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This was one of the first Polly columns I read, if not the first, because I typed into the search engine something like "35 wasted life start over," that was a couple years ago, it spurred me on to reading all the Ask Polly columns I could find, and I'm glad that a couple years later I'm feeling much better.

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Sometimes I feel like I'm so sick with anxiety -- so chronically ill -- that I don't even recognize a state of non-anxiety. The degree to which I've developed [disordered] self-soothing strategies to keep myself feeling safe enough makes me so sad. The viciousness of my shame and its inescapability explain why I don't feel safe. The call is coming from inside the house. :(

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Damn. This one still hits like a motherfucker.

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I find this reply so sweet and this line gold "You can run your hands along your own self-defeating edges until you get a splinter, and you can pull the splinter out and stare at it and consider it. When you face your shame with an open heart, you’re on a path to art, on a path to finding joy and misery and fear and hope in the folds of your day."

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This essay changed my life!

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