn't make any sense because she got absolutely
nothing out of the lecture. Her professor probably didn't
even notice if she was there if she wasn't, so she struggled to
(13:03):
get her homework done. She failed that class.
She honestly probably failed that semester.
The testing center was so tough she had to go, and that was the
worst experience ever. She's like looking around at
everybody, not able to focus in couldn't even remember because
it was so quiet. She couldn't even relax.
And then at that point she was clicking random answers just to
(13:25):
make it through because she wanted to get out of that space.
She was so nervous something would happen.
She didn't want to get sick. But honestly, in those moments
she wasn't thinking. Maybe subconsciously it was
that, but she just did everything to avoid the feeling
of the nauseousness, the sweaty hands, a fast heart rate because
she didn't know why she felt theway she did.
She just knew she wanted to get out of that experience.
(13:46):
Like she wanted to get out of there fast.
So failed that semester, didn't stay on campus.
But I'm going to tell you this funny story.
She finally got a little courageto go be with her roommates at
this event. It's the biggest bingo night at
Utah State and everybody's talking about it.
It's like a it's a big deal. She goes, she's even anxious to
(14:07):
be there. She's shut down, doesn't want to
talk to people, doesn't want to talk to people from across the
table is her. But she thought, OK, I'm just
going to have fun. Maybe deep down I'll win a
prize. She missed the instructions
because she's thinking in her mind how to make it through this
event. So at one point she gets all the
way across the row and jumps up and yells bingo so loud, which
(14:31):
now I'm like, OK girl, get up, be loud, shake it, whatever.
And she walks up in front of everybody, walks around the the
like the tent or whatever to go tell the people.
And the girl looks at her card and goes, oh, you don't have
bingo. You need to have both lines down
and across. Talk about panic.
(14:51):
I think my jaw dropped and my heart sank deeper than I'd ever
experienced because this meant Ihad to walk out in front of
everyone, which there's probablylike hundreds of people there,
walk out in front of everyone back to her seat, which felt
like 8 years because there was some people that were laughing
and kind of snickering. And she's noticing everyone just
(15:11):
feeling so silly and beating herself up.
Like why did I do that? I'm so dumb.
That was so that was just not a good choice.
Why did I even come here? I shouldn't have been here.
And the perk of it now was they told her to come back after and
she got like this really nice Bru neck sweatshirt as a as like
a little gift. They're like, we have people do
(15:32):
this all the time, which was super nice of them, but she
literally wanted to just crawl in a hole and never come out.
Now looking back, I can laugh about it because it it was
funny. And sometimes just looking back
on things and like, yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.
And turning our negative thoughts into something that
could be more uplifting instead of beating ourselves up all the
(15:53):
time. Because if you're someone like
that's like me who does have these more anxious feelings,
it's crippling. Maybe you're harder on yourself
and you put this pressure to, I got to be doing better.
I got to be doing more. I need to be like other people.
When in reality, you're great just the way you are, just the
way God made you and you're special.
And the things that you're goingthrough will help you to whether
(16:15):
it's hard or good, it will help you to have more compassion for
people who maybe experience something similar.
And I'm just smiling right now telling you this because you
have so much greatness to offer the world.
And if you're beating yourself up, how are you going to be able
to share that light with people?Find the things that you love
(16:36):
about yourself or maybe that youwant to work on and try a little
bit better. And I promise you'll feel a
little different. Life won't feel as heavy and
you'll have just a little more courage to keep going, to keep
trying even when maybe you're like, I have all these things
going on and it's so negative and it's hard to get out and
you're stuck in your mind littleby little, day by day, step by
(16:58):
step. It's not all going to come
together. But I promise over time it will
be worth it and it will be so much better than you can even
imagine. I mean that with all that I have
from the bottom of my heart. Take it from a girl who gets it.
I know it's hard and I know it'sheavy, but it won't be that way
forever. Trust yourself and trust God.
(17:19):
He has good things coming for you and we're going to make it.
