WILLINGNESS to get over this bump and OPPOSITE ACTION TO ENVY

Although I would like to think I am calm, rational and a judicious person when it comes to taking an objective standpoint about transgressions in my own life, simply put, these skills is severely lacking from my toolbox. I find it very hard to push aside the judgements which paralyse me and turn my thoughts into narrow, dichotomous lines which only have two end points.

As I mentioned in the last few posts, my emotions have been amplified to way out of manageable levels this past week.  All this lead to me equating many of these emotions as facts; hence I felt had to act on the emotion. The feelings almost felt like they have a mind of their own, and that I was a vessel for them to carry out their action urges. At the time I felt I had no control, but I am not trying to evade responsibility for how I treated my therapist, as I know I could have been more skilful. I could have used OPPOSITE action to my anger, or even HALF SMILE. In reflection, I see that it could have been a perfect week to also practise DISSTRESS TOLERANCE and RADICAL ACCEPTANCE.

Yesterday morning I received a letter stating that a course I had been waiting to get onto for many months had been cancelled due to lack of funding. When I first saw the letter I was super excited, as I thought it was a start date. I had been advised to hold off going to university by my team for another year until I finished DBT and instead attend this collage as it operates under recovery ethics. It seemed a perfect transitory step for me. I decided to do something creative and less academic, so picked a photography course. I really was looking forward to it. 

Now I am so disappointed that my heart literally hurts. I am so afraid; I feel I have nothing really left to look forward to now.

I went to check in with the community nurse a few hours after getting this terrible news. And I am really so very grateful and abashed to admit that he was not the invalidating type I was expecting. In truth, he sat with me for about 45 mins and listened intently to what I had to say. We came up with a plan in order to help problem solve the solution, and jointly agreed that the best outcome would be for me to attend a crisis resolution based therapy group for 8 – 10 days. It came with a warning that I would have to be willing to work at finding solutions to my problems and not to abandon self responsibility. It seems fair, if like a lot of hard work, but I am up for the challenge. I really am so appreciative for how great that nurse was. I really needed his objectivity in that moment. 

I felt calmer and more in control after the meeting, and was much more willing to stay with my family for the night, I tried not to see it as a suicide watch, but as an opportunity to spend quality time with them. I went to see my sister and her husband who are expecting a baby and are in full blown 'nesting' mode. They are buying my family home off my mother, and have done a beautiful job of renovating it and putting their own stamp on the house. I noticed that I had been avoiding seeing the house as I felt great envy towards my elder sister, who has such a perfect life and gets to have everything I want and more, and on top of that gets to have the house I grew up in, the only place I called home. I am afraid I might never fall pregnant again, so am also reluctant to talk to her about the baby and envious of her ability to carry a child. I (quite skilfully in my opinion) figured out that I was experiencing ENVY which really did not fit the facts of the situation

I put on my DBT SKILLS hat and tried to use OPPOSITE ACTION. I knew that the prompting event to the ENVY was that I was being reminded about all the things I really want but can't have. A stable home, a family, nice things.....

My HOT thoughts where:

• 'I will never have what my sister has'
• 'I am such a failure'
• My sister is more successful than I will ever be'
• 'I am inferior to my sister'
• 'My parents think she is the better sibling'
• 'life has treated my so unfairly

The biological changes and bodily experiences I felt with the envy was a slight pain in the pit of my stomach and I was extremely anxious and noticed I was feeling resentment towards my sister and her husband   I began to ruminate about how unfair I felt the situation was and how much of a failure I felt I was. My attention was very narrow and I could barely even talk to them. I OBSERVED how much I had avoided seeing my sister and the house, which had undergone so much renovation that I nearly didn't recognize it! I hadn't even offered to help with painting or decorating because I had been festering in my envy.

Although it is ok to feel envy when others have what you want, the problem here lies with the intensity of which I felt the emotion. I had checked the facts and become conscious that I had not been there to help my sister due to an out of control emotion.

