One of my anxiety triggers is being in debt to someone. If a person offers to do something for me, I immediately start devising ways to pay him/her back, even when nothing is expected in return. It’s even hard for me to trust and accept love given to me freely. I feel inadequate to repay the debt I feel all the time- as a human being, I find myself needing help a lot! We all do.
Shortly after moving in to my new house in 2016, I mentioned to my friend that I wanted a garden. I told him my modest budget and he surprised me one day with a truck full of plants and a watering system. He spent close to $400 and only wanted a $100 reimbursement. Still, I tried to venmo him the full amount based on my guestimation of what he spent. He returned all but $100. Tears sprang to my eyes when I read the memo for the payment on Venmo (see second picture).
Because he knows me well, he emphasized that he wanted NOTHING in return. For the first time in a very long time, I allowed someone outside my family to love and serve me without making things “even.” The invaluable gift he gave me was not the garden that I later killed with my black thumb- it was the knowledge that someone who all sides of me found me worthy of a garden full of beautiful flowers. It was one of the most profound moments of my life. To my fellow sufferers of mental illness, do you allow people to love you? Like me, do you deflect compliments? Do you sometimes see yourself as your mental illness and therefore unworthy of love? We have to fight against these destructive and unhealthy behaviors and remember that we are so much more than our OCD, depression, bipolar disorder, social anxiety, body dysmorphia, panic disorder, or whatever else afflicts us.
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