Once again, events have led me to a different blog post topic than I'd been planning on. I'd intended to focus on affirmations, which I've been trying to use, and which many others have told me have worked for them. This was to have gone live yesterday. But when I woke up yesterday morning, I felt so low that I knew that affirmations were the last thing on my mind. There are good days and there are bad days during a recovery. Yesterday was a very bad day, which is why this blog post is a day late. There's nothing like trying to describe how to be upbeat and recover while feeling oneself like recovery is impossible and unattainable. Days like that are bound to happen, and they raise a lot of hard questions:
Is anything I'm doing working?
Am I always going to feel this way?
On days like that, there's a line from a song that I always think of: "How will I get through tomorrow if I can't make it through today?" To me, that line is epitome of what stark depression really feels like. It embodies the sense that even if I somehow get through the apparently endless hours of one day, I'll be confronted by all the same realities the next day. But of course in practice, it's not like that. Some days are better, and some days are worse. As time goes on, the good days get more and more frequent, and the bad days less and less, but that still means they are going to happen. When they do, they'll stir up all the doubts and the self-recrimination. The one I always come back to on the worst days is, "why do I even try? I always end up right back here in the end." This defeatest attitude feels very real at those moments, yet is clearly an utterly flawed attitude. "Always," huh? Do I really always end up right back there? Of course not! It's just the darkest parts of myself, trying to drag me down, utilizing all the cynicism at their command to convince me that the worst thoughts on a bad day are somehow the truth, and that deep down "I know that to be true." (just like Luke knows that, deep down, the evil Vader is his father...do we really know things like that?)
Still, all logical arguments really feel like they come to absolutely nothing on those terrible days. So what to do?
1. Accept it. If I'm already depressed, just what I don't need to do is heap on top of that, "man I stink, what a failure I am, how dare I be depressed again, I'm so pathetic and weak!" Alright, I'm depressed. It's okay.
2. Fight back. There is always that little demon on my shoulder, ready to pop out during those down times and tell me every single little thing I'm doing wrong, why I should just curl up and give up, why I'm alone and will always be alone and why that's entirely my own damn fault. It's hard, when feeling so low, to even muster the energy to stop this inner-abuser from being nasty to you, but the counter-arguments don't have to be well thought out or even all that accurate (the inner demon isn't telling the truth, why should I when fighting back?). I find even just a simple, "shut the f- up, you're wrong, it's not like that" helps a lot. Saying it out loud - though it causes the people I'm walking past on the sidewalk to look at me like I'm a maniac - helps even more. And actually, there's something liberating about being looked at like a maniac. ;) Usually, I find that when I acknowledge the demon, it gets even nastier - but it also gets even more out there. "I'll never be happy," it'll say, or "I'm such a failure." This is that demons weakness! When it fights back, it goes off the deep end in terms of making any actual sense, and this is when even when I feel entirely listless, the demon has made it so easy to fight back I can manage it. "I'm not a failure! Here are my successes!" List them. All of them. Even the stupid insignificant ones. It'll take a while. "How can I be a failure, when I've done all these things?"
3. One thing at a time. I ran a bunch of errands yesterday, and when I got home, I wanted to putz around on my computer, except for the big problem: my router was broken. The new router was bought during the errands, but the task of actually hooking it up seemed entirely overwhelming. "Even once it's hooked up, I'll still have all my internet work to do, groups to moderate, FB to read..." All the tasks tied together became crushing. And in the background was the demon, whispering, "I'm probably wrong about the router being the problem anyway, I'm going to open this box, and then it still won't work, and I won't be able to return it and get my money back, and I won't be able to figure out what the problem is, and then what will I do?" The only way to vanquish this kind of demon is just to do the task. One task at a time. All those other things that may or may not happen after that task are incidental. I can always decide after I've done the first task that I don't have the energy to do the others, and that's okay. And it won't always work out. Sometimes, the router won't be why the internet is broken. But you don't know if you don't try - in my case, there were some sticky moments when it looked like I wouldn't get things running again, but it WAS the router, and I'm back online, and if I hadn't tried, it'd still be hanging over my head, with the added recrimination of, "I know I should have done that yesterday..."
