I haven’t been able to write in a little over a week. I tried a few times, but had a hard time getting much more than a few sentences down. I’ve been struggling a lot lately. About a week ago, I hit a mental and physical wall. I crashed. I’ve been so tired, irritable and achy all over. It’s amazing how much your mental wellness corresponds with your physical body… I needed a break, but couldn’t quite get myself to take one. I pushed myself too hard, I think. I did too much and I let the self-care lapse.
Several weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Self-care Part I – Katie’s Corner.” The gist of that post was about how helpful I found it, as part of my process to have better self-care, to have a place to go in my house where I could be alone and decompress. I was using it for urgent “mommy needs a timeout NOW” moments and throughout the week as a place of peace. I was feeling over all pretty good and I think I let myself ease up too much on the healthier routine I had established. I am paying the price for this now. I struggled this past week… feeling down, feeling sad, feeling anxious… feeling very overwhelmed. It still amazes me how fast I can fall back down in the hole. Sometimes I feel like each time I fall, the hole gets deeper and darker. And anytime I work my way back to the top, someone with a big boot kicks me back down. I need a reset now. I need to slow down, catch my breath, and slow my mind. My husband gave me some advice a few months ago that I think I need to go back to. He called it “back to basics.” When it first came up, I was deeply depressed, having tons of panic attacks, and often suicidal. He talked very calmly to me and said that all I needed to focus on was making sure I was fed, rested, and clean. The basics. So simple, right? Wrong… It’s hard. I think maybe it’s something we, as women, struggle with most. Putting our needs above our family’s. Add on depression that makes it hard to even get out of bed, much less take a shower, or make a healthy meal. But, I like the idea of it. It gives me a place to start… something to focus my energy on. I often need a place to start. Maybe you do too? XO, Katie
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JOY -- the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying. Joy. A word (an idea…) that has left me with a lot to contemplate lately. I wonder how many people actually know JOY. I’m sure most people can define joy, but how many of us actually live with it? If you do, what brings you joy? What brings anyone joy? Love? Family? A job promotion? A new outfit? Sure, all these things make us happy but how many of us can say we live a life with real joy. I think joy is much deeper than just being happy… just feeling like it’s a good day. I think joy is a way of life. A deep way you feel something good… a way you feel it in your soul. I was recently listening to a podcast and heard a story about a man who consciously tried to avoid letting joy into his life. This way, he figured, if something good happened it would be a pleasant surprise. And if things didn’t go that well, he wouldn’t be disappointed. When he was in his 60s, he lost his wife of 40 years in a car accident. I don’t remember the direct quote, but he said that in that moment of loss his biggest regret was that he didn’t take the time to enjoy her… to really find the JOY in his everyday life with her. I was listening to this as I was driving and I just started to cry – dang emotions! But seriously, this hit me so hard that I gasped and covered my mouth. I was living that life! I’ve been walking around on egg shells with myself trying to avoid anything too good from happening… trying to avoid anything feeling too good. If I had more than one good day in a row it gave me immense anxiety because I just expected the other shoe to drop at any moment. My depression – specifically my negative thoughts – have been running (and ruining) my life for years now. YEARS! Years of life with my husband, my family, my daughter. Those in my inner circle know that the last one – time with my daughter – has hit me the hardest. The amount of guilt I have about this hurts me so deeply. She’s what’s important, BUT I’m important too. In the words of the wisest woman I’ve ever met, I am learning to “turn the channel” on my negative thoughts. I can’t do anything about the past, but I CAN do something about today. I’m learning to let down the walls of perfectionism. I can’t stop the thoughts from appearing, but I can stop grabbing on to them. Through a lot of therapy, I am learning to identify behaviors (such as this avoidance of joy) and learning tools to help deal with some of my biggest struggles. And in group therapy, I have learned that I am not alone. This is the greatest gift that I have gotten out of my therapy. There is nothing quite like sitting in a room and listening to someone explain their own struggles AND their own triumphs in a way that you know you connect with. Through this work, I am searching for JOY. In the acts of self-care that I have begun to practice, I am able to be open to JOY. By practicing mindfulness, I am looking for JOY. By sitting with my daughter and practicing being fully present for her AND for me, I am seeing JOY.