Thank you so much for listening today.
I'm glad that we can connect here and be to just be together
on this safe space. I know we're not even looking at
each other or face to face, which I would love so much more.
And I think there's power found in stories and connection.
(17:40):
Look out for next week. I am going to continue this
story when it was after COVID, COVID hit and then her life
changed even more drastically. Another life transition, which
most people probably don't know this about me.
Maybe you haven't shared about it before, but I'm going to
definitely open up and be deeper.
You just wait and I hope you always remember that it's you,
(18:01):
me, God, we got this. Hold on with me and have a great
day.
Hello friends, welcome back to the Hold On with Me podcast.
I'm your host, Riley Joe. It's your first time being here.
Welcome. I hope you can find some light
and peace and serenity on the safe space with me here.
I love connecting with people. And if you've been here before,
welcome back. I can't wait to get into this
episode today. There is a part of Maine that
(00:24):
gets anxious, and if you're new,I've been sharing on previous
episodes about life transitions that have impacted my life so
much. I used to be somebody who never
really had hope, that was alwaysnegative and didn't think that
there was anything great that could come for my life because
there was so many anxious feelings that were crippling and
(00:47):
paralyzing. And I have this big discovery
probably about a year ago on understanding why do I
constantly feel like there's something wrong with me?
How do I heal from it and what do I do?
And I've just been leaning into this journey of healing that has
helped me to discover what really went on in my past, where
I'm at now, and how I can work on these feelings to make a
(01:08):
little bit better life for myself ahead.
It doesn't always have to be negative.
And we can hope for good things to come.
We don't have to stay feeling stuck forever.
There is power within us to stepout of what's comfortable.
We can be bold and brave and live more a fulfilled purpose
life. And I want you to know that I
(01:29):
didn't always think this way like I shared.
And through time, it's taken a lot of grit and understanding
myself and practice to remember that there is always good that's
going to come. We can have hope in our
situations, even when they're tricky or when they're hard, but
better things are going to happen and we can believe that.
(01:51):
When I went on my walk this morning, I went around the
corner and there is this guy whowas mowing his lawn and then
like I kind of walked past and Igot like this, the scent of
fresh cut grass and I just, it reminded me of home when I
would, I got to my grandpa's andmow his entire big lawn.
And it was like one of those nostalgic smells that I'm sure
(02:12):
you have those too when you smell it and you think of a
memory or an experience. And today that was fresh cut
grass and it just kind of grounded me.
I love moments like that. Sometimes it's fun just to to
think back on memories or moments that we've had from our
past in a hopeful way and happy.And I mean, continuing on,
though it wasn't always, it wasn't always good.
(02:35):
There was a lot of bad. So catching up, I experienced a
lot of anxiousness. My younger self in 3rd grade,
she had a lot of hard times. And then it was in high school,
it wasn't as bad. She goes on an LDS mission, come
home, comes home early. And that is what I've kind of
talked about on previous episodes, but now I'm catching
(02:56):
up to where we're at in this journey of healing.
This is my younger self. She's back from her mission,
probably like 1920 years old andshe is back in the same room she
grew up in with her family, samehometown, everything that was so
familiar to her after having this big experience being in
(03:16):
Argentina, experience anxiousness and having to come
home early, which is not what she wanted to do.
So suddenly all this things anxiousness though came on full
force. There was just a compilation of
things. One, she didn't feel good.
So she's going to doctors, having her blood drawn, getting
(03:37):
it looked at under a microscope,oxygen treatments, like doing
every possible treatment to feelbetter because she was
determined. I came home early, but I want to
feel better. I'm going back out there and
finishing what I started. There was no other option.
But over time she kept going to doctors and doing treatments and
(03:58):
nothing was working. Honestly, the feelings kept
getting worse. So she's feeling sick, not
wanting to go to these doctors but trying to figure out what's
going on. She's wanting to just stay home
because all of the now all of these emotions and feelings
started to show up physically onher face and on her body.