4. Take care of yourself. Part of what happened to me yesterday was a misfortune of timing. Two appointments and a bunch of errands meant that I ate breakfast at 7:30 in the morning, and as 2 PM came I still hadn't eaten lunch. I eat pretty small meals, and I'm used to eating three times a day at roughly the same times, so this was a serious problem. Yet I convinced myself that I should wait until I got home to eat, and it was only as I stood on the train platform at 2 that I finally realized that this was self-abuse pure and simple. I had a little food in my bag, and if I ate it, I KNEW I'd feel better, yet even that seemed like too much effort. I actually had a nearly 10 minute internal debate about eating a bagel. "But I bought this to eat with dinner," whined my inner demon. "I want it THEN, not now." Well, I ate the damn bagel. And I felt better. Because food, and hydration, and exercise, and hormonal cycles, all have a profound impact on this stuff, and it's impossible to sort out what is actual depression and what is just dehydration until I've taken the stupid drink of water.
5. Do as much as you can...and then don't do anything else. When all was said and done, I did get through most of my internet responsibilities and fun things yesterday evening. I took it one thing at a time, and each one felt like a small weight off my shoulders. "I feel like crap, but at least that's done now," I thought each time. And I triaged - if it didn't really need to be done, I didn't do. It can be hard to evaluate when depressed, and the little demon goes, "aw, come on, REALLY? I know I could get that done. It's such a small task." But rational brain knows better, and can evaluate - yes, I COULD get it done, but it's not important. There's no obligation to immediately and perfectly complete entirely unimportant tasks. Gotta draw the line somewhere. And when I hit the wall...I stopped. And I sat on the couch, and I ate dinner, and watched some TV, and worked on some craft stuff - and having reached that point, and let that point be okay, and not kept pushing, was the first time all day that I started to feel okay.
So, by evening I felt a lot more like myself. Was it eating? Drinking? Was it getting done some of the things I wanted to get done? Was it telling the demon to go back to hell? Was it just the contentment of knowing that even as low as I'd felt, I'd still gotten a lot done? Or was it something else entirely out of my control, a biochemical shift of some kind? I'll never know. But I think that it was a combination of all these things, that these and other strategies can help pull one out of a funk. I don't feel good today. I've felt good very few days this winter. But I made it through yesterday, and that means I can make it through today, and if I can spend more days than not feeling neutral to okay, I know I'll get through to those happier times.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Be Nice To Yourself!
This popped up on Pinterest, and it's so true (and so in line with the things I'm talking about in this blog) that I had to share:
Monday, February 20, 2012
Self-Acceptance
Last night, I cried myself to sleep. It was the first time I've ever actually cried until I just couldn't stay awake another instant. I'm not sharing this for the sympathy vote. I'd had a long day, which hadn't been all bad by any means, and it was nearly midnight when I got home, exhausted. I'd known I was close to a good hard cry all day, I'd felt it creeping up on my at all kinds of inappropriate moments, like on the train home, and so I wasn't surprised that it happened. Despite that, I was angry with myself. "What's the matter with you?" my inner monologue demanded. "You cried last night, why do you need to cry again tonight?" I had no answer for this. "Anyway, why are you still so upset about this, it's been almost two months! Man, you're weak."
And I realized - this past week I'd managed to forget one of the most important things I'd learned about the recovery process: self-acceptance.
If you're anything like me - and if you're NOT anything like me, you're likely wasting your time reading this blog! - this will all sound familiar. My inner monologue needs to be heavily policed - a fact that I only discovered last month, when I realized how badly I was treating myself. Generally, according to it's point of view, things in life fall in to two categories.
A book I read in January (Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman) talks about this issue, identifying this sort of attitude as pessimism, and suggesting that it can be combated by, essentially, positive thinking. An inner monologue that, instead of identify things as being due to unchangeable personal deficiencies, identifies things as being do to temporary external agency - and therefore changeable and surrmountable with renewed effort. There's something to that, I think, and I recommend the book - a friend loaned it to me, and it was very interesting and eye opening. However, there's more to it than that, I think.
Flash back to Summer, 2001. I can hardly believe it's been 10 and a half years since then. The summer after my freshman year of college, I came home at a difficult time. I had a blast that first year, but it had fallen apart near the end, and I came home leaving behind a new boyfriend about whom I felt very strongly and a group of friends who were already starting to ostracize me because of how I'd gone about getting that new boyfriend (pretty much stealing him from a friend, though of course things are never that simple!). I was ashamed and miserable, on the one hand, and very lonely, missing the significant other, missing my friends, on the other. I had a job for the first time, and three months before I'd be back at school. I sunk in to a very deep depression. From the depths of that, about half-way through the summer, I was walking to work on a sunny day when a thought suddenly crossed my mind. "It's all what you make it," was my realization. What does that mean? It means that if I sat there going, "ah, me, I'm so miserable, life is horrible, I'm so unhappy, I won't even get to see Jason for another two weeks, alas!" constantly, then of course I would be unhappy, and I'd continue to be unhappy. But suppose I tried a different tactic? "Hey, life isn't so bad, it's a gorgeous sunny day, I'm listening to great music, and I'll be seeing Jason in two weeks!" Suddenly, there was a spring in my step, and a smile on my face. All the problems were the same, but I'd put a new face on them, and it seemed...better. And this strategy has been one of my leading coping mechanisms ever since.
