I’m a 33 year old woman. I know I have a lot to be grateful for and I know I could have it much worse. Regardless, they’re still my problems and it still hurts.

I have a plethora of mental health issues, along with a variety of addictions. I have never been married and don’t intend to have children. I am overly anxious and sensitive and as I get older, it seems to get worse and become more crippling. Every relationship in my life causes me anxiety. My life is completely average and ordinary, but I am still stuck in this mental prison of fight or flight, multiple times a day, sometimes over the most minute issues.

It’s exhausting, and as time goes on, it feels more debilitating. How am I 33 years old and go back to feeling the same level of fear I felt as a child? How do I feel more dysfunctional each day?

If I’m lucky, I have at least 40 more years of this shit, and I am really, really not seeing the point when I can not only barely afford to live in this world but can barely function in it.