A Cry for Help in the Darkness

Anger, resentment, discontent, desire, scarcity: these feelings fill my mind and my heart far more than any positive emotions. I tried very hard to develop more positivity in my thoughts and was doing pretty well, I thought. 

Slowly, stealthily, the positive thoughts and constructs leaked out of my mind and the dark, negative thoughts slid in. I didn't even notice, the dark ones feel so familiar. I feel consumed by the unfairness of life, grief, and loss. There's a positivity-sized hole in my mind: how do I stop it so I can keep my mind balanced and positive? After all, a friend spent an entire week writing about positivity in response to my desire for validation for my less-than-positive reality.

My mind is not a happy place to reside in. I cruise my usual blogs, but comment seldom because the useful- and/or positive-comment area of my brain is empty. All around me, fairies are falling to the ground and kittens are crying. I can feel my hair and my clothing turning black. What's the music Emo kids listen to these days?

When my mind is filled with sadness and despair, my body hurts. One of the joys of fibro, but it's also a side-effect of depression. My sleep is affected and pretty much everything sucks, thus completing the feedback loop that says the Universe is a dark and dreadful place.

It's like a prison. I want out.

It seems I am always saying — and asking for — help. This case falls under a request for help doing or learning to do something. I want a coach to help me regain my positive frame of mind, my reality-tinged optimism of former days. A coach who is sensitive to what I've gone through, the validation I need, and who won't go all perky and chipper on me. But I expect that, as usual, I will be left to do this all alone. Again. I honestly think this makes the process go much more slowly, leaving me depressed and and full of darkness for much longer. I can't see how this helps me. But then, it's not the Universe's place to be helpful or play fair. The Universe is just what it is. 

But maybe the force and energy that is Life will help me out a little. Something, someone, please give me some help here.

Trauma Work - Week 1

Warning: this is an extraordinarily long post. And it's kind of tedious.

I've been promising to tell you about my therapy. Today we began the trauma work, and it was every bit as painful and difficult as you might imagine. And yet, my therapist contrarily makes it easier to go through the trauma. 

I cried today, a lot. I normally do not cry in front of people, including myself. I hate to cry. Not just a little hate. Hate with a fervor reserved for rival drug lords. However, I felt comfortable crying in front of Karen. My stomach didn't clench. My shoulders didn't tighten.

By now you are asking yourself, "Sure, sure, but what the hell is 'trauma therapy'?"

I believe that now I begin the end of my anonymity among those who know me IRL.  As long as employers and clients do not find me --- and I'm not sure how they could --- that is fine with me.

By mutual decision, Karen and I decided to start with my latest and most debilitating trauma: the death of my mother. Her death resonates with earlier deaths, but I believe I need to deal with Mom's death first.

I began with the beginning, because I am OCD enough to like to do things sequentially. Beginning with when I first found out she had cancer, I listed what I consider the major points from beginning through her death. Then I wrote the facts for each point, including my own feelings and the dates of those facts where I have them.

Today we began the next step: I read the points for one portion of the story. And as I read, my emotions came flowing up, along with tears. Karen interrupted here and there to question feelings and to tell me how she felt and to mirror my feelings back to me. After I finished reading, we continued talking about that portion of the story and my emotions. She continued to mirror back and to question for further depth my emotions, and to tell me what she felt and thought as I read. I told her feelings I haven't told anyone. We talked about the multiple layers of how I felt. And I continued to cry. I even hit the point of gasping. Thankfully, I avoided sobbing, but I can see the potential for this. That will suck big time.

We switched to a more intellectual perspective that allowed me to calm down before I left her room. I may have had red eyes, but there were no tears pouring down my face.

As I drove away, I found that I felt odd. It seemed that I felt lighter and calmer, but I questioned those feelings. Still, that was how I felt. As I walked from my car toward the grocery store, I found myself walking differently, looser, and feeling a bit like my old self. Could just one little bit of this therapy truly have that much of an effect on me? Not sure.

Perhaps I'd still be feeling and wondering, if it weren't for the buzz kill. When I got was in the store, I received a call from my apartment complex office. Checks had been stolen from their drop box, and the boxes of the nearby complexes. And my check was among them.

I feel angry. It's as if the universe is keeping a very close count of my happys and sads and making my life balance on a very tight schedule. This happened after I jumped off a bridge and felt strong and confident --- five days later my car slid on the ice and ended up half in a ditched, totaled, and that event stole those feelings from me, leaving me feeling fearful and powerless. A year and a half ago, my mom was finally free to travel and do anything she wanted, mostly with me --- then she died of cancer.

Yes, I feel angry. And my world view that the universe has it in for me has not changed. Sorry, Julie. Maybe later.

Avoidance, Anger, & Angst

My mind has been in avoidance mode for many months now. Actually for a couple of years. When I find living to be overwhelming, I do something that keeps my mind distracted. I know this is not the most effective strategy for dealing with difficulty, but it's the strategy that I've used unconsciously for some time now.

It used to be that I read voraciously to distract myself. When I feel like it, I can read at least one and possibly two novels in an evening. Yes, I'm that fast. But for some reason, I haven't been as much of a reader for almost four years, except for about six months in a row in early 2008. The rest of this time I distracted myself with either highly detailed fantasy lives or the internet. And now, all I do is the internet. And sometimes the TV. I don't even go looking for new things on the internet anymore. I don't spend time looking at comics and LOLcats and YouTube videos. It's as if my mind has become the Sahara, almost totally devoid of life.

Currently, I'm avoiding everything. I'm avoiding the pain and grief of loss. I'm avoiding an ungodly amount of anger. And I'm avoiding a paralyzing amount of anxiety. Overwhelmed? Understatement.

I haven't done my therapy homework this week and tomorrow is therapy. And I'm not going to do it at this point. I was going to skip or phone in a post again, but I decided to at least put some effort in here.

I have a good friend whom I talk with, and lately we've discussed how I'm feeling, what I'm doing (or not doing). He is a fixer and always has many suggestions for what I should or could do. Given that he is a successful entrepreneur, a former jock, and a complete go-getter, what he says makes sense to him. He has seen the success of what he is suggesting.

I'm none of those things, and my track record leaves me with a feeling of impotence. For so many of the important things in life, I have a great deal of evidence that my own actions have little or no effect. I might as well flip a coin. Feeling helpless makes me anxious.

You know I'm trying to make this an anonymous blog. I don't want this traceable to my self because I don't want to deal with professional repercussions, or even some personal ones. I'd rather not have to worry about being judged by what I might say here.

Given than, I find that trying to be less detectable is making me less detailed. So, I'm going to at least be real. If not named. As if those who I know don't already know this is me.

Crap, my writing is getting a bit unclear. So, I'll end now and continue with Anger tomorrow.

Thanks for listening.