During the last two months, though, I've begun to think I've had it all wrong. Or, perhaps, not all wrong, but that I missed a very critical piece of this. Yes, I'm finally getting to self-acceptance.
In my exercise in positive thinking, recasting the situation for the best, there was always a tacit implication: I shouldn't feel sad, I shouldn't be low, I should be happy, there's something wrong with me for wallowing in the dark side when I could be smiling on the bright side. I'm a worse, weaker person because I can't appreciate all the good things that I have, only focus on the things I want and don't have. This is where I've been the past week - a constant refrain of, "why are you still so upset? what's the matter with you? any normal person would be over this by now!" This will never, ever work. It just creates a double sadness - there's the unhappiness already being felt from whatever cause (for me, it all relates to my break up), and then there's the additional unhappiness of self-recrimination. I'm sad because I've lost something that matters to me, and on top of that I'm a lousy person for feeling sad.
Last night, while I was crying, I finally remembered. This is all wrong. It's all well and nice to look on the bright side, but there's more to it than that. I used to drive that boyfriend from my freshman year of college (we ended up together for five years...) nuts with this - he'd come to me upset about something ("I was sick at work today!") and I'd invariable come back with something cheerful, like, "well, at least you're feeling better now." It's not that it's not okay to say something like that, but it's not the first step. The first step needs to be, "I'm sorry that you weren't feel well! What was the matter?" I've learned how to do that in my interactions with other people, but it's only recently that I've realized that I have to do this in my interactions with myself, too. Not, "stop feeling sad, there's so much to be happy about," but...
"I accept that I feel sad about this. Why do I feel sad about this?"
Once you've got the acceptance, once you've made yourself feel comfortable and safe, opened up a dialog where it's safe to say whatever it is that has made you unhappy, no matter how unreasonable those things may seem, then you're off to a good start. I would never look at someone I care about and tell them, "what's the matter with you, why are you so upset over something so nonsensical?" So why should I ever say that to myself? Why should any of us say it to ourselves?
I'm horrified that I forgot this critical lesson, but I'm glad I remember it now. Today, I feel very tired, and still quite sad, but I'm confronting that sadness with, "it's okay, you can feel sad," and for the first day in almost a week, I'm not going round and round thinking about what's upsetting me, and I don't feel like I'm one hard push from crying. I just wish I'd remembered it sooner - but enough of the self-recrimination, already! I accept that for whatever reason, I couldn't get my head to a place where this came back to me before.
So if something is troubling you, and you keep trying to box it up, push it away, denigrate yourself for feeling it, or what not, why not give it a try. "I accept that I feel sad." "I accept that I don't feel sad even though I think I should." "I accept that I'm angry." "I accept that today, I'm just too tired to face this." "I accept my own limitations." "I accept that I've earned my own achievements." Whatever it is...legitimize your own feelings, give yourself some of the credit you deserve - treat yourself the same way you would treat someone else.
And I realized - this past week I'd managed to forget one of the most important things I'd learned about the recovery process: self-acceptance.
If you're anything like me - and if you're NOT anything like me, you're likely wasting your time reading this blog! - this will all sound familiar. My inner monologue needs to be heavily policed - a fact that I only discovered last month, when I realized how badly I was treating myself. Generally, according to it's point of view, things in life fall in to two categories.
- When Bad Things Happen. When bad things happen, they are always my fault. I didn't work hard enough. I didn't do it right. I didn't think it through. I said the wrong thing (I always say the wrong thing!). I shouldn't have done that. I'm such an idiot. I'm such a klutz. Last night, at a party, I managed to spill the contents of my purse on to the floor, and responded to questions if everything was okay by saying, "don't worry, it's a talent." Reverses that I suffer are ALWAYS attributed to my own failings, in my case usually to my inability to keep pushing and keep trying (I believe that I have enough ability to do anything I set my mind to; therefore, if I've failed, it's no because I didn't have enough ability, but because I didn't try hard enough. Obviously, different people will feel differently about this.) Other people don't cause the bad things in my life; I cause the bad things in my life, just like always.
