Tag: #CBT

As If & I Don’t Care

I was meandering through a journal entry yesterday. (Meandering is like a mash-up of free writing about a specific subject and stream-of-consciousness writing.) I wrote something that was both new and not new to me but I recognize it as my new norm. I was discussing the efficacy and practice of a mantra for love and worthiness.

I have come to the decision it doesn’t matter what I thing/feel/see when it come to my worth and, well, me. I am acting as if:

  • I’m worthy
  • I’m of value
  • I am talented
  • I am loveable
  • I am loved
  • I am sane

I wish I could act as if I was a size six but that would make me delusional. And I don’t want anti-delusional meds, so I won’t go there. 🙂 Or maybe instead of “As If” it’s more “I Don’t Care.” I don’t care what the evil pixie thinks of me, says to me or tries to trip me back into the darkness. I don’t care because I control my life. Yes, some days the pixie adds weight/dumbbells to my emotional baggage I carry around but I get through and continue to go towards my goals. I lament my speed and compare it to the speed I should/could be going if I wasn’t bogged down by the dead weight of my emotional dysfunction. I will continue to move forward one bag at a time, one inch at a time, one breath at a time.

Journal Entry from 06/06/26*

I keep waiting for ‘sanity’ to rise up and save me, I realize. Sanity isn’t a white knight to rush in an sweep me into the world of normalcy, like it’s a fairytale castle. I am the princess and the dragon in my own fable, I know that. I have the tools I amassed through therapy, and perhaps my shed could be larger for storage of the excess baggage I carry, but even with the baggage, I am not without the ability to tilt at my own monsters. When I get tired, and my guard is down, the pixie uses the shadows in my brain to creep up and discourage me. “As if” adds light to those times, but it still feels like I’m still giving the darkness power. “I don’t care” feels like the ball is in my court and though I might foul or make the basket, it is in my hands not in something else’s.

I have bee using a self-care app called Finch. It’s like Tomagachi (electronic pet from the 00’s) got it’s MFT in CBT. I’ve not been doing it long, Tuesday will be two weeks, but it’s simple. It allows me to track my mood and name my emotions when I need it and I can look back over weeks and see my progress. I’ve only told two people I’m doing it so I don’t have a lot (or any) friends on the app. Which is fine. My Finch’s name is Harlow. At night, just before I put my head down I do three minutes of breathing designed to help with sleep, and it does. I get up with a plan and I follow through because I want to mark everything off that list. But it is something you do every/other day/week/month kind of thing. I like it right now, so if you’re looking for something to help you track and prove you are just getting through some days, there is an app for that. If you join, please be my friend: 7Q9WR39BGK.

* My journal entries tend to jump from one thought to the next without grace, so please forgive if the quote seems a little jittery. I could have corrected it but that would defeat the purpose of quoting the journal.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Dreams show us how to find meaning in our lives, how to fulfill our own destiny, how to realize the greater potential of life within us.” Marie-Louise Von Franz in The Way of the Dream

Early this morning I dreamed a dream where I was trying to explain to someone what it is like when you are drowning in a depressive episode. Even when you know what it is, that it will pass, and you will be okay if you don’t do anything to fuss with it. It still hurts, it still impedes activities of daily living. and you rarely have the words to express…

This is the example I gave to the dream inquisitor:

I once lived in a town called Victorville. It was high in the California desert where scrub and Joshua trees are the dominate flora broken up occasionally by a bright yellow daisy. In the summer it’s 120 degrees but it would drop down to a brisk 90 at night. In the winter it would be 75 during the day and you’d wake up to ice and snow in the morning. I loved winter there. But the example comes from early spring when it rained. It never rained normal, if there is such a thing. Most of the time it would shower for like two minutes, barely dislodge the dust on the windshield and then the sun comes back. Except this one time when I was out on the street with my companion when the sky darkened ominously and the heavens opened up and dropped water so fast the earth wasn’t ready to absorb it. Within a few minutes, water was rushing down the street like a river. Not deep enough to jump the curb (thankfully) but deep enough to know not to cross the street. Then like a faucet being turned off the rain stopped, the clouds moved and the sun came out again. Within minutes, the water stopped flowing and the overworked storm drains worked according to plan, and it was like nothing happened. Except me and my companion were soaked to the bone.