(04:22):
Her hair is breaking. She's very puffy.
She has all these blemishes and she knew very well like, this is
not something I can hide When I go out in public, people are
going to see this. They're going to see all of this
on her face, which made talking to people really hard.
She would like look around, not making eye contact with people
(04:44):
or like playing with her hair because she thought they're
looking at everything on my faceand couldn't even be present in
the conversation, which was really hard to keep friendships,
be in relationships and dating because she just wasn't present
with what was being said. So worried about what people
were thinking or what they're looking at and going into
(05:05):
grocery stores, going to the movie theater.
There was this one time she walks into Target and she just
put this one Airpod in her left ear.
She's like looking around, OK, where's the nearest bathroom?
She's playing music and scrolling on her phone while
she's walking around in the store.
If I get sick, like, what do I do?
Where can I go? I don't want to be sick in front
(05:25):
of anybody. And she would just hustle
through the store really fast tomake it through.
But all of a sudden, she was nauseous to be in the store,
which was really hard to, like, grasp at the time because she
had gone into that same Target. This is this is where she'd
grown up for years. Like in high school, she could
go in there with her friends andit wasn't even hard.
(05:46):
It was fine. She didn't, she wasn't worried
about anything. But suddenly all these anxious
feelings were crippling. And it was even hard to just be
out in public around people, Sacrament meeting when it's
really quiet, you know, in a young single adult warrior,
there's no little kids and it's dead silent.
(06:07):
So of course, she's worried about what if I have to get up
in front of people? What if I throw up?
What if I get sick? Her mind's just constantly full
of all these experiences that could potentially happen.
The fear is showing up, which most of the time she'd sit in
the very back anyways on like the far right side in case she
needed to leave so nobody would see her leave anyways.
But the feeling was still there.It was still going on.
(06:31):
When she would work at the physical therapy office during
lunch, she would drink maybe like a tiny bit of, you know,
those Premier Protein drinks, they're so good, but maybe just
a little sip of that to have a little bit of nutrients because
she didn't want to go back into work and throw up and be sick.
It was just just compilation of things stacking on top of each
(06:54):
other, adding up one thing afteranother.
And don't even get me started ondating.
Oh, it was awful. It was horrible because she
wanted to feel normal. But you know, she has all these
blemishes going on. She's so up or down with
emotions, anxiousness, can't even go out in public.
But she wanted to go out. And there's this time that she
(07:15):
goes to Olive Garden with one ofher really good friends,
actually at the time, I still think the world of them today.
But they go to Olive Garden, they're sitting down, they got
the salad and the soup, and theyorder their food.
And then all of a sudden she's like looking at all these people
wondering, oh, I'm going to haveto eat this.
What if I get sick? So what was going on in her mind
was starting to cause all this commotion in her stomach.
(07:37):
Because I'm a big believer that our stomachs and our brains,
it's connected. So what if she's not eating?
She's not going to be able to think through anything because
there's no nutrients to go off of.
But then she thinks, well, if I put food into my stomach, then
what if I get sick? So then she's starting to think
in her mind all these bad things.
She gets so worked out to the point where she hearing runs
like around the corner into the bathroom just mid sentence,
(07:59):
probably in this conversation onthe date and goes in the
bathroom because she's like, I'mgoing to throw up.
And she gets in there and almostjust is so depleted.
Like what is what is going on? Like what is wrong with me?
Why can't I do what I did like ayear or two ago when I was in
high school? So she gets out, goes, talks for
a date, you know, asks hey, can we leave?
(08:20):
Like I need to go home to get their food, pack it up to go.
And he just takes her home. And she gets this idea that if I
stay home as much as possible, it's going to be way easier.
I can manage the anxiousness, not afraid to go out in public,
No one has to see me like this. But guess what?
That's depressing. Nobody wants to stay home all
(08:41):
day every day for the rest of their life and in their parents
basement. I mean OK, if you want to do
that, that's totally fine. But for her, why would I want to
do that? I want to be like everyone else
my age, go to college, get married, have kids.