- When Good Things Happen. When good things happen, it's never because I did the right thing. I got lucky. I've had a lot of great opportunities in my life. It was easy. Even when other people come to me and say, "you worked so hard! You did great!" my answer is usually, "we all worked hard together!" or "I couldn't have done it without your help!" I say this sort of thing even when I know it's not true - I've told people whose dubious "help" I could much better have done without that I couldn't have done it without them! And it's not just a social nicety. I find I'm largely incapable of accepting the credit for my own achievements. Good things are accidents, that have little to do with my own expenditure of energy and time.
A book I read in January (Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman) talks about this issue, identifying this sort of attitude as pessimism, and suggesting that it can be combated by, essentially, positive thinking. An inner monologue that, instead of identify things as being due to unchangeable personal deficiencies, identifies things as being do to temporary external agency - and therefore changeable and surrmountable with renewed effort. There's something to that, I think, and I recommend the book - a friend loaned it to me, and it was very interesting and eye opening. However, there's more to it than that, I think.
Flash back to Summer, 2001. I can hardly believe it's been 10 and a half years since then. The summer after my freshman year of college, I came home at a difficult time. I had a blast that first year, but it had fallen apart near the end, and I came home leaving behind a new boyfriend about whom I felt very strongly and a group of friends who were already starting to ostracize me because of how I'd gone about getting that new boyfriend (pretty much stealing him from a friend, though of course things are never that simple!). I was ashamed and miserable, on the one hand, and very lonely, missing the significant other, missing my friends, on the other. I had a job for the first time, and three months before I'd be back at school. I sunk in to a very deep depression. From the depths of that, about half-way through the summer, I was walking to work on a sunny day when a thought suddenly crossed my mind. "It's all what you make it," was my realization. What does that mean? It means that if I sat there going, "ah, me, I'm so miserable, life is horrible, I'm so unhappy, I won't even get to see Jason for another two weeks, alas!" constantly, then of course I would be unhappy, and I'd continue to be unhappy. But suppose I tried a different tactic? "Hey, life isn't so bad, it's a gorgeous sunny day, I'm listening to great music, and I'll be seeing Jason in two weeks!" Suddenly, there was a spring in my step, and a smile on my face. All the problems were the same, but I'd put a new face on them, and it seemed...better. And this strategy has been one of my leading coping mechanisms ever since.
During the last two months, though, I've begun to think I've had it all wrong. Or, perhaps, not all wrong, but that I missed a very critical piece of this. Yes, I'm finally getting to self-acceptance.
In my exercise in positive thinking, recasting the situation for the best, there was always a tacit implication: I shouldn't feel sad, I shouldn't be low, I should be happy, there's something wrong with me for wallowing in the dark side when I could be smiling on the bright side. I'm a worse, weaker person because I can't appreciate all the good things that I have, only focus on the things I want and don't have. This is where I've been the past week - a constant refrain of, "why are you still so upset? what's the matter with you? any normal person would be over this by now!" This will never, ever work. It just creates a double sadness - there's the unhappiness already being felt from whatever cause (for me, it all relates to my break up), and then there's the additional unhappiness of self-recrimination. I'm sad because I've lost something that matters to me, and on top of that I'm a lousy person for feeling sad.
Last night, while I was crying, I finally remembered. This is all wrong. It's all well and nice to look on the bright side, but there's more to it than that. I used to drive that boyfriend from my freshman year of college (we ended up together for five years...) nuts with this - he'd come to me upset about something ("I was sick at work today!") and I'd invariable come back with something cheerful, like, "well, at least you're feeling better now." It's not that it's not okay to say something like that, but it's not the first step. The first step needs to be, "I'm sorry that you weren't feel well! What was the matter?" I've learned how to do that in my interactions with other people, but it's only recently that I've realized that I have to do this in my interactions with myself, too. Not, "stop feeling sad, there's so much to be happy about," but...
"I accept that I feel sad about this. Why do I feel sad about this?"
Once you've got the acceptance, once you've made yourself feel comfortable and safe, opened up a dialog where it's safe to say whatever it is that has made you unhappy, no matter how unreasonable those things may seem, then you're off to a good start. I would never look at someone I care about and tell them, "what's the matter with you, why are you so upset over something so nonsensical?" So why should I ever say that to myself? Why should any of us say it to ourselves?
