My Thoughts Hurt Me

Some time back, a woman I know online wrote about her young daughter's newly discovered OCD and said that her daughter's thoughts hurt her. That's what obsessive thinking is like: your thoughts hurt you. They beat at you without stopping.

Most of my obsessive thoughts are divided between being abusive to myself ("Stupid! Ugly! Fat! Irresponsible!", things that mostly have never or rarely been said to me) and visualizing bad things happening (such as using a knife to cut vegetables and cutting my hand open, or standing near a ledge and falling over to my death ... things that have never happened to me). Even benign thoughts such as getting a song stuck in my head hurts; I most often get such "earworms" that are of sad songs, songs of lost love and loneliness. And having any song stuck in my mind on a continuous 24/7 loop (whenever I wake up, there it is) makes me want to drill holes in my head to let the demons out (thus the reason why some cultures still practice trepanning).

So Karen the Phenomenal Therapist and I are going back to working on cognitive therapy instead of the other therapies for the time being. As she put it, better to work on what currently has the greatest negative effect on me. And my negative thinking is almost literally killing me. After all, you have to talk yourself into suicide, and I almost did. 

There is no rational reason for me to consider myself so worthless and disgusting, but I frequently do and what you believe about yourself tends to become true. I have come to believe that I don't have integrity or follow-through, and that I will eventually disappoint people, especially people I work for, and they will eventually become unhappy with me. Ta da! It happened with someone at work who I was working for. The fact that this occurred due to "broken thinking" that led to a self-fulfilling prophecy is besides the fact, almost like a coincidence, in the way my mind considers it.

So yesterday I began wearing a couple of wide rubber bands on my wrists (representing two different issues) to remind me to think about what I'm thinking and feeling. What am I saying to myself? How do I feel when I do so? 

As we get into the book that Karen recommends, which I've ordered for myself, I'll learn how to fix my broken thinking so I won't always have to be on the lookout for it. But by then, I will have developed the habit of mindfulness, which is a good thing to develop. 

The book is SOS Help for Emotions; Managing Anxiety, Anger & Depression by Lynn Clark, Ph.D, just in case you think it might be useful for you or someone you know. So far, it looks good. 

I hope we get through the book fairly quickly, because I see myself going nowhere good as long as I keep thinking the thoughts I currently think.

I am a Mystery

So said my therapist today. It takes awhile for a therapist and client to get to know each other, and for the therapist to discover important things about the client. I have a history of surprising or dumbfounding my therapists.

All of this stuff — the being barely functional, the depression, the anxiety, the paralysis — she thought was just since Mom died. Some things are so old-hat to me that I don't think to mention them, or else I think I already have.

Today's session was fairly free-ranging due to my unfocused and sedated mind. (My psych bumped me up to 4 mg of Lorazepam a day, which can be taken singly or in combination not to exceed two, and rather than diminishing my anxiety, it's just sedating me, which kind of increases my anxiety.) I led Karen the Wonder Therapist all over the place.

Eventually, I got stuck talking about my ex. This is the guy I moved in with and lived with for three years. This is the guy I wanted, and fully expected, to marry and have children with. This is the guy who so diminished and battered me verbally and emotionally that I think he broke something important inside me. This is the issue that Karen thinks may be more important to explore than the sexual abuse. And when we got to where I said I felt as if something had been broken inside me from my relationship with him, she thought for a moment and then said, "You are a Mystery." She had just discovered that my dysfunctions didn't start with Mom's dying. She perceived more of the big picture that is me.

I kind of like being a Mystery (yes, the capital M matters), but I'd rather be a Mystery for something more cool than my mental and emotional dysfunctions.

Current homework: attack the estate bills in small increments, earning computer privileges. Karen is one savvy therapist.

Something Else Tonight

No actual post. I'm doing my homework tonight and tomorrow morning. I'm at the point in the story where Mom dies, so that's going to kind of take up all I have to give for now.

Homework

I finished my homework for tomorrow: four hand-written pages of memories from last summer. I hand write it to make it more personal and immediate. For some reason, while I can write faster using a keyboard, I feel a distance between me and what I write. I am also more prone to edit as I write when I'm on a keyboard. I'll have to address this when I begin writing my own stuff again; I don't want to be distant from that.

