An Open Letter

So I’m staying up since we’re heading to LAX at 3 AM for the international flight, so I guess time to do some good journaling, right? I mean today I definitely need it. I’ve been horribly stressed with this trip, because I’ve had to plan everything and I’ve been doing things like driving everyone around constantly, figuring out arrangements and handling all of the logistics. If I’m being honest, the others haven’t really been helping and specifically L has been actively making my stress much worse. Today it was too much and I kinda shut down at one point, because they were just constantly repeatedly ignoring boundaries and challenging them, and I just was so exhausted and tired I wanted to cry. It is incredibly draining and difficult for me to set boundaries and ask for those things, and to have them just blatantly challenge them to my face constantly really hurt. It feels like I have no defense or voice, since no matter how important something is to me they don’t respect that the same way the others do. I know that they’re just young and immature, but still it’s absolutely nightmarish for my anxiety. My chest has been hurting and very tight for the last few hours, and I just can’t really be around them right now. I don’t want to be a dramatic person and so I’m not bringing this up or talking with anyone else from the group about it, but this shit really hurts me. I’m going out on several risks for them and they’ve taken everything I’ve done for granted and have been putting me at a lot of danger and risk, and if I knew that they wouldn’t respect my boundaries, I wouldn’t have done these stuff for them. Let me go ahead and do some CBT and then send them hopefully a constructive message.

Situation: L is pushing my boundaries and making my anxiety much worse.

Thoughts: I am powerless and there is nothing I can do to protect myself from a potentially hellish outcome.

Feelings: Absolute crushing anxiety, my chest feels cramped and is in a lot of pain, and it’s hard to breathe.

Behavior: I’m panicked, I feel terrified and even just sitting here alone quietly away from them I’m close to a panic attack.

Thoughts: They are a young and immature person, and they just don’t understand what they are doing. Regardless they will soon be out of the position where they can hurt me with their actions, and most of the risky parts are over.

Feelings: Still stressed, but I don’t feel powerless. I also don’t feel like I’m about to have an anxiety attack.

Behavior: I can send them a message that may help, and also I don’t have a panic attack.

Ok wish me luck, time to have chatGPT help me edit a message to send them.