This Time of Year

It’s November. The weather is turning cold. It gets darker way earlier. All the leaves are falling.

I love the summer; it’s definitely my favorite season. I like warmth. But there is something so exciting about this time of year. Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up! And my first semester of college is near its end!! I’m excited to be going home in two weeks for the first time since coming here. It will be nice even though college already feels like home.

While I do love this time of year, and it’s fun to fantasize about, this time of year comes with added stress and anxiety for me. School is getting busy, which puts more pressure on me to perform well. I want to do well on all my classes because it’s important to me. However, when there is so much work the stress gets to me and causes me to shut down. For example, on Friday I was supposed to get some studying done, but I was so overcome by stress and anxiety I just had to curl up in bed and I fell asleep before 10pm.

Another thing that causes me to be anxious around this time of year is the holidays. I struggle with an undiagnosed eating disorder, which also means I’ve never received any professional help or treatment for my destructive behaviors. I am working on recovering but it is a process. And during the holidays there is a lot of focus on the food and meals which is harder to deal with.

I am trying to stay positive this year though. There are so many things about Thanksgiving and Christmas and this time of year in general that I love and I don’t want that to be ruined. I have determination to not let my anxiety or eating disorder or anything else keep me from being happy and enjoying myself this season.