In case you're wondering, I wrote about the end of Mom's radiation through her first fall --- a total of 2-3 weeks. I am constantly surprised at the amount of information I can bring up when I am writing about it. There is a lot of worry and fear in this part of the story. We were both still hopeful and optimistic at this point.

There is less than four weeks from the end of this week's homework until Mom died. I want to make that homework end the Sunday before an appointment, not on a week I don't have an appointment. It's going to be hard.

I've been thinking about the anniversary of Mom's death. I don't want to just hang out alone in my apartment here. I think that would be very bad. A friend suggested I do a peaceful ritual, which sounds nice. But I think I also need some people for the rest of the time around it, to help me not completely drown in grief. I'm just not sure what. I used to be a very decisive person.

So accomplishments today. Not too bad. And leaves me in an emotionally vulnerable place, just right for therapy tomorrow. Sigh. Yippee.

Among the Stars, Floating Freely

I've had difficulties coming up with something to write about. Part of it is that I haven't done anything dramatic in therapy lately and part of it is that I'm not feeling anything intense right now. 

I have to remind myself that this blog is not about entertaining anyone, not even myself. It's a journal of my journey through therapy and mental health. Quiet times are part of that journey — I don't think I could manage if my life were all sturm und drang.

Right now as I sit on the couch in the near dark, I feel like I'm floating almost weightless, wheeling in black space surrounded by stars in all directions, near and far. This floating is different from the floating of "broken thinking"; I am connected and centered. I guess this feeling is one of calmness, quietude, and restfulness, like the calm within the eye of a storm, or the quiet when all the neighbors are asleep and the traffic has died away.

My life contains so many difficult challenges right now, on all fronts, that I'm enjoying this hiatus, now that I've realized it's nothing pathological. I think that's one of the problems of being in therapy a lot: soon every mental state seems like a pathology. It's like when I first paid attention to "what cancerous moles and lesions look like" and I realized that most of my moles and freckles etc. have all the characteristics of "bad" ones! Yes, I am a touch hypochondriacal. Does the psychiatric community still use the word "neurotic"?

I'm going to enjoy the quiet as long as it lasts and take this time to focus on finding work and doing my damned therapy homework. More than likely, this next set of homework will take a chunk out of my quietude.

What Do You Think You Feel?

Most people consider thinking and feeling to be two separate things: you think thoughts or you feel emotions. Not me. I tend to mix them up a bit.

If I feel something, I have to analyze it. "I feel sad" — am I sure I feel sad, that it's not depression or a headache; why do I feel sad; what else am I feeling; is this a true feeling or a habitual one. If I can over-think it, I will. I was surprised when a previous therapist informed me that not everyone thinks about their feelings.

Then there are my thoughts. Often, if I have a thought that isn't one of my every-day thoughts (need milk; remember to take clothes from dryer; where is my turquoise ring), then I ask myself how I feel about that thought. "I wonder if I should move?" — do you feel lonely; why would you want to move, I thought you were happy here; it's scary to move; you'll be sad if you move.

Today in therapy, I read my therapy homework that I had managed to pull together this morning. Afterward, my therapist suggested I get back into the routine of writing my homework as a narrative. Doing so will incorporate the emotional aspects better. The last two times I've done this homework, I've presented it as bullet points of events. They've been quite unemotional. If I keep doing my trauma work that way, it won't provide me with any benefits. I don't know if I've been doing the homework like that because it's quick and easy or if I recognized the lack of emotional content in doing it that way and so went with the lesser emotional content path. Because, doing with full emotional content hurts like hell.

One of the problems with therapy, especially therapy that goes for years, is that nothing seems simple. Every thought, feeling, and action has layers and layers of meaning. A banana is not just  banana. I'm not sure if I was naturally this self-analytical before I started therapy or if therapy created it in me. Or if I had a tendency toward it (I think I've always thought about my feelings and felt about my thoughts to some extent) and therapy merely enhanced that in me. See? Always questions, seldom answers.

I would like things in my life to be simpler. I'd like to feel an emotion and simply feel it. No questions, no analysis. I'd like to think a thought and if I don't accept the thought as is, then the only thing I want to do to it is think other thoughts about it. No more screaming meemies or greyhounds on hamster wheels or anything else that keeps my mind going and going and keeping me awake or keeping me from simply thinking or feeling or doing in relative silence.

