I keep forgetting to be proud of how far I've come in coping with my anxiety. All I focus on is when I slip up and think I'm not getting anywhere, but then I remember that a year ago I couldn't even think of certain scenarios without really terrified feelings.

I've come particularly far with recognizing rational versus irrational thoughts and then deciding what to do about them. I used to heavily react against my irrational thoughts which led to intense panic attacks because I was just continuously intensifying a passing thought. This also fucked up friendships I had at the time because if I thought something might be happening (irrational) I would confront the person about the nonexistent problem and basically just caused confusion and concern for my feelings which made everything worse. Over time I've gotten pretty good at narrowing down irrationality to its source and determining if there is any evidence to legitimately support it. There rarely is. Thanks, anxiety!

So instead of praising myself for this I ignore what I do well and just get mad when I momentarily relapse into previous (really unsuccessful) coping methods, like panicking. They last barely any time at all, especially compared to episodes in high school that lasted weeks, and I forget this. I forget that I have probably 80% more control over my anxiety than I did only a couple of years ago. That's incredible. Sometimes I wish I could remember how that period in my life felt to remind myself that what I feel now is waaaay more bearable. I mean come on, I've overcome basically a life-long source of major anxiety this year. That's a huge achievement. I couldn't have done it without how amazing Mike is. I actually owe him a ton for being so supportive all the time.

It'll really only get better considering I can only learn more about how to control aspects of my fears and emotions. Being afraid of irrational things is such a waste of time, and channeling that into excitement has helped a lot. Being irrationally excited is more fun!

ANYWHO-

My dad apparently talked to a birdwatching friend who works for the INDR that seems interested in having me help him with re-releasing alligator snapping turtles into Northern Illinois and doing some sort of herp survey during the summer. I emailed him today so hopefully that works out. Pretty great! Thanks, dad.