I'm horrified that I forgot this critical lesson, but I'm glad I remember it now. Today, I feel very tired, and still quite sad, but I'm confronting that sadness with, "it's okay, you can feel sad," and for the first day in almost a week, I'm not going round and round thinking about what's upsetting me, and I don't feel like I'm one hard push from crying. I just wish I'd remembered it sooner - but enough of the self-recrimination, already! I accept that for whatever reason, I couldn't get my head to a place where this came back to me before.
So if something is troubling you, and you keep trying to box it up, push it away, denigrate yourself for feeling it, or what not, why not give it a try. "I accept that I feel sad." "I accept that I don't feel sad even though I think I should." "I accept that I'm angry." "I accept that today, I'm just too tired to face this." "I accept my own limitations." "I accept that I've earned my own achievements." Whatever it is...legitimize your own feelings, give yourself some of the credit you deserve - treat yourself the same way you would treat someone else.
Monday, February 13, 2012
The Phoenix Project
I've been thinking a lot the last few weeks. As so often happens when I start to figure things out for myself, I've reached the point where I'd like to try to share what I've learned with others.
This is blog about rising from the ashes. This is a blog about finding my inner strength, and overcoming the difficult things that have come my way. This is a blog about gathering my thoughts, and putting things in order, and discussing what has worked and what hasn't. This is a blog about trying to show others some strategies they can try, if they find themselves where I've found myself.
My Story
I woke up on January 1st feeling like life was finally falling in to place, convinced that 2012 was going to be the best year yet. I had a job that I was good at, where I made nearly a hundred thousand dollars in 2011. I was self-employed, which gave me some freedom and some options. I had a timeline all prepared - the knowledge that this job was going to end in a few years, and that once it was passed, I'd have a world of options in front of me. I owned my own apartment, was supporting myself, was doing a whole wide range of things which brought me pleasure. Best of all - I had finally met someone. We'd only been going out for about three months, but things were going great, and I was really starting to think he was the one. I'd joked to my mother that if he didn't ask me to marry him by our one year anniversary, I would take things in to my own hands.
By the end of the day, it was all falling apart, and less than two days later, I was single and as depressed as I'd ever been. It wasn't just a newly shattered heart that did it, though. It was the realization that, no matter how I THOUGHT I'd felt for the past few months, the only thing that had actually been keeping me afloat was how happy the relationship made me feel, and that when it went away, I was left feeling completely empty. I had a job that everyone thought I was lucky to had, and sure, it was lucrative, but that I hated doing and dreaded every single day. I had a lot of hobbies, but a relentless personal drive and a plunge over the past year into pure workaholism had left me burnt out on every one of them. I faced those first few days alone in my apartment with the greatest of dread, because it wasn't just that I was depressed, and it wasn't just that I was lonely, it was that every single thing I USED to do to cheer myself up no longer brought me any pleasure at all. It all felt like work. It all felt like things I was supposed to do. If that wasn't enough, I was also left questioning everything. I'd been empty and depressed for a long time before the relationship, I realized, and that made me suspect every thing I thought I'd wanted in that time. I'd wanted a boyfriend so I'd feel less empty inside (it hadn't worked, of course). How about the other things I'd wanted? I'd wanted a family. Did I think I could fill the emptiness with a child? I wanted to go back to school. Did I think reliving the "glory days" of college would fill the emptiness? It seemed like every choice, every desire, was suspect. As I looked back over past decisions, I even realized it had been a trend. Almost six years previously, I'd gotten a dog, and I saw now that it was the same theory - fill the emptiness, fill the loneliness - and that had resulted in many unhappy years for me and for the dog, before I finally figured out how to make it work and how to care about her unselfishly.
The first two weeks were some of the hardest of my life.
I was determined, though. I finally had a chance to see clearly. I started keeping a journal. On the third day, I wrote, "The walls are down. Time to storm the castle." With all the bull washed away, I had an opportunity that only comes rarely in life, a chance to try to rebuild myself in to someone stronger, better, and happier. I had a chance to re-examine every cherished belief, every nuance of thought, every thing I clung to, and start to think...which of these has been helping me? Which of these has been dragging me down? Which of these reflects out-dated needs and fears? Which of these deserves to be nurtured?