I want to FEEL joy in my life. It’s a process… it’s a journey. This has all been a difficult yet rewarding journey. Every day is different. Every day is a NEW day and every day is an opportunity for me to be a better mom… a better wife… a better ME. One day at a time. Bring me the good things, God… I think I’m ready now. XO, Katie Relationships. *BIG SIIIGGGHHH* They are what life is made of. But, wow, they can be hard and stressful. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for me on a personal level. The last several weeks have brought a lot of changes to my life and a lot of decisions are being made that, while not permanently, are going to have a huge impact on life. These things have made me a little more sensitive than usual… to put it politely. In the middle of this personal chaos, while I’m trying my best to practice my self-soothing skills, I got into a fight with someone I love.
Note: Because I have chosen to write this blog and share my deep secrets and feelings, doesn’t mean those in my life have also signed on. So, I am going to do my best to keep things anonymous even if it may appear obvious who I am writing about. This wasn’t just any old fight or disagreement – it was a big one. Something happened several years ago that really hurt my trust with this person and I’m not sure I ever fully got over it. Well, it happened again. Lets take a step back for a minute… I have a long way to go to better my mental health, but something I have done in the last several months is become very self-aware. (In otherwords, I may not have the tools to fix my issues yet, but I know all about them!) I have a hard time trusting people, especially trusting them with my feelings. When I feel threatened by someone who may be about to hurt my feelings, I tend to either retreat or lash out. And, unfortunately, the closer I am to the person, the more likely I am to lash out. When I feel hurt or offended I tend to go back at that person with a lot of anger. During times like this, I have said a lot of things that I later regret. I have come to realize that I do this so that I can hurt them before they hurt me. I’m going to do THIS to YOU before YOU can do THAT to me. It certainly never works out that well, however. Knowing this about myself has really opened my eyes to some of my behavior. However, it has also confused me a little about my feelings. So, here is where my problem lies… I have had a tendency to over react for most of my life. I think it stems from the anger in my household growing up. The only way you may get heard is if you scream and yell the loudest. And so that’s what I do – sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes not. But then a little while later I just want the conflict to go away. And so, I apologize. I apologize ALL. THE. TIME. Again, we learn from our childhood and when you grow up in a house where you are always walking on egg shells, apologizing becomes a defensive mechanism. I think this has left a lot of unresolved issues within my relationships and has left me with a lot of pent up frustration and anger towards some people. Because, often, when I am in conflict with someone, I just ended up saying “I’m sorry” when I’m not… OR taking full responsibility for something that shouldn’t all be on me. So, the “issue” that caused the fight in the first place never actually gets resolved. Consequently, little “issues” down the road quickly escalate to BIG issues for me leaving the other person thinking I am over reacting! And yes, to the outsider I probably am over reacting. However, the way I feel is REAL to me in those moments. Because of my unhealthy way of dealing with conflict, I often get stuck after a fight with a loved one. Stuck in how maybe I should feel versus how I am actually feeling. And then I end up beating myself up for my emotional behavior…. And then, guess what!?!?!?! I end up apologizing! (insert bang head against wall emoji) Let’s circle back to this week, shall we? I was lied to by someone the other day that I care deeply about. This person has lied to me in the past, but has always claimed it was just to protect me. We’ve had the discussion about how I appreciate the good intention, but I always end up angry at some point when I find out the truth, so just TELL ME THE TRUTH to begin with. I was very hurt. I was angry and so sad. I had just started to let my walls down with this person… I was just letting them in. They were stuck on the idea of what was lied about while I was upset with the lying in and of itself! People have their “buttons” and this is definitely one of mine and it was pushed!!!! I was devastated, actually. I felt disrespected. I felt unimportant. I felt lost. I felt alone. I am not very good at regulating my emotions and I over flow