I had an epiphany.

Date posted: Tuesday August 18th, 2009 || Filed under: Family, Life with Bipolar || 4 Comments

I had therapy today. What the psychologist had to say confused me somewhat. After talking about discussing what was going on we discussed my anxiety and how I have far too much of it, which I knew. We also were discussing my expectations. I have high expectations for everyone, including myself. Far too high that can be accomplished. I assume everyone to be perfect, I expect myself, and everyone included to be perfect. Which, is wrong of me, but I’m working on that… We were discussing that with the expectations, I’m setting myself up for nothing but disappointment because, obviously people cannot meet these expectations. The other obvious, and clear thing that I do is think negatively about everything. I have an extremely hard time seeing the positive light for everything.

[After doing 300 million other things while writing this entry, I lost my train of thought, so don't mind if this makes no sense. Thanks.]

So anyways, if I understood correctly, I assume he wants me to continue to do my accomplishments. (He wanted me to write my accomplishments everyday. Even if its something small.) He also was telling me about this previous patient he had that had a hard time with the anxiety and negative thinking – ultimately what she ended up doing is just acting like she was in a play – being an actress and her role was to be a confident, empowered woman. She would play this role and eventually it would become a little easier every day to think positive. In the end, she started believing the role she was playing and it just became second nature and what she did in her everyday life and thinking. I’m not too sure that would be the treatment for me. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that. Regardless, I’ll give it a shot. Actually I thought of a possibility that might work a little better for myself.

I was thinking to myself, I blog. It’s what I do to release all the thoughts, anxiety, depression, madness that’s going on in my life. 99.9% of the time, my blogs are about the bad shit that is going on in my life. EVERYONE has bad stuff that happens in my life but I let it take over to the point where I can’t even SEE the good that has happened. I’ve decided a good way for me to maybe start seeing the positives better is to write TWO blogs in one, or separately. Write a negative one, which will release those thoughts and calm me from them. When I blog about the shit that has happened, I usually clear it from my mind. Like, I try to imagine, writing out all my feelings and thoughts, and now instead of it being in my head – its in my blog. Obviously this doesn’t work 100% where I no longer ever think about it – but it helps.

So I decided if I write a negative entry – what about a positive one too? If I write all the negative shit that has happened during the time span of my writing, then either on the same entry – or on a different post write the positives and the happiness I felt for other things – that I can decipher what my feelings are.

… that’s the plan at least. I hope I can stick to it. Does it sound like a good plan or am I off in some imaginary world of craziness?

Obviously, therapy is only ONE part of my treatment, and it is helping. I also definitely need medication though to go along with all this. I will be seeing the psychiatrist on Sept. 3rd, so I should be getting the full plan taken care of. Not only do I have someone helping me with the way I think of things, but I’ll have the meds to help with the depression and maybe even calm down the anxiety and aggression.

That was the other thing we talked about – my sleeping patterns. OBVIOUSLY, when you don’t get enough sleep your body takes a toll. I guess, I never thought about it that way… I always figured my aggression, anger, irritation was due to either a chemical imbalance or because I was pissed off at the world because of my past. I figured I’d need pills to correct the chemical imbalance and to either cope or learn to accept the past before getting over the aggression. I never thought about sleep. On average, I sleep 3-4 hours AT MOST a night. No normal human being can function WELL with that little of sleep. So, when I go in to get my medication for everything, I am going to look into sleep aids. He asked if I ever took benadryl or something to make myself sleep. I don’t. I don’t choose to sleep. Better yet, I choose not to sleep more. I feel like after the kids are asleep, this is MY TIME to relax and calm down because I don’t get to do that during the day – and sometimes it takes me until 2am or 3am to get that satisfactorily feeling of being calm.  That, or pure exhaustion sets in. Regardless, I need to teach myself, self control, when it comes to making myself do what I NEED and my body NEEDS to do.

I need to form better habits. I need to come up with a plan, and STICK TO IT.
I need to set schedules for myself, my children, and my life. We NEED STABILITY.

Lucky for you all, you get to witness it. More than likely will be using this blog to do it. Its the only thing that, I check and rely on every day. This blog is my life – therefore why not utilize it to BETTER my life?

… Holy shit, over 1000 words later and I didn’t even TALK about the epiphany I had. I was sitting here watching One Tree Hill’s Season 6 Finale again. It was all about how their dreams all came true. How they got EVERYTHING they wanted, which got me thinking…

I have almost everything I have ever wanted…

I always wanted a man, that loved me for me. I have Mike. He loves me for every thing I am. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the absolute worst. Not only that, but he’s here for me, supportive though it all. Sure, we have our ups and downs, but who doesn’t?

When I was a kid, I wanted children. SURE, they came sooner in life than I expected. Sure, I put my life on hold so I can be a mother to these children. SURE, my expectations of them are ridiculous, but I love them nonetheless. But, I have my kids that I wanted when I used to play with my dolls all day long as a kid myself. They’re good kids. I just have to reteach myself that they’re not perfect they’re who they are, and that’s all I need for them to be.

I’m a stay at home Mom. When I was working, all I wanted to do is be home with the kids. Cook dinner for my family, clean the house, and be at home! I felt like my life at work was taking away from my family life. I am at home, every day, doing exactly what I always wanted. Not only that, but I’m doing whatever I want…

I have a few too many hobbies – some of them beneficial like my sweepstakes. I web design. I play pointless games on facebook. Regardless, I’m allowed to do that… because I am privilege enough to be able to do that. I could be stuck at some dead end job 8+ hours a day doing something I don’t really love. Here I am, at home with my kids, cooking and cleaning, being that traditional wife I’ve always wanted to be…

So, my question is, why isn’t that good enough for me? Why won’t I allow it to be good enough? This is where I need to make myself learn and see, that I have what I want. Sure, everyone  wants something MORE than what they have. That’s human nature, you want what you can’t/don’t have… But, you also need to accept what you DO have, and be grateful for it. That’s what I need to work on. I need to start piecing together the little things that I DO have to form a bigger picture.

I have a few projects to work on. Tomorrow is a new day. I think I’ll attempt to start them then.