I mindfully asked myself what my assumptions, belies and thoughts were about my sister buying the house and having a baby. I then tried to challenge the hot thoughts which popped up. Here is how I tried to turn the judgments into facts;

• ‘My sister is 7 years older than me, is married and in a good position to raise a child’
•   My sister and her husband have worked very hard to get everything they have and deserve it all
•    I also have many very wonderfully things. I live in a fantastic location and have so many beautiful things. Someday, with hard work, I will also have a house to live in, but for now, recover and health are my greatest assets.
• It is a very good solution to the present economic recession as my sister would not have been able to buy a house like this without help from the family
•   My sister’s children will get to grow up in the same wonderful house and we did
• I am not a failure because I am not the same as my sister, I have other attributes which make me a successful and competent person

My goal is to have a positive and functioning relationship with my sister and brother-in-law, I love them and love the bump too! So my anger and resentment to them was making me avoid them and not nurture and develop a healthy bond with them. That is the main reason that the envy needed to be challenged.

In the moment I made sure to count all my blessings and avoided exaggerating my deprivations, Marsha states that to go ALL THE WAY I must imagine that it makes sense for my sister to have all this, as she has worked hard and deserved it all.

Finally I changed my emotions by changing by behaviors and posture. I unclenched my hands and relaxed my stomach and used HALF SMILE.

I now feel my envy is more in proportion to the situation. I’m not going to lie, it’s still there, but now I feel motivated to work as hard as my sister so I can have what she has. That means I can’t just throw my hands up in the air and moan about how unfair life is, I have to get off my ass and go get it for myself!

I’m really sorry this is so long and thank you so much for taking the time to read this. 

 

HALF SMILE your way to acceptance

Two elegant yet, sheepishly impatient women are making rapid glances around Starbucks, hoping to nab a free space to sprawl out and natter after an afternoon of window shopping. You can tell they are the leisurely type. I overhear them giving out about the lack of seats, and can’t help giggle as the hand approaches the first single digit on my watch, signifying my third hour sat in the comfortable chair by the window which seems to have moulded to my frame by now. I am not moving. I even turn my chair to get a better view out the panoramic glass wall.

People-watching is a not a new hobby of mine, but observing the finer details of said people is. I recently acquired a very helpful possession for this pursuit; eyesight! For some reason or another, cost and hassle being the most likely, I had not replaced my broken specs when the arm unhinged its self from the frame last year. I had grown used to the blur, and liked not living in focus. But when I passed my own father on the street, I thought ‘enough is enough’ and got them fixed.

There are two categories of people who meander up and down Grafton Street in winter. The fast paced snakes who weave their path in plaits around the care-free traffic blockers, who are much more easily distracted as they gather in large semicircular groups around each of the buskers dotted on the side of the street.

The girls compete in the small city style wars, and the guys compete for the most stealthily glances and puffed up chests. The dramatic outfits somehow seem to conspicuously blend in a contradictory fashion with all the rest and it’s the plain and ordinary which stand out. The frizzy haired student, the make-upless lady and the elderly man with a walking stick all seem out of place in this world of perfection and antagonism.

Once, a woman smiled at me as I walked by in a daze. It shocked me, and my initial reaction was to wonder if I had food or bicycle grease on my face. Why it was that something so pleasant made me react in such a capricious manner? I was a suspicious mess, and was almost angry at the woman for evoking such an unstable feeing in me. But of course it was not her error; it was my own lack of self confidence which made me react that way. Then I realised that it was not just anger stirring up in the pit of my stomach, it was jealousy. I wanted to be that woman, who could smile at the world and warm the hearts of others. 

So I guess that the point of this post is that the DBT skill of HALF SMILE is a valuable one. The idea with this one is that there’s a biofeedback mechanism between the face and the brain. If your face is tense, the brain gears up for trouble. If on the other hand your face is relaxed, it tells your brain that everything is fine.

I’m not sure yet how this ties in with accepting reality, but then there’s a lot I don’t understand about accepting reality generally. The book says ‘Half smiling is accepting and tolerating with your body’. DBT seems to ease you gently into ‘accepting reality’ before finally hitting you with Radical Acceptance. I’m hoping that after we’ve covered radical acceptance I’ll understand more where these breathing, smiling and awareness exercises fit in.

I’ve used this skill several times since I learnt it. On the bus when I saw my reflection and realised just how anxious and cramped my face looked. In a crowded market today when I felt overwhelmed and my face was agreeing with me. Both times I consciously changed my face to an ‘I can cope’ expression. And cope I did… Coincidence perhaps; I need to experiment more but I’m definitely prepared to try it out.