I'd like my mind to simply shut the fuck up already.

Homework in the Aether

Karen the Wonder Therapist had a good idea today: how about I write my homework for my blog post once a week. I'm writing almost daily for the blog, so I already have the time available and habitual. And either post it, because this is a blog about my therapy and growth, or delete it and just bring it to her, if it seems inappropriate or too much information to give.

It makes sense. I'm already writing, most of the time I'm already writing about my state of mind or my therapy, so I'm in the right attitude. But I wonder if my therapy homework would be wrong for my blog. It's details of a trauma; currently the trauma involving my mom. Of course, I can always not post it on the blog and just use the time for my homework.

The other thing that concerns me is that I write this blog around 9 pm, or later. That's not prime deep thinking time for me. I would do better to write my homework earlier in the day, no later than between 7 and 8 pm.

However, it's a very good idea and I will give it a chance. If it helps, then I win!

Today's therapy was mostly talking. We talked about how not to get too negative and too focused on what I'm afraid of (money, work). We talked about how I forget planned tasks and activities and how to remember them: my current idea is to print out the week's and day's tasks and post them in the places I go to a lot: kitchen and bathroom. Then I would always see them. The rest of it currently escapes me, but I'm sure it will come back.

After therapy, I did my usual post-therapy walk and grocery shopping, then a stop at a favorite fast-food place for lunner (late lunch/early dinner). Then that was the end of the productive part of my day.

I feel okay today. I've been a bit down; I know it will pass. Feeling lonely and wanting my mom is all. I had a good mom — I knew I could go to her and she would help me and reassure me (mind you, she did better at this when I was an adult, and not so good when I was a kid). She was my safety net. So, just missing her.

Broken Thoughts

I mentioned earlier that a blog I read had a post about Fear the other day; I may have mentioned that Fear and I are really far too close for my comfort. Even just reading the blog and the comments, most of which were about how others deal with fear and overcome fear, made all my fear reactions stand on end and I had to take a pill to calm me. I do not want to be that woman who "must take a little pill to calm me down."

Well, today was therapy. As I had not done my homework, we talked of other things, such as fear and how I'm doing on my behavior changes (we looked at what I had succeeded at, not what I didn't do, thank you Julie). The talk about fear merged into talk about some feelings I have that are pretty constant. I have quite a few, but we talked about how lost I feel, how I feel as if I'm floating, and how I feel untethered. That's when Karen the Wonderful Therapist took me through some focused Cognitive Therapy.

These thoughts are lies that my mind tells me and the only way to fix the distortions and overcome the lies (eventually getting rid of them altogether) is to combat them with truths. Luckily for me, she outlined true statements for me to use, because if we'd left it to me, I'd still be in her office!

For example, when I hear myself saying that I'm floating, I counter with I'm not floating. I am moving in a direction. I am making choices daily. For one thing, I choose to be in therapy to help me move in the direction I want. And that's all true. But I feel as if I need to write notes on my hands and arms to remember it all.  :)  Perhaps just a folded up cheat sheet I carry around.

It was very weird, hearing her statements for me to use to respond to these fear-based distortions in my head. I could really perceive the power of opposing these thoughts with true statements. For one thing, I have to think through the truths, so it's not just a mindless phrase to throw at an issue. And thinking will make it all stick better. It's like when I write something down, I remember it better, even if I don't reread what I wrote. (Not applicable to all things — I have to reread the truth responses to these first three distortions because they are complicated enough that I can't yet remember them off the top of my head.)

A lot of what I'm doing right now behaviorally and cognitively relates to grounding me, creating a foundation to build on. This same concept is what my outside life is about as well: I need to basically build a new life, and I don't have a stable foundation for it, either. The therapeutic work I'm doing will most likely help me to do the outside work; as one part stabilizes, so will the other parts. 

This is all more or less clear in my head. I'm not sure it's as clear on this blog. I can't say I know where I'm going yet. But I can say that I have a lot more hope that I will get there, wherever it is.

This is the Best. Therapy. EVAH!

Not Quite Succeeding

Well, I tried. This week, in addition to the regular therapy homework, I had my new behavioral homework, just a few tasks. And as simple and small were the challenges, it's going to take more than a week for me to incorporate everything successfully and routinely.

