It is hard for me to chart my moods. It was one of the first practices I used when I first began therapy, and I kept it up for a few months ... but then I ghosted on myself.
I fall very easily victim to the "however I am feeling right now is how I have always felt, and will always feel" phenomenon. This goes for the bouts of no good very bad depression and the all-too-brief moments of happiness. When I'm sad or anxious, I find it difficult to imagine having felt any other way -- though, obviously, my rational brain knows this not to be true. I have trouble believing that I will ever experience happiness again. On the flip side, when I'm feeling more upbeat, I wonder whether I have clinical depression at all. Both of these thought processes are great/terrible examples of the distorted thoughts that I experience as part of my condition.
Right now? I'm not feeling good. I haven't accomplished as much of the personal writing as I wanted to over the past several weeks. I moved back home. I am worried about the future and ashamed of the past. I am living -- despite two years of dedicated mindfulness practice (which is essentially the hard as fuck art of living in the moment) -- anywhere BUT where I am. My brain is rattling.
Hold the phone, this computer (my own laptop is tragically deceased, so I am borrowing my dad's 2007 HP laptop until it, uh, magically comes back to life) has Paint, so here is an artistic representation of ALL OF MY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW.
Starting things is particularly difficult when I am experiencing a low. I have plans. I have excellent intentions. I have to do lists. I HAVE TO DO LISTS WITH TO DO LISTS. And yet, this weekend, I've done barely a thing besides curl up in bed with my cat and read a book about other people feeling shitty. Which was hard enough to do. I am in a moment where I am struggling to hold onto hope that the medicine, the therapy, the seemingly endless self-work that I do to protect myself -- and other people -- from myself will actually ever work.
But then, that seems problematic: I shouldn't quantify healing. I shouldn't give it an end date, because there's no such thing. Happiness ought to be a process, not an end result.
Today I meditated for a whole thirty-some minutes. And, guys, I have adult ADD like a motherfucker so I was pretty proud of being able to sit still for that long without giving up and throwing my computer out of the window. It was a shame-release meditation, which ended with the mantra (sorry for the spoiler?): I am enough. I have always been enough.
It's so simple, isn't it? But believing that. Really, truly believing that with my guts and my veins and hot blood and every tiny atom that creates me? That's a lot harder.
I fall very easily victim to the "however I am feeling right now is how I have always felt, and will always feel" phenomenon. This goes for the bouts of no good very bad depression and the all-too-brief moments of happiness. When I'm sad or anxious, I find it difficult to imagine having felt any other way -- though, obviously, my rational brain knows this not to be true. I have trouble believing that I will ever experience happiness again. On the flip side, when I'm feeling more upbeat, I wonder whether I have clinical depression at all. Both of these thought processes are great/terrible examples of the distorted thoughts that I experience as part of my condition.
Right now? I'm not feeling good. I haven't accomplished as much of the personal writing as I wanted to over the past several weeks. I moved back home. I am worried about the future and ashamed of the past. I am living -- despite two years of dedicated mindfulness practice (which is essentially the hard as fuck art of living in the moment) -- anywhere BUT where I am. My brain is rattling.
Hold the phone, this computer (my own laptop is tragically deceased, so I am borrowing my dad's 2007 HP laptop until it, uh, magically comes back to life) has Paint, so here is an artistic representation of ALL OF MY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW.
Yeah, so, that's sort of how things are at the moment.
Starting things is particularly difficult when I am experiencing a low. I have plans. I have excellent intentions. I have to do lists. I HAVE TO DO LISTS WITH TO DO LISTS. And yet, this weekend, I've done barely a thing besides curl up in bed with my cat and read a book about other people feeling shitty. Which was hard enough to do. I am in a moment where I am struggling to hold onto hope that the medicine, the therapy, the seemingly endless self-work that I do to protect myself -- and other people -- from myself will actually ever work.
But then, that seems problematic: I shouldn't quantify healing. I shouldn't give it an end date, because there's no such thing. Happiness ought to be a process, not an end result.
Today I meditated for a whole thirty-some minutes. And, guys, I have adult ADD like a motherfucker so I was pretty proud of being able to sit still for that long without giving up and throwing my computer out of the window. It was a shame-release meditation, which ended with the mantra (sorry for the spoiler?): I am enough. I have always been enough.
It's so simple, isn't it? But believing that. Really, truly believing that with my guts and my veins and hot blood and every tiny atom that creates me? That's a lot harder.
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