Some days I feel like I won't survive this, and I have been open in talking about how I very well might have taken my own life. Lately, these swings have been fewer and far between, and not lasting as long. I still have moments where I feel like survival is impossible - there is no way I could come out alive and well.
Although I have these moments, I have learned to pray and rely on God to get me through the worst of the worst. Very slowly, I have been given a peace about my situation, and I'm able to see my way out. It only comes with practice though, and a LOT of prayer. I have felt a lot lighter lately, not dwelling so much on my negatives, but focusing on the positive things in my life (of which there are many).
Part of this "mental exercise" involves the 10 unhelpful thinking styles. I have been working through a lot of these exercises with some of the therapists and I find that it has really helped. For those that don't know, the 10 are:
Shoulding and Musting
Black and White Thinking
Overgeneralization
Catastrophizing
Mental Filtering
Jumping to Conclusions
Emotional Reasoning
Personalizing
Labeling
Minimizing and Maximizing
If you don't know anything about these, I would highly recommend reading up on them at: http://socialanxietydisorder.about.com/od/treatmentoptions/tp/Unhelpful-Thinking-Styles.htm
An example of what I've been working on is...shoulding and musting.."I SHOULD be a better mother" "I SHOULD have a child who crawls already" "I MUST feed Adelyn certain foods or else I'm a bad mother". You get the idea. I'm really weak in this area and I've been working on realizing when I am saying these things to myself, and trying to counteract them with more positive statements. Trust me, this is no easy business!
So what else have I been up to lately? Well, yesterday I spent the whole day at home, and got to put Adelyn to bed. By my standards, Adelyn was cranky yesterday because she didn't get a good morning nap. This would usually throw me into an anxiety attack, but surprisingly (with Chelsea's help) I handled is quite well. It was so nice to put Adelyn to bed and I didn't want to leave. During the day yesterday we took (in an effort to stop the cranks) her to the park for the first time:
She loved it and we had a great time :)
Today I'm at home and I'm doing an overnight visit (yay). This has been a long haul, and I've been working very hard to be able to have this priviledge. In addition to doing the overnight, at 3:30 pm, we are taking Adelyn swimming for the first time. This is causing me great anxiety because I'm afraid it will screw up her nap time. You might think "that is so silly", but to me, this is an enormous feat. We have been trying to schedule her the right way since she woke up, so that she will be able to be in a good mood when we go. Just typing this out is giving me a stomach ache! That's how strong my anxiety is around it. Sigh...I'm just praying that it will go well, and I can add swimming on my wellness "check list".
No medication changes - still on the same meds, which is good because I'm feeling pretty stable. There is some talk of Wellbutrin if I'm too "flat" but as of right now there are no changes.
So, that's what's up with me right now! Hopefully I will report back about how great the swimming and overnight went :)
Happy Hump Day,
Amanda
No comments:
Post a Comment