Therapy homework
Nope. Didn't even think of it until about an hour ago and a couple of hours before I go to sleep is not the best time.

Behavioral work

1. Take a shower and get dressed every day, preferably before noon.
   I showered every other day. I got dressed every day, although sometimes in lounge-around-the-house clothes. About half the time I managed this before noon. Lesson: Don't read more than one blog before beginning after-breakfast routine.
2. Eat three meals a day, plus a piece of fruit and/or a vegetable every day.
   Didn't manage the three meals at all. I still mess up the hours in my day. Started out okay with the fruit, but then let the rest of the fruit and some of the berries go bad. Managed that a third of the week. No vegies at all. Lesson: Create alarms to make me aware of meal times. Prepare vegies right after I bring them home. Be more vigilant and eat the fruit or vegie first.
3. Leave the apartment every day. Pick up my mail every day. Preferably mesh the two and walk to the mailbox every day to incorporate some body movement.
   Only one day did I manage the mesh. I think there were only two days when I didn't go out, thus two days (or maybe three) when I didn't pick up my mail. And the walk plus mail day was my only walk day. Lesson: Create a schedule for the week requiring me to leave. Walk the walking trail at the complex at least twice a week — maybe set an alarm for it. Pick up the mail when I return from my going out. Without an external reason, I just don't go. Still too inert.

I'm also still not getting to bed early. I haven't been to bed before 12 this week, and I hit 2-ish at least once, which makes me get up later. And I generally turn off my alarm and continue sleeping. I need to push myself (which I'm not yet succeeding at) to go to bed earlier, and I need to put my alarm across the room so I have to get up (the alarm doesn't stop until I physically turn it off, so this could work).

I also am finding I still need a Red Bull each day to help me stay awake. I had one all week and did fine. I didn't have one today and around two thirty was so tired I lay down. The alarm on my Mac woke me up just enough to turn it off. I went back to sleep until 6:30. Four hours. I wish I could simply take a nap for 30 minutes, rather than sleep through the afternoon. It cost me time on a project, pushing me even later.

So I had a couple of very small successes this week, plus I got some ideas about what might work for this coming week. I've been solidly this inert for months, so changing may take longer than I expected. Unfortunately, because I'm very tired of it. Plus, I'm not making any money, which puts me closer and closer to running out.

It doesn't seem fair, after all I've been through, to have to deal with all this, and alone. I know Life isn't fair, but I wish it would help me a bit. If I have to do it all myself, I just might end up living in my car. (Sorry, Julie.)

Baby Steps? Maybe for a Baby Bird!

Sunday:

Tiny, little, eensy baby steps. I did wash my dishes from my meals (but not from my evening snack yet). I did two smaller tasks and one load of laundry, but haven't approached my therapy homework or the two projects I have to do for other people. I did the easy stuff, basically. But I did something.

I still didn't leave the apartment. I did not do any exercise inside. And I have not picked up around the place. Still, I did something.

I tend to have overly high expectations for myself, making disappointment almost a given. The only way to avoid disappointment is to refrain from expectations. That is one of the things I am working toward.

Update: I did do my therapy homework, but that was it for the evening. No dishes.

Monday:

Today was therapy, and we discussed my plans. Karen believes that setting up the basic living habits — getting up, showering and getting dressed, and leaving the apartment, even to pick up my mail, which I should do daily — are fundamental. The extent to which a person lacks the basic living habits shows the extent of a person's depression. Guess where I am. So we agreed that getting those basic habits, plus adding a minor thing to work toward healthy eating habits (a fruit and a vegetable a day; or maybe it was a fruit or a vegetable a day — I'll do what I can without over stressing about it), is essential. These things will form the foundation on which to begin rebuilding my life skills, and, my life.

Today I went to therapy, went for a walk, went to the grocery store, filled the car with gas (when it was almost out), picked up some not-excessively unhealthy fast food, and that ended the productive portion of my day. I then watched movies on my laptop for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Tomorrow, I begin doing the basics. I'll keep track and post.

As for therapy: I did my homework, we went over it, and I cried. Not as cathartic as previously, but it was a shorter piece and it was a less-emotional piece. I think that the real catharsis and "emptying" occurs when the emotional content is higher, and the trauma greater.