I realized something scary very quickly. One night, I remembered to pull a loaf of bread out of the freezer, and transferred it to the fridge. The next morning, I meant to let it finish defrosting on the counter. However, I forgot before I went to the gym. When I realized I'd neglected to do this inconsequential chore, I thought, "you idiot, you forgot to take the bread out of the fridge!" Woah, hold up. How did that make me an idiot? Over the next couple of days, I tuned in to my inner monologue, and discovered to my horror that far from this being unusual, it was routine. My inner monologue had, at some point, become a constant stream of "you're an idiot," "you're a failure," "why aren't you doing more?", "what's wrong with you?", "you ruin everything!" and "can't you do anything right?" No wonder I felt like crap all the time. No matter how much I accomplished, no matter how much I did, I put myself down constantly, routinely, as a matter of course, and I'd never thought twice about it before.
Clearly, I had a lot of work to do. So I set to it with a vengeance. I did a lot of thinking, and I did a lot of journal writing, I did a lot of reading, and I got a lot of help.
It's been six weeks. And it's definitely a work in progress. This is my Phoenix Project, this is about how I'm rising from the ashes, recovering from that moment where everything I thought I knew burned away and I felt like I was left with nothing. I know that, objectively speaking, what I've gone through? Really not all that bad. Obviously, there's more to my life than just this recap, and I'll use my own past liberally as I keep this blog.
The goal?
Once a week, I'll take some piece of what I've been working on, what seems to have helped, what doesn't seem to have helped, and I'll write a post.
Will it attract much readership?
I don't really know, and I don't really care. But organizing my thoughts will help me, and I bet, with time, I can help others too. All we can do is keep trying. All we can do is pick up the pieces, grasp on to whatever is left, and start over, however many times we need to.
Getting Started
In those earliest, bleakest few days, when I felt like every task was insurmountable, I found three things that helped most. If you're coming here, and you're starting at the beginning, in that most black of places? This is what I'd suggest.
1. Take one task at time. It can be anything. In my case, it was walking the dog. It absolutely had to happen, but even getting her outside the building seemed like more than I could face. But I just did it one step at a time. If I can get my shoes on, if I can get the door open, I can get downstairs. I can let her do her business. And then I can come home, and wallow some more. Everyone has things in their life that, really, need to be done every day. Don't short-change yourself or deny yourself credit for even the simplest ones. When in the grip of really crushing depression, every single exertion is hard. You deserve a pat on the back for brushing your teeth. You deserve a pat on the back for showering, or getting dressed, or buying the groceries. Remember, no matter how mundane it seems, there is a simple truth in life: Whatever is difficult for you, is difficult for you. It doesn't matter one bit how easy it might be for someone else. Stephen Hawking thinks advanced theoretically physics is easy - that doesn't mean that it is. And a non-depressed person thinks taking a shower is easy, but it doesn't mean it is. Take one task at a time, and give yourself all the credit you deserve for having accomplished it, and don't worry about what comes next until you have to.
2. Keep a journal. As soon as I got home that first night, I poured everything in my head out on to a sheet of (virtual) paper. I couldn't keep it in my head any longer, it was driving me crazy, just going around and around and around. I've never been a regular journal-keeper before. Instead, journals were always something I'd kept sporadically, when the need had arisen. During the start of my first relationship - and during the end of it, five years later; in graduate school, when I'd faced years of unrequited love; last fall, when my last grand parent died; these were times when I'd turned to a computer file or sheet of paper to pour my heart out on to, usually once or twice and then done til the next time, years later, when I just couldn't hold it in any longer. Well, this was different. This was looking at my whole life, and now I've written in my journal (and I've moved to print!) almost every day since then. It's a place where I can just get the crap out of my head, and stop the merry-go-round. It's a place where I can unload, where no one will judge me. It's a place where I can force myself to face difficult truths, to just write whatever comes and tell myself that if it's really how I feel, it doesn't matter if it's crazy, or illogical, or unfair. It's my first line of defense for accepting myself, and for nurturing myself, and for acknowledging my own feelings and thoughts. I think I'll be journaling for a long, long time to come.