You’d think I’d say ‘the desert represents the depression’, but no. Yes, depression is a dearth of serotonin on the brain, but that’s not what it feels like. Throughout my life I have had the general sprinkling of depression where it is dark and there are some drops keeping me from speeding along in life until it passes, I mean, who doesn’t. But that downpour where it felt like God Himself was draining his tub onto the earth, is the feeling when, for no good reason, the sky in your emotional landscape clouds over ominously and then it rains so hard and so fast you don’t have time to correct it. You are trapped in a downpour without protection and all you can do is watch as the emotions rush by you trying to pull you into the current. You can’t move, you can’t protect yourself. All you can do is take you social meds and wait. You fight against the urge to step into the torrent and be washed away, but mostly you just wait. You practice your CBT techniques but you wait. People see it as being ‘lazy’, but you wait. Then the drops stop like a faucet being turned off, the light comes back out, and the rushing water turns into rivulets and then disappears. Everything dries up and you go back to the work you left when it all started as if nothing happened in the world, because to the world, nothing happened.

The image is comforting and I now have words to explain what it feels like. It’s a memory of mine which comes up when I see a hard rain. The desert isn’t prepared for a lot of rain because, well, it’s a desert. They trust the water will be quickly absorbed into the sandy loam before anything horrific could happen. Except for those two or three showers a year where the rain falls faster than the absorption rate and the water is flowing swifter than the storm drains can catch. I wish the depression would hold to such a minimalist schedule, but it doesn’t. But unlike Victorville (when I was there anyway), I now have the infrastructure to be like an umbrella. I am able to protect myself from the emotional onslaught of painful, relentless drops. CBT, journaling, blogging and even talking to a family member or a friend can help during the storm. The storm passes, you take a shower and change your clothes and you go back out into the sun and work until the rain comes again. Thus is my life.

Coping Strategy For The Nonce

The world, not just our nation, is in chaos. Wars, incursions, kidnapping, school shootings and women and mothers are being destroyed by the dozens. Some in places where their safety has been guaranteed by a democratic constitution. As a woman who is known to be mouthy, that kind of frightens me…..A LOT! I try not to think beyond prayers to the families because that path leads to panic and sleepless nights.

Unemployment gives me time to think. Its helpful to untangle the plot knots I often find myself ensnarled in, but not so good for the anxiety which makes it impossible to concentrate. Writing gives me escape from my stress and anxiety, crocheting provides an outlet and a filler for times when I’m trying to ruminate on my problems. It also fills a need for me to help out in the world without totally getting involved….by that I mean leaving my bedroom and bird and actually putting actions to my beliefs. Crochet isn’t going to be enough while this country spirals through the machinations of a greedy and slowly dissolving mind.

So, what to do….

A friend at church has started TRAC Indivisible which sent me to a site http://www.mobilize.us. It’s a platform dedicated to help us to, well, mobilize and realize we aren’t alone in this struggle to restore the America like-minded patriots believe in. After signing up for TRAC Indivisible mobilize.us directed me to SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) group. I’ve attended one Zoom meeting which covered the wins and goals for the nationwide group. The first meeting for TRAC Indivisible is IRL this Saturday and I can see what I can physically do. Talking about it isn’t enough any more, it only adds to the angry and terrifying spinning in my head. I’m hoping by doing something tangible, like the crochet does for the anxiety in my immediate sphere of influence, I will surmount my fear and anxiety over the local, national and global terror playing out on all news outlets every freaking day.

If the current state of the union is tweaking your anxiety and you think doing something will help, please check out SURJ at http:mobilize.us. You will need to certify yourself, that you’re not a bot or whatever. If you are in my area, Tracy and San Juaquin County, you can sign up for TRAC Indivisible.

I’m afraid I will fail. My CBT rebuttal to that unkind thought is: Failing means I tried. Failing means I was moving forward. Not all paths are marked, not all roads are paved and sometimes you have to stick your toe in hot water before you realize it’s perfect for a long soak.