Not a thrilling post. Just one of those daily kind. I expect there will be a lot of those, as I begin my new Self-Rebuilding procedure.

All About Me

Of course, this blog is all about me. What would be the point, otherwise? This blog is about my return from the darkness of the Abyss. But I think it's grown somewhat stale. Perhaps I need to have more focus, the way I need it in my therapy (and I haven't done my homework yet, but I've had something that has taken me out of the house every day this week, and going outside, right now, tends to use up a lot of energy). I don't have any kind of a routine in place. Anywhere.

Where was I? Stale. While I don't want to shake things up (that would make me nauseated and mess up the serenity I'm so desperate to develop), I do want to develop a schema. Something that would make this blog more a part of my therapy rather than a place to blurp up my latest thoughts and feelings. This blog could be a useful tool; I'm not currently using it as one.

In fact, most of my posts are first and only drafts, requiring few or no revisions. On the one hand, I'm very proud of the writing skills that enable me to create what I consider good posts in an hour, or less. On the other hand, what could these be if I put some more thought and effort into them? I need to make sure I don't make this blog a burden. I have too many burdens right now.

I'll spend some time thinking about this and when I figure out what I want to do, I'll tell you. Until then, I'll continue with these short, 15-minute posts and the long 1-hour posts.

Decent day — good day

When I was thinking of the title for tonight's post, I thought "I've had a good day.  A decent day." The fact that I downgraded it from good to decent struck me. Why do I so often diminish the good, but the bad is always way up there — awful, horrible, terrible? When I exchanged greetings with someone I know around the complex, he said he was "good" and I said I was "not too bad." Am I afraid that I will attract The Bad by giving attention to The Good? It's weird, whatever it is.

Therapy Day today. I still hadn't done my homework, so we talked about all the other crap. Then I learned that while I thought I'd been doing cognitive therapy in the past, I hadn't done it in the orderly manner that Karen does it. 

We were discussing, hell, I don't remember all of it specifically.  We discussed my living in the past and the future. We discussed my meltdowns of last week. Then she asked me if she'd gone over the Cognitive Distortions checklist. No, she hadn't, and I'm glad she thought to do so today. I have a lot of the distorted thinking patterns on her list. For example, All or Nothing thinking, where everything is black or white. When my meltdowns occur, that's the first place I go. Or "Mental filter: you pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water." Might as well put my picture on that one. One bad thing can color the rest of a predominantly good thing for me. 

My current homework is to note these distortions when I think them, label them, then replace them with corrected, undistorted thoughts.

I've been in therapy for over half my life. I was told that much of it was cognitive therapy. But I've never had it targeted this well or been given such specific information and ways to deal with it.

My other homework is to get some balance in my life with the computer. I've let the computer be my escape from reality, my distraction from thinking or living. Now my intention is to use the computer as a tool — for writing, for communicating, for doing work — and to not use it for escapist activities. Nope, no planning any prison breaks on the computer for me! Oh, not that kind of escapist. And if you check out my blog list down on the right, you'll see "zen habits." In my previous post I mentioned the blog author's book, Focus. Well part of that book talks about becoming addicted to the computer and allowing it to control you rather than the other way around. Luckily for me, this book has come to me at the right time to help me with this specific task. Oh, and with the next one.

In order to deal with my forever living in the past and the future rather than the present, my homework is to practice mindfulness and get out of my head. Think outwardly, not inwardly. Yeah, that will be easy. I worked on it while on my short walk. "Oh look, pretty trees. Ow, my feet hurt. Listen to the birds. The sun is in my eyes. Smell the scent of trees and pine needles and dust. My feet still hurt." It was like dragging a toddler along on my walk! Which, in some way, I guess I was. That inner child thing.

And, of course, I need to continue on my trauma homework.

It's a whole lot of work, certainly. I must make it a priority or I'll never do any of it. And at my advanced age, it's high time I stop suffering from my past and fearing my future and simply begin living my life. Because being miserable has lost its glamour somehow.

Deep thoughts #2 --- Going ... up?

Do you ever find, after having been terribly sick or terribly down for a long time, that you resist feeling or seeming or accepting being better?