3. Outreach to the people who care about you. You are not alone. No matter how alone you feel, no one is really an island, everyone has someone who loves and cares about them. Sometimes, we tell ourselves reasons that this isn't true - it's been to long, I wasn't there for them, they haven't been here for me, I don't want to be a burden - sweep all those things away. They're your friends or your family, and they love you, and they want to help. I've asked a lot of support from the people close to me, and I'm sure I'll be asking more. And, a step further - if really don't have friends or family - we live in a world with this vast internet. Find a group that shares your hobbies, and throw yourself in to it. You'll be amazed by the wonderful people you can meet, and just how much they can help you get through difficult times. I've drawn on all these sources - my friends, my family, and my internet circle, and they've all amazed me, even the friend I called who I hadn't spoken to in over a year, even the people I contacted by e-mail, and especially the people in my online "family," who have been my last resort time and time again (because I kept telling myself...I don't want to keep burdening a stranger! I don't want them to think of me as that whiny girl!) and yet who have been fabulous every time. Find a niche, and turn to them. They won't let you down.
This is blog about rising from the ashes. This is a blog about finding my inner strength, and overcoming the difficult things that have come my way. This is a blog about gathering my thoughts, and putting things in order, and discussing what has worked and what hasn't. This is a blog about trying to show others some strategies they can try, if they find themselves where I've found myself.
My Story
I woke up on January 1st feeling like life was finally falling in to place, convinced that 2012 was going to be the best year yet. I had a job that I was good at, where I made nearly a hundred thousand dollars in 2011. I was self-employed, which gave me some freedom and some options. I had a timeline all prepared - the knowledge that this job was going to end in a few years, and that once it was passed, I'd have a world of options in front of me. I owned my own apartment, was supporting myself, was doing a whole wide range of things which brought me pleasure. Best of all - I had finally met someone. We'd only been going out for about three months, but things were going great, and I was really starting to think he was the one. I'd joked to my mother that if he didn't ask me to marry him by our one year anniversary, I would take things in to my own hands.
By the end of the day, it was all falling apart, and less than two days later, I was single and as depressed as I'd ever been. It wasn't just a newly shattered heart that did it, though. It was the realization that, no matter how I THOUGHT I'd felt for the past few months, the only thing that had actually been keeping me afloat was how happy the relationship made me feel, and that when it went away, I was left feeling completely empty. I had a job that everyone thought I was lucky to had, and sure, it was lucrative, but that I hated doing and dreaded every single day. I had a lot of hobbies, but a relentless personal drive and a plunge over the past year into pure workaholism had left me burnt out on every one of them. I faced those first few days alone in my apartment with the greatest of dread, because it wasn't just that I was depressed, and it wasn't just that I was lonely, it was that every single thing I USED to do to cheer myself up no longer brought me any pleasure at all. It all felt like work. It all felt like things I was supposed to do. If that wasn't enough, I was also left questioning everything. I'd been empty and depressed for a long time before the relationship, I realized, and that made me suspect every thing I thought I'd wanted in that time. I'd wanted a boyfriend so I'd feel less empty inside (it hadn't worked, of course). How about the other things I'd wanted? I'd wanted a family. Did I think I could fill the emptiness with a child? I wanted to go back to school. Did I think reliving the "glory days" of college would fill the emptiness? It seemed like every choice, every desire, was suspect. As I looked back over past decisions, I even realized it had been a trend. Almost six years previously, I'd gotten a dog, and I saw now that it was the same theory - fill the emptiness, fill the loneliness - and that had resulted in many unhappy years for me and for the dog, before I finally figured out how to make it work and how to care about her unselfishly.
The first two weeks were some of the hardest of my life.
I was determined, though. I finally had a chance to see clearly. I started keeping a journal. On the third day, I wrote, "The walls are down. Time to storm the castle." With all the bull washed away, I had an opportunity that only comes rarely in life, a chance to try to rebuild myself in to someone stronger, better, and happier. I had a chance to re-examine every cherished belief, every nuance of thought, every thing I clung to, and start to think...which of these has been helping me? Which of these has been dragging me down? Which of these reflects out-dated needs and fears? Which of these deserves to be nurtured?
I realized something scary very quickly. One night, I remembered to pull a loaf of bread out of the freezer, and transferred it to the fridge. The next morning, I meant to let it finish defrosting on the counter. However, I forgot before I went to the gym. When I realized I'd neglected to do this inconsequential chore, I thought, "you idiot, you forgot to take the bread out of the fridge!" Woah, hold up. How did that make me an idiot? Over the next couple of days, I tuned in to my inner monologue, and discovered to my horror that far from this being unusual, it was routine. My inner monologue had, at some point, become a constant stream of "you're an idiot," "you're a failure," "why aren't you doing more?", "what's wrong with you?", "you ruin everything!" and "can't you do anything right?" No wonder I felt like crap all the time. No matter how much I accomplished, no matter how much I did, I put myself down constantly, routinely, as a matter of course, and I'd never thought twice about it before.
