I Want To, But I Can't

Over the past year I have come to strongly dislike the word want. The hardest thing for me is when people ask me if I want to do something because almost 100% of the time the answer is yes. The problem is that my body doesn't always agree. Do I want to go out to a nice dinner? Absolutely. Do I think I can? I'll let you know. What makes it worse is that I'll be having a really good day so I'll make plans thinking that I'll still be okay in let's say three days, but then that day comes and I just can't do it. Then I have to cancel, which I hate, and somehow explain that it's not that I don't want to I just can't make it work physically and mentally.


In learning how to trust myself more and listen to what my body is telling me this concept of being able to do something has taken a new turn. Now, sometimes I assess a situation and can tell that it will not have a positive result for me even if it's something I really want to do. This almost is even worse because my body isn't yet telling me it can't do it, it's instead telling me that if I go through with this plan nothing good will come from it. This was the case for me this past weekend when a bunch of my family was together celebrating my cousin's college graduation. On Sunday the plan was everyone would go to Disneyland. Now I LOVE Disneyland and I love spending time with my family even more, so I had been planning on going for months. Since I had managed to survive Disneyland in November and where I'm at mentally today is 10x better than where I was back then I figured that saying yes in advance was going to be okay. I had talked to my therapist about going and we made plans on how I would manage. As of Monday, I was feeling ready to conquer this adventure and have a fun day with my family. Then the actual weekend came and it was a lot more draining for me physically and emotionally than I thought it would be and so Saturday night I was faced with this want/can dilemma. Did I want to go to Disneyland? 100% Could I do it? Probably. Should I do it? No. This was the hardest part because I was looking at what the day would be like (hot temperature, large crowds, and physically demanding) and realizing that although mentally I think I could have handled it there is no way my body would have survived and I most likely would have ended up getting physically sick if I decided to go. All I wanted to do was go but it wasn't about what I wanted to do. The real question to look at was did I want to put myself through what was going to be a stressful day that would most likely have a negative effect on my body just because I didn't want to miss out on the fun? Well honestly it took me a long time to change my answer to that question from yes to no. Ultimately though I decided to trust what my body was telling me and stay home.


I've always thought that when I got a better grip on my anxiety I would be able to jump back into things and do whatever I wanted to do again but that was unrealistic thinking. I'm learning that I have to take baby steps of progress physically as well as mentally to eventually get back to the person I want to be. Quite honestly it can sometimes be really annoying because it means I have to miss out on things I want to do in order to help myself stay moving forward in a positive way. Instead of what I can and can't do, I'm starting to enter what I should or shouldn't do which means I really have to trust myself and what my body is telling me, which is hard and a whole other blog post. For now I guess I'll just keep pushing myself in ways I feel will benefit me in the long run and hope for the best. 

I want to leave you all with this quote that doesn't really have anything to do with this post, but I just love it and wanted to share it with you all. 



Until next time. 💜

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