For example, I have bitten my nails most of my life and over the past decade and a half have managed to slowly make time periods between biting them longer and longer. Then last summer, when the troubles began to get worse, I began biting my nails again. I bit all of them, at some point, to the point of pain. 

A friend recently pointed out how they are growing again. "No they aren't," I said, pointing to the shortest one. "I bit this off just recently." "Yes," she said, "but I see white on all of them."

I wanted to argue with her. I'm not letting my nails grow. I'm still biting them because I'm Not Better Yet! I'm not getting better!

Why? Why would I resist any sign that I may be rising from the Abyss? Why would I want to continue to be or appear to be suffering or ill or unbelievably depressed?

Maybe I'm afraid that if I seem to be getting better, then no one will have patience with me if I'm not completely better — Now! — and all the time hereafter. Or maybe they'll think I was malingering: how long do you have to be in a Bad Place or State before you have legitimacy?

Or maybe I'm afraid I'm doing a disservice to my mom's memory by getting better now. Or maybe to myself in some odd way: if I'm well now, was I really that down and unreachable or was it really just ... all in my mind. Nerves. All those things that say I'm just a hypochondriac or just trying to get attention. Or maybe that I'm actually crazy. But something.

I have honestly turned the corner and I want to live now. That's an amazement in itself.

I'm still not doing my homework regularly, but I believe that my sleeping sickness over my vacation trumps that. Once I have the sleepiness under control and am feeling more me-normal again, the new "better-ness" will be more perceptible.

I'm going to show it off. Let others make their own judgments. I've been down to the Abyss yet again — my third time? my fourth or fifth? — and I beat it yet again. How many others can say that?

Tidal effects, perhaps

I had thought that, being away from my every day for two weeks, I would be able to write. Write the blogs, write my therapy homework ....

I was mistaken. Instead, I have had friends stay overnight, which has been great. I've had a few just-for-an-hour visitors. When I've had no visitors, I've slept. And slept. And slept. One day, I got up at 1pm (bedtime by about 10), ate, went back to sleep at 2, up at 4, drifted off for most of the next 5 hours, up at 9, in bed by 11:30. Slept great. If nothing is demanding my attention, and sometimes even it if is, I want a nap and I want it NOW. I'm taking a drive inland a bit in a couple of days and I'm going to have to buy some energy drinks just to make the trip both ways!

Even being physically uncomfortable doesn't keep me awake: it makes me want to sleep. I am sometimes peaceful and comfortable and sometimes quite twitchy and uncomfortable. But I always want to sleep.

Maybe I need to sleep a lot to make up for all that grieving. I don't know. I guess I'll just ask my therapist.

Hey! It's 9 o'clock! It's almost bedtime again! Yay!

Running in place

I haven't been so good at keeping up with the myriad details of my everyday life. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone. Bills, picking up, cleaning, phone calls, record-keeping, even getting together with friends — all of this has been difficult if not impossible for me in the past months.

I've even found it difficult to keep up with my therapy homework. Three hours ago, I started my homework for tomorrow ... and then spent two hours on the phone with one of my best friends. Talking with my friend was terrific; we haven't talked in a few weeks. But now it's after 10 pm and I should finish things up and go to bed.

.... Who the hell am I kidding? I haven't gone to bed before 2:30 in months. Often I'm up until 4 am (Hey Julie! ::waves::). Unfortunately I don't spend my time doing anything useful in any way.

My sleep schedule became completely fucked up in 2007, after my cat died. In the aftermath of the death of my companion of over a decade, I realized how much more she was to me than simply one of my most-loved companions. She was also my security system. If I woke in the night —a not-unusual occurrence — I'd automatically look to her. If she was asleep, or simply looking back at me as if wondering why I weren't asleep as I should be, I could lay my head back on my pillow and drop off easily. But if she were looking about alertly, then I had to get up and walk the house. Once I thought I saw someone in the back yard and I called the police. Several other times it was deer in the back yard; it is quite disturbing to carefully pull a curtain aside to look out ... and see a long deer face looking back at you! I was definitely the more startled.

After my furry security system died, I routinely woke in a drenching sweat from dreams of gangs of intruders hunting me down in my home. The sleeping pills my doctor gave me made the nightmares worse, so I quit them and began staying up later and later. To occupy myself during the late hours, I built a highly detailed imaginary life and I whiled away the hours between 9 pm and 3 am with this life, with listening to Vonda Shepards "Maryland,"and with watching the moon wash across my bed and the floor in the next room. It was pleasant.