Clearly, I had a lot of work to do. So I set to it with a vengeance. I did a lot of thinking, and I did a lot of journal writing, I did a lot of reading, and I got a lot of help.
It's been six weeks. And it's definitely a work in progress. This is my Phoenix Project, this is about how I'm rising from the ashes, recovering from that moment where everything I thought I knew burned away and I felt like I was left with nothing. I know that, objectively speaking, what I've gone through? Really not all that bad. Obviously, there's more to my life than just this recap, and I'll use my own past liberally as I keep this blog.
The goal?
Once a week, I'll take some piece of what I've been working on, what seems to have helped, what doesn't seem to have helped, and I'll write a post.
Will it attract much readership?
I don't really know, and I don't really care. But organizing my thoughts will help me, and I bet, with time, I can help others too. All we can do is keep trying. All we can do is pick up the pieces, grasp on to whatever is left, and start over, however many times we need to.
Getting Started
In those earliest, bleakest few days, when I felt like every task was insurmountable, I found three things that helped most. If you're coming here, and you're starting at the beginning, in that most black of places? This is what I'd suggest.
1. Take one task at time. It can be anything. In my case, it was walking the dog. It absolutely had to happen, but even getting her outside the building seemed like more than I could face. But I just did it one step at a time. If I can get my shoes on, if I can get the door open, I can get downstairs. I can let her do her business. And then I can come home, and wallow some more. Everyone has things in their life that, really, need to be done every day. Don't short-change yourself or deny yourself credit for even the simplest ones. When in the grip of really crushing depression, every single exertion is hard. You deserve a pat on the back for brushing your teeth. You deserve a pat on the back for showering, or getting dressed, or buying the groceries. Remember, no matter how mundane it seems, there is a simple truth in life: Whatever is difficult for you, is difficult for you. It doesn't matter one bit how easy it might be for someone else. Stephen Hawking thinks advanced theoretically physics is easy - that doesn't mean that it is. And a non-depressed person thinks taking a shower is easy, but it doesn't mean it is. Take one task at a time, and give yourself all the credit you deserve for having accomplished it, and don't worry about what comes next until you have to.
2. Keep a journal. As soon as I got home that first night, I poured everything in my head out on to a sheet of (virtual) paper. I couldn't keep it in my head any longer, it was driving me crazy, just going around and around and around. I've never been a regular journal-keeper before. Instead, journals were always something I'd kept sporadically, when the need had arisen. During the start of my first relationship - and during the end of it, five years later; in graduate school, when I'd faced years of unrequited love; last fall, when my last grand parent died; these were times when I'd turned to a computer file or sheet of paper to pour my heart out on to, usually once or twice and then done til the next time, years later, when I just couldn't hold it in any longer. Well, this was different. This was looking at my whole life, and now I've written in my journal (and I've moved to print!) almost every day since then. It's a place where I can just get the crap out of my head, and stop the merry-go-round. It's a place where I can unload, where no one will judge me. It's a place where I can force myself to face difficult truths, to just write whatever comes and tell myself that if it's really how I feel, it doesn't matter if it's crazy, or illogical, or unfair. It's my first line of defense for accepting myself, and for nurturing myself, and for acknowledging my own feelings and thoughts. I think I'll be journaling for a long, long time to come.
3. Outreach to the people who care about you. You are not alone. No matter how alone you feel, no one is really an island, everyone has someone who loves and cares about them. Sometimes, we tell ourselves reasons that this isn't true - it's been to long, I wasn't there for them, they haven't been here for me, I don't want to be a burden - sweep all those things away. They're your friends or your family, and they love you, and they want to help. I've asked a lot of support from the people close to me, and I'm sure I'll be asking more. And, a step further - if really don't have friends or family - we live in a world with this vast internet. Find a group that shares your hobbies, and throw yourself in to it. You'll be amazed by the wonderful people you can meet, and just how much they can help you get through difficult times. I've drawn on all these sources - my friends, my family, and my internet circle, and they've all amazed me, even the friend I called who I hadn't spoken to in over a year, even the people I contacted by e-mail, and especially the people in my online "family," who have been my last resort time and time again (because I kept telling myself...I don't want to keep burdening a stranger! I don't want them to think of me as that whiny girl!) and yet who have been fabulous every time. Find a niche, and turn to them. They won't let you down.
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