turn to me instead

So i get really bad anxiety, and i look to much to my friends to find my value and worth. It is something i really struggle with. I am in counseling right now, and i talk with my councilor about it a lot. We have come up with a few analogies to help me deal with this, but there has been one that has come up multiple times. Its the canoe analogy. Basically i need to learn how to be comfortable in my own canoe and to stay in that canoe. I all to often jump in others people canoes to find my value and worth. Like if i am not sure if a person i care a lot about is ok with me, i can come unglued. If i find out that a lot of my friends have hung out together and i was not invited i become unglued. Because i think it is a negative reflection on who i am. I think that there is something about me that is not ok which causes people to not like me or not want me to be apart of the group. I have struggled with this all my life. Seriously. It has given me more anxiety and depression then anything i have ever dealt with. And it is because i have never been able to be ok with who I am with out the approval of others. And when i think others who i really want to be loved by do not love me, i freak out inside. My anxiety causes me to question everything about myself about the other people, and it is a horrible pit of negativity. I hate it. I really do, because I forget about Jesus. I forget about his love and the value of his life that he put on me. I start thinking negative about people who are my friends and who i know care about me and love me, but i lose faith and trust in that, and it drives me insane. It is a switch that i have no control over. Or as my councilor puts it, at least not yet. I think the hard truth for me to grasp is that i do not understand life outside of this. I have grown up in constant fear of things not being ok, and feeling the need to make them ok. Feeling the responsibility to make them ok, to make others ok. To make sure i am ok. Not to go completely into my life story, but from the time i can remember until i was 17, i don't remember a day without yelling in my family. During that same time period, i don't remember being able to spend time with my mom with out having to worry about her getting horribly upset about something, and feeling the need to walk on egg shells to make sure that did not happen. But it was all completely out of my control. My mom and my step dad do not have a great relationship, they are working on it, but it has caused me to put a guard up that i don't know how to take down. I see them constantly reject each other, and it puts this horrible fear in me of rejection. I don't want that. I don't want to do that to anyone, and i don't want that done to me. Along with that, my brother would constantly be upset with someone in my family, whether it be me, my dad, or my mom. And the yelling would never stop. All i saw was rejection, and i felt i always needed to make everything better, but no matter how hard i tried it was out of my control. completely.

So to any of my friends that read this please forgive me when i come unglued. Please forgive me when i feel rejected by you even though it was never in your thought process. Please forgive me for trying to fix everything and make everything ok, when it is not in my control to do or not my responsibility to do so. Know that your friendship means the world to me. Know that i struggle with this, and if you can remind me from time to time that you are really there and that i really do matter to you and am loved by you, remind me to find my value and worth in Christ, so i can learn to stay in my own canoe. because i forget that so easily and it becomes hard for me to just relax and be myself. Know that I hate seeing pain in people, i hate seeing any of you in pain and never want to be responsible for causing it in your life or anyone Else's and want to try so hard to make your life better, and sometimes i get in the way of you dealing with what you might need to deal with. Please forgive me for that. But know its just because for some reason i have a heart that is filled with so much compassion, probably because of my own pain, and hatred of hurt and suffering.

and mom, if you read this, know that i love you. I know you question it from time to time because you feel so bad for things that have happened in the past. They were painful to experience, but know that I love you. You are the best mom i ever had. I love you.

Anyways, i woke up this morning and called one of my friends, i found out that he and some other of my friend hung out last night, and it hurt because i did not get a phone call to be apart of that. It should not have, but it did. I have his pit of rejection that lingers inside of me. it is my own crap that makes it hurt, it is everything written above that makes it hurt. I do not want to let it, but it does. Because i am afraid i screwed up the other day. i am afraid i said something to someone and now when they are all together, they might think it is not ok for me to be there. That thought kills me. I hurts because i don't want that to be true. It hurts because i am so insecure about my own value and worth. Because i jump in their canoes and still struggle to allow God's love and grace and value of me to allow me to rest in my own. Again to my friends that read this and know they were part of that group, i am sorry for making you deal with my crap. I am sorry i don't trust the love and grace you have on me and that i struggle so much with that. Please forgive me for my insecurities.

After talking with my friend and finding this out, i picked up my guitar and decided to play, hoping to just find some peace. as i was playing these words just came to me with the chord progression i was playing. I think it was God helping me to remember him, because that's what i need most to do. I need to turn to God instead. I need to trust him, and allow him to give me the peace to be able to breathe and not let my anxiety get the best of me.

i am trying my best
to remember
all the things you said
all the things you said

don't give up
don't give in
remember me
turn to me instead
turn to me instead

because i am short on breath
i am short on breath