Now I have no place that is washed by the moon and my heart is once more broken, even worse than before. I don't currently have anything to look forward to in the morning, or in the moment after that, or the moment after that, so I stay up, surfing the same sites over and over, and running in place in the hope that the next moment doesn't come any sooner.

Lost in the aisles

In therapy today, we wandered. I neglected to do my homework last week due to the usual, plus some days where I couldn't sleep until 3 am. (I am feeling somewhat better, which means I cannot get away without my homework next week.)

Instead of homework, we talked about other things. Last week, when I was making a comparison to illustrate how I felt at one point, I told her a story about something that happened when I was a child. It happened several times: I lost my parents in a department store. I would stop to look at something and when I was done I'd look around and they would be nowhere near me. I'd go from aisle to aisle looking, panic growing inside me. When I was too short to look over the top of the aisles, it was like I was caught in a maze; even when I went to the same aisle again (in case my parents were looking for me), it looked different. And I never asked another person for help. 

I always found them. And every time they'd say "Oh? You were lost? We didn't know that." Way to go folks. Kind of lost parenting points there. Even to this day, I stay close to friends when I'm shopping with them because I feel that panic start to rise if I cannot find them immediately.

Since my mom's death, I've experienced a lot of that lost, panicky feeling. Today my therapist told me something she'd forgotten to say last week, which was that she sees me being in that place of being lost and unable to find my family — permanently. And now I have to find a way to become okay with myself and with being here. Without my parents, my brother. Just me.

The idea of being lost in the department store for the rest of my life punched me in the stomach I know she didn't mean it that literally, but I am a literal person in unexpected ways. And I kind of do feel as if I am lost in the department store. One of the darkly funny things about that is that some of the scariest movies I've ever seen — seen when I was a kid — took place in department stores.

Have you ever been lost? Did you look for your parents, or did they look for you? Who was panicking and who was calm? I've known kids who felt it was their parents who were lost, not themselves. No panic. Just hanging out doing what they wanted until their parents came running to find them. These kids didn't understand why their parents were so upset. I suppose I have to become that kid, because no one is going to run around looking for me.

What do you think are the qualities a person needs to adapt to the department store, to being alone? Yes, i know I have friends, good friends, but in the end, it is me and my aisle in the store and no one running around trying to find me. I've got to get home by myself this time. I'm not sure how.

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.

Delayed actions

I sat in therapy and cried today. At the end of the session, I pointed out to my therapist that she was now in a very exclusive club. I have rarely gotten even teary in other therapy sessions and with other therapists. Today I was in tears for most of the session.

She suggested that I not worry about accomplishing anything right now. I am so depressed that I feel proud of myself when I take a shower and put on actual clothes.

I know that for people who have never experienced this kind of depression, it is very difficult to understand. I was trying to explain it to a friend today. He's one of those people who turn adversity into motivation. He wins. He succeeds. He is trying very hard to understand what I am going through.

The main thing that I can articulate is that my cognitive functions are almost completely cut off from everything else. I'll think "I could pick up a little around here" and ... nothing happens. I don't move. I simply move on. "I don't really need any more ice cream," I think to myself as I open the freezer, dish ice cream out, and sit down to eat.

So my therapist isn't expecting any homework from me right now. I'm really not capable. But I see my new psychiatrist tomorrow and both my therapist and I hope that she can help me get my brain chemicals squared away. Because I am not functioning.

Besides, my money isn't going to last that long.

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.

Phoning It In

Sorry, folks, but I just don't have it in me to write a real post tonight. I was feeling better for much of this week, but began to go downhill yesterday and today my anxiety is back. I took half a pill about mid-day when I needed to function, thinking I wouldn't go out because it does make me a little loopy. But then a good friend called and wanted to get together for a little while, and we don't get together much, so I went out, feeling a little loopy. I have a commitment for tomorrow, so I have to function then, but only for a few hours in the middle of the day.

Next week I have some major commitments; I need to be able to function, focus, and drive. Go, me.

In addition, I haven't done my therapy homework yet. Nothing like waiting until the last moment!