'I Shall Go To The Ball' OPPOSITE ACTION To Fear

 I am sitting here waiting, wishing for the moments to pass more slowly. Dreaded time has caught me by surprise this morning, dragging me into a place I would rather run and hide from. Yes tonight is the night that I have been both looking forward to yet silently wishing would never come. I admittedly have not been listening to my emotions about this event. If I am honest, I have not observed the suffocating sensation in my neck, or how hard it has been to catch my breath between the shallow gasps.

I am in full blown distress mode this morning. I feel titteringly close to losing control once again. So I must turn to DBT skills to quell my EMOTION MIND and find the calm which accompanies WISE MIND.

Firstly I can recognize that my fear is disproportionate to the situation. Yes OK, I acknowledge that it is out of my safe place. A formal ball with hundreds of new unfamiliar people is not going to be comfortable, but it will not harm me in anyway. With this in mind, the obvious skill to use is OPPOSITE TO EMOTION ACTION. For it to work, I must go ALL THE WAY with this skill to distinguish the fear and snuff out the flame of panic

Sometimes in order to change how we feel we have to act opposite to how our emotions are telling us to act.  With anxiety, instead of running from the feared circumstance, we need to approach and engage in it.

Acting opposite to how you’re feeling only works when:

• The fear is not justified.  Fear is justified when a situation is a threat to your life, health, or well being.
• You do opposite action all the way. Not just by acting opposite to how you’re feeling, but also by thinking opposite to how you’re feeling.

PROCESS OF OPPOSITE ACTION

Figure out your emotion

Figure out what action goes with that emotion.

Ask yourself ‘do I want to reduce this emotion?’

Figure out what the opposite action is.

Do the opposite action all the way.

So I will firstly decide to go and follow through with that plan. I will fix my tan, go to the hairdressers and get my make-up done. I will dress up and make sure I feel as confident as I can before I go. Once I get there it is really important that I continue to be present, and stay in the skills mindset. I will use HALF SMILE to center my nerves and help accept that it is a difficult night for me. I must make sure that both my body and mind are at the party, so no hiding in the bathroom or keeping quite. I will make small talk and remember to breath!

Wish me luck!

.

Panicked and afraid

I came out of my one to one therapy session yesterday feeling utterly ashamed of myself. I am a fraud, a fake, an undistinguished manipulator, who's sole aim is to gain attention and pity from those who are only trying to help me. I can't cope with life. My miserable and  shameful life. I have no clue who I am, and the scary thing is that don't think I want to find out. I am terrified that when I find out who I am, I won't like the real me.

It's better to be unwell, and use that excuse to explain my horrible personality than to accept that ultimately this may be who I am and that I choose to behave the way I do. I am so afraid of myself.

I found myself calling a suicide hotline last night and wondering if I would ever have the courage to go through with it, but I am too weak. That is the conclusion I came to, that my drive is there, but I am to scared to really go through with it. Its like a marathon runner who has trained for their entire life for a big race. The have the ability and the drive to run, but the day before they break their foot and can't go through with it because they physically can't.

Today I panicked again. I need answers to the hazy questions circulating in my mind. I didn't go to work and instead festered in bed with my unwashed thoughts.  I don't care about anything. I didn't even pick up my social welfare payment this week. I am back to thinking about starvation and attention seeking.

I called my Doctors office not to long ago knowing full well that my therapist was out of the office today and couldn't call me back. Now I am waiting for a call back from some randomer and I have no clue what to tell them about why I called. All I know is that my insides are screaming in silent agony with confusion and guilt and that I am terrified of myself.

Why did I call? It was an instinctual reaction to the emotional pain. My head wants me to be devious and secretive yet also wants to let others know when I am hurting too. As if by sharing the hurt that it will somehow soften it and justify its reality. But the instant I open my mouth it won't let me explain it in a way that gets me any help.

Oh I am not making much sense I know, and I am also well aware that this blog has taken a radical turn from recovery to something much more dark and disturbing and I really am sorry about that.

Just off the phone with the on-call doctor there. He was nice, but detached and was reading my notes as we spoke. We agreed that I must put in place my distress tolerance skills and reminded me that these feelings rarely last... so in the words of Marsha.... I must ride the wave of the emotion.... I fucking hate surfing. Could never stand up on the board and always got thrown off into the white thunderous water. But she tends to be more wise than me when I am feeling like this so I'm off to self soothe in a hot shower and wash away the dirt of my anxiety, then I will paint my nails and paint a half smile on my face in order to ride out this period.