After really ingesting my negative thinking I decided to turn back to a tool that helped me through a very troubled time. When I went into partial hospitalization, I was given a recovery guide. In it contains articles, exercises and suggestive practices to help me through my disease. The first article I went back to was the distorted thinking section.
Distorted thinking is so much a part of my life. Having never realized it before, when I started on my road to recovery I really became puzzled about how and why my thoughts were distorted? Reading more into Major Depression and Dysthymia I understood that these were not just my moods, it was a conglomerate of many things including body chemistry, environment, and ways the body reacts to my emotions. First learning about these illnesses gave me an opportunity to tell myself, "Okay, I am not crazy. There are reasons for all of this." Realization set in and then it was time to act. I wanted to know more, but more than anything I wanted to know what it felt like to feel good to be happy.
Okay, now having some motivation to continue to seek the "other side" of life, I went back to my recovery bible and re-read the section on distorted thinking. Its amazing how thoughts coupled with emotions and core beliefs can redirect physical symptoms; causing pain, headache, nausea and depression. Example, a couple of weeks ago I had a fight with a friend. Immediately I began to awfulize the situation, making me physically sick. This is not good for being 7 months pregnant. It wasn't even a fight to be honest. Truth is she was acting like a total bitch and I was taking it personally. I internalized her reaction to everything. In my mind, she was not acting but reacting to something I had done. This was far from the truth and her behavior had nothing at all to do with me. Actually, now looking back it could have all been in my head. A couple of short comments and sarcastic remarks made me develop in my head this entire confrontational fight with a friend that sent me in a nauseous tailspin. Not only did I get sick, but I also started to fret about the loss of my friend. I started to grieve a relationship that was still intact. Yes, this all happened in my head within a 48 hour time span.
As luck would have it, I started to think maybe this is all in my head. Blogging has already helped me set goals and execute them. In my first couple of blogs I set out to want to turn back to some tried and true methods of dealing. Battling through extreme exhaustion, I re-read the distorted thinking chapter. It helped me redirect those negative thoughts, think about my core beliefs and what thoughts and emotions were there. I began to really think deep into the "why" and "how" of these thoughts, then using the skills training methodology, I identified the distorted thoughts and reprocessed them.
All better! No, not really, but on my way. I have such a long way to go. This experience has just reassured me that you can never push the snooze button on your health and expect for things to not stay where they are. Nothing is going to change unless I do something. I am not going to be better for my son or my husband if I don't start taking initiative to learn and process my emotions and thoughts. I also won't get to where I need to be if I keep ignoring what my fundamental issues are.
Also in the past two days, after really taking to time to think of my goals and ambitions, and answering the questions about what they really are, I decided I do want to go to law school because I want to be a lawyer. Rather than indulging in the "shoulding of it all", I really thought about what is it that you really want to do, what do you think would make you happy after an 80 hour week beyond the pay. I got my answer, now its time to go for it. Where there is a will, there is a way right? I think so too!
On another note, I scored a great thrift store book find, vintage David Burns. Master psychologist that specializes in the 10 Days to Self Esteem. I found both his early publishing's and will be reading those at night along with my other selections that are biding time on my bookshelf until I can give them the attention they so lovingly deserve.
Goal for the next week is to get through the first half of the David Burns workbook and to write down my thoughts, good or bad.
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