quickly. I wanted this person gone. Out of my life. Don’t come near me again so you can’t ever hurt me again. It’s not the first time the two of us have gotten into such a fight. Usually I end up going to bed and a day or two later we kind of make up and go back to “normal.” But something different happened this time. I told the person for probably the hundredth time, “I’m done with you.” Usually this is responded to with an eye roll or silence, but this time I got the response of “ok, fine we’re done because I don’t know what to do with you anymore.” It was like a slap in the face – a slap I needed. I couldn’t catch my breath in that moment. I suddenly felt the walls caving in on me. In that moment, I had pushed too hard. I’ve pushed people away before that care about me, but never quite like this. I don’t want to go into the details of the rest of that evening… it feels too personal to share. However, for some reason this person loves me even though I’m a whole lot to put up with and we worked through it. Perhaps it has even brought us to a deeper level of understanding. Do you know what I also realized after that night? I can be manipulative. I make empty and cruel threats directed at loved ones when I feel hurt or threatened. I think I do it as a test almost… if they REALLY love me they’ll come beg me to stay or profess their undying admiration for me. This is a pretty embarrassing self-realization, but its honest. It’s my truth. At the end of the day, I am still that little girl who just wants to be loved and accepted. I mean don’t we all? The difference is that I now need to learn a healthier way to handle my emotions. Add it to the list… I’m a work in progress! XO, Katie “Too many high hopes, too many disappointments.” (weheartit.com)
I promised on Instagram that I would write a post about shame, and I will, but something else has come up that I need to write about before I finished that post. I want to write (and by write, I guess I mean vent…) about people who let us down. People who are the closest to us. People you let in over and over… sometimes against your gut feelings. Maybe a sister? Or maybe a best friend? A co-worker you thought you could trust? A spouse? It doesn’t necessarily matter who the person is to you, because the feelings you have about the situation are probably about the same. If you love someone and they lie to you, it never feels good. But what if they spend years trying to earn your trust back and it just so happens that as soon as you let your guard down, they lie again. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME???” Is this an accurate quote? This is what I’m struggling with. When someone you trust makes you feel as small as can be, shouldn’t it be there fault? After all, THEY did wrong… right? I’m feeling very lost regarding this. How is it that someone can lie to me on more than one occasion, but somehow I still sit here feeling bad? When someone struggling with low self-esteem like I do, I think it’s easy to get beaten down by people. I have an insatiable need to please people. So much so, that even when I can recognize that someone is beating me down, it’s hard for me to step away. Perhaps those close to me may even take advantage of this weakness I have. I always seem to end up apologizing and trying to crawl my way back to them. I feel completely lost in this situation. I have let myself get close to someone again, I let them take care of me, I let myself feel safe and taken care of. Was this their plan all along? To make me feel indebted to them before they stabbed me in the back again? Sometimes I feel trapped in my own head… trapped in my own life. I feel like no matter how hard I try to better myself, my life seems to always be one step forward, two steps (or more) back. I’ve utterly lost myself. I’ve probably been lost for years, actually. In a sense, I’ve gotten clearer about things in the last several months… but my “clarity” has only revealed a confused and lonely 32 year old woman who has no idea how she ended up here. I’m at a crossroads… a major crossroads I think. Things are changing around me and I’m having to make some choices. I’m tired though… exhausted by the constant rumination and self-doubt. I’m scared for the future, but even more scared of the present. I’m trying to focus on ME… I’m trying to find some peace and some connection to something greater than myself. I’m searching for MY happiness… MY peace. Hoping I find some of it soon… XO, Katie |
AuthorMy name is Katie and I am just a woman struggling in the deep throes of depression and anxiety hoping to go on (and document) a journey to find PEACE and share it with anyone who may feel alone in a similar journey. Archives
November 2017
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