I don't want to stay stuck here forever.
There has to be other things that will come into my life.
I have to keep trying. But the the low self esteem, low
(09:05):
confidence because I mean if going out it meant she had to
think of people seeing her. And now this is where it got
really bad. All of a sudden all of these
bumps and I don't even know how to explain them now I say like
boils because I don't know how to even describe them.
I am going to share a video on my page or some pictures of what
(09:27):
this looked like. They hurt so bad, so bad.
I saw the scar now on my right shoulder that has come from
these and never healed. But I got them like on my
forehead, on my legs, my arms, like my face.
There was some that were so painful.
I look like I got my wisdom teeth out because my face was so
swollen and they were just chilling there.
Now she went to doctors, nobody knew what was going on, still to
(09:51):
this day have no idea what it was and did everything she could
to relieve the pressure with like Castor oil packs and heat
and all. Oh my gosh, trying all these
things. And that was just honestly the
last straw. She was down in the dumps in the
darkest moment, depleted, You know, more of the victim mindset
(10:12):
of I'm never going to make it out of this.
My skin's going to be like this forever.
She would just constantly cry because it was so hard to look
in the mirror and just love the girl who she saw when there was
so much going on physically, it was noticeable.
And it was really hard to love herself in that moment because
(10:32):
of everything that was happening.
And if you're, I mean, I was going to say like, if you're a
girl, but honestly, if you're someone who feels this way, like
I see you when I hear you, it's really hard when we feel like
everybody's looking at us. So we have all these blemishes
or maybe our hair isn't as healthy as we want, or maybe we
want to be more toned and fit. But life has got away from us.
(10:54):
And, you know, we can be really hard on ourselves in those
moments of wanting to look like this picture perfect or maybe
look like how we looked four or five years ago in high school.
Like sometimes I think, oh, I would love to go back to that.
I was so much healthier and stronger.
But it is really hard when we experiences these changes,
especially physically, to have confidence in ourselves, to love
(11:16):
us right where we're at and lovethe flaws anyways.
And I totally get it. You're great just the way you
are. And honestly, most of the time
people don't even notice the things that we noticed.
I've learned that the hard way. I really have been having
(11:37):
conversations and people like I didn't even notice.
I had no idea because most of the time people are so stuck in
their own minds that they're actually not worried about what
you have going on because they're worried about what they
have going on. Not everybody is not everybody's
worried about your life as much as they're worried about their
own. I just I think that's a good
hopeful thought. So anyways, keep going with the
(11:57):
story we we're getting closer tothe fall younger self started.
She had already applied to go toUtah State and would be leaving
so soon. But all like there's these bumps
that are starting to get better.They were improving but her skin
or hair it wasn't where she really hoped it would be but she
knew she had to go anyways. So she packed up her stuff, left
(12:18):
get to Utah State and is really hopeful about this new
experience that she's going to have.
She'd already kind of grieved. OK, I'm not going back on my
mission because I still don't have answers on why I don't feel
good. So this is the next step.
Like very hopeful and excited tolean into it.
But guess what? The anxious, the anxious moments
came back again. They're still there and she
(12:40):
starts going to class and I'm not even kidding, the back of
the room is where she would sit every time she'd walk in one
Airpod and again, scrolling Pinterest, listening to music to
distract herself just to sit through the lecture.
Now that doesn't make any sense because she got absolutely
nothing out of the lecture. Her professor probably didn't
even notice if she was there if she wasn't, so she struggled to
(13:03):
get her homework done. She failed that class.
She honestly probably failed that semester.
The testing center was so tough she had to go, and that was the
worst experience ever. She's like looking around at
everybody, not able to focus in couldn't even remember because
it was so quiet. She couldn't even relax.
And then at that point she was clicking random answers just to
(13:25):
make it through because she wanted to get out of that space.
She was so nervous something would happen.
She didn't want to get sick. But honestly, in those moments
she wasn't thinking. Maybe subconsciously it was
that, but she just did everything to avoid the feeling
of the nauseousness, the sweaty hands, a fast heart rate because
she didn't know why she felt theway she did.
She just knew she wanted to get out of that experience.
(13:46):
Like she wanted to get out of there fast.
So failed that semester, didn't stay on campus.
But I'm going to tell you this funny story.
She finally got a little courageto go be with her roommates at
this event. It's the biggest bingo night at
Utah State and everybody's talking about it.
It's like a it's a big deal. She goes, she's even anxious to
(14:07):
be there. She's shut down, doesn't want to
talk to people, doesn't want to talk to people from across the
table is her. But she thought, OK, I'm just
going to have fun. Maybe deep down I'll win a
prize. She missed the instructions
because she's thinking in her mind how to make it through this
event. So at one point she gets all the
way across the row and jumps up and yells bingo so loud, which
(14:31):
now I'm like, OK girl, get up, be loud, shake it, whatever.
And she walks up in front of everybody, walks around the the
like the tent or whatever to go tell the people.
And the girl looks at her card and goes, oh, you don't have
bingo. You need to have both lines down
and across. Talk about panic.
(14:51):
I think my jaw dropped and my heart sank deeper than I'd ever
experienced because this meant Ihad to walk out in front of
everyone, which there's probablylike hundreds of people there,
walk out in front of everyone back to her seat, which felt
like 8 years because there was some people that were laughing
and kind of snickering. And she's noticing everyone just
(15:11):
feeling so silly and beating herself up.
Like why did I do that? I'm so dumb.
That was so that was just not a good choice.
Why did I even come here? I shouldn't have been here.
And the perk of it now was they told her to come back after and
she got like this really nice Bru neck sweatshirt as a as like
a little gift. They're like, we have people do
(15:32):
this all the time, which was super nice of them, but she
literally wanted to just crawl in a hole and never come out.
Now looking back, I can laugh about it because it it was
funny. And sometimes just looking back
on things and like, yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.
And turning our negative thoughts into something that
could be more uplifting instead of beating ourselves up all the
(15:53):
time. Because if you're someone like
that's like me who does have these more anxious feelings,
it's crippling. Maybe you're harder on yourself
and you put this pressure to, I got to be doing better.
I got to be doing more. I need to be like other people.
When in reality, you're great just the way you are, just the
way God made you and you're special.
And the things that you're goingthrough will help you to whether
(16:15):
it's hard or good, it will help you to have more compassion for
people who maybe experience something similar.
And I'm just smiling right now telling you this because you
have so much greatness to offer the world.
And if you're beating yourself up, how are you going to be able
to share that light with people?Find the things that you love
(16:36):
about yourself or maybe that youwant to work on and try a little
bit better. And I promise you'll feel a
little different. Life won't feel as heavy and
you'll have just a little more courage to keep going, to keep
trying even when maybe you're like, I have all these things
going on and it's so negative and it's hard to get out and
you're stuck in your mind littleby little, day by day, step by
(16:58):
step. It's not all going to come
together. But I promise over time it will
be worth it and it will be so much better than you can even
imagine. I mean that with all that I have
from the bottom of my heart. Take it from a girl who gets it.
I know it's hard and I know it'sheavy, but it won't be that way
forever. Trust yourself and trust God.
(17:19):
He has good things coming for you and we're going to make it.
Thank you so much for listening today.
I'm glad that we can connect here and be to just be together
on this safe space. I know we're not even looking at
each other or face to face, which I would love so much more.
And I think there's power found in stories and connection.
(17:40):
Look out for next week. I am going to continue this
story when it was after COVID, COVID hit and then her life
changed even more drastically. Another life transition, which
most people probably don't know this about me.
Maybe you haven't shared about it before, but I'm going to
definitely open up and be deeper.
You just wait and I hope you always remember that it's you,
(18:01):
me, God, we got this. Hold on